ANNUAL MEETING OF CONVOCATION OF UNIVERSITY OF
1" iELIBOURNE MELBOURNE 9TH APRIL, 1965
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies,
Mr. Warden, Mr. Chancellor and Ladies and Gentlemen t
I have one or two grievances that I will expose to
you in a moment but before I do i want to tell you that I have had
two singularly happy experiences here on this platform tonight.
The first was that the Registrar, the successor of the famous
J* P* Bainbridge who was Registrar in my time, held up a massive
minute book, leaned as he might be entitled to lean in a university
with an engineering school ( LaugZhter) on this thing, and it
colla psed. I am really here under false colours, under a complete
misapprehension. I had a letter from the Judge some time ago, no
doubt written with his usual lucidity, but I thought all I was
being asked to do was to come here to the annual meeting of
Convocation which in my time was made up of about twenty-five
people and to have a few reminiscent remarks to make you know,
of a civil kind but I had no idea that this old friend of mine
was a sadist un il three days ago I discovered and the print
was put in front of me that I was to come here and make what I
believe is loosely described nowadays as an oration the address
and I even saw the subject for the first time ( Laughter) : The
Commonwealth and University 3iucation.
Now, really, I am old and experienced but for a
long time now I have confined myself to doing one o1l these
formidable jobs a year. I once fell in for two. They take a long
time. For weeks and weeks and weeks you put in a few hours each
weekend because you are supposed to produce something wortchy of
the occasion, And I woke up to it ( I won't blame anybody else
three days ago, and naturally for the next two days, I had Cabinet
sitting until after midnight, and so whatever rough ideas I have
assembled have been assembled not with the midnight oil but with
post-midnight oil over a period of two days instead of two months.
And therefore you will understand my position. I have had no time
to prepare myself properly. I prayed for laryngitis ( Laughter)
but although the prayers of a righteous man avail mucli my prayers
were not answered. My prayers failed so all I could do was to
say, " Well, I will do my best" and I took a vow and the vow was:
Never again. So I warn all of you. There are no new pronouncements
to be made by me tonight. There is no controversy to
conduct. There are no new statistics, you will be glad to know
because the statistics of the university's growth and problems In
the last few years are now all too well known. And, of course,
on top of that I speak witha little hesitation, Mr, E! arden,
because in my own city I have recently been described as a
Johnny-come-lately in the educational field ( Laughter) and
therefore, of course, I must speak with immense reserve in
preserving my amateur status.
Now, Sir, therefore what I have to say to you will
be discursive, it will be occasional. It wontt I confess be
thoroughly or properly thought out and above ail things, f say
to those of you who are academically disposed, it will be unfit
for academic consumption. 0* .00 ./ 2
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Now the Commonwealth has, in my own time, as the Judge
has reminded you, entered into the universities field in a great
and growing way, not, may I repeat, because of constitutional
responsibility but because the considerable financial power of the
Commonwealth has been allied to an acute consciousness on our part
of the need to save the universities from retrogression and perhaps
disaster. This is worth remembering.
The first grant ever made as a grant to the States for
universities was made in my own time in, I think, 1950 or 1951 and
it was a very modest amount of money, something a little over Li1M.
and that was done and then we established the Mlurray Committee
later on and when the Murray Committee's report came in, recommending
an enormous increase in Commonwealth subventions, we accepted
ito I confess that I engaged in a certain amount of low cunning.
I circulated the report the night before the Cabinet Meeting and
kept the Cabinet sitting all morning, afternoon and night so that
we might end up with a complete acceptance of the recommendations
and we accepted them, and that of course, as you have been reminded,
led on to the universities commission, the problem of the teaching
hospitals, the Martin Committee on Tertiary Education. This has
been the most astonishing development, though I say it mysel f, and it
has all been based on the proposition that what I agree is t e
considerable constitutional and practical financial powrer of the
Commonwealth has been allied to a genuine consciousness of the
needs of the universities.
Now I said " considerable financial power%. May I emphasise
to you this does not mean inexhaustible financial resources. If I
have one complaint that I can make about my academic friends, it is
that some of themnrot all of them but some of them, appear to think
that there is no limit to what can be produced financially. I've
even known one or two like that at Canberra, The skY is the limit,
they think. The sky isn't the limit. Considerable financial power
doesn't mean inexhaustible financial resources and that is not to
be forgotten. May I remind you admitting as I do that; with
uniform tax, with the ultimate control of the Commonwealth over the
borrowing programmes, we have vis-a-vis the States very great and
perhaps commanding financial powers that the task of a Commonwealth
Government in economic and financial policy is to preserve
a good economic climate in which. growth can proceed from a stable
foundation within the limits of its constitutional authority and
this, of course, presents classical problems.
There are those who may be heard to say, Ililell, why worry
about inflation? Itts only growth that counts. But wise men want
to have stability and growth. They realise that the stability of
the currency to the extent that it isn't affected by authg'rities
beyond the control of Parliament or by the terms of international
trade, which we don't control, or by seasonal conditions at home
which we don't control, is much affected by monetary control through
the banking structure and through the Commonwealth Budget',
Now, Sir, in a Commonwealth Budget let's have a look
at it on the expenditure side. Nobody need suppose that I am going
to expose the grisly secrets of the next Commonwealth Budget
because I don't know them so I have no temptation to disclose them,
We haven't got within months of that yet. But on the expenditure
side let's face up to it we have an enormously increased defence
expenditure enormously increased. We have incessant demands for
social benelits. We have great cash outlays on developmental
projects in Australia and we have increased outgoings to make up
the shortfall in loan raisings when the loan market weakens. Could I
elaborate one or two of these dreary-sounding items because they
are important? e / 3
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Developmental projects. You will always find, and
perhaps you will within the membership of Convocation somebody
who will dispose of the whole problem by saying, " Jiell, of course,
the Commonwealth ought to conduct the whole of the works programme
out of loan money." Oh, how much I agree, if he could produce the
loan money. These theoretical approaches are not worth much.
Why is it that a Commonwealth Government, mine or any
other finds itself finding capital works provision out of revenue,
out ol the taxpayer? Not because it wants to but because in spite
of the enormous expansion of the loan market over recent years, it
just can't produce the amount of money that is needed, and we In
the Commonwealth have for years sought to solve this problem by
saying that when we had a loan programme and we raised loans on
the market, the States would receive the whole of the proceeds we
would take none for Commonwealth works, and that is why we spend
Commonwealth revenue on Commonwealth works,
And in the second place, of course, we said and I
think very properly, though without obligation if there is a
shortfall on the loan market, if we have approved of a loan works
programme for the States of œ C240M. and the loan market produces
œ 080M, we accept the responsibility for finding the balance out
of the Budget. Now these are very important matters, and if the loan
market weakens, it follows that there is a greater burden on the
Commonwealth Budget. These things have to be borne in mind when
you are confronting the problem of education, because after all
this may sound heretical there must be reasonable limits to
taxation, because if taxation is carried too far, it can inhibit
investment and growth. and above all that we know, in the brbad,
all of us, instructed or uninstructed by the critics, that in a
time of boom when there is overfull employment when there are
all these things, a surplus Budget may very well be called for as
a controlling factor, and in a time of recession, a deficit
Budget with its injection of credit into the system may very well
be called for.
Now, Sir, I am sorry to be so tiresome on this matter,
but all these things have to be watched. They all have a bearing
on university programmes which, I repeat, can't be unlimited if
every other factor is under observation and control. Therefore
looking back on it, I am really delighted to think how, with all
these principles in mind we have been able to find increasing
millions and scores of millions for university activity, But I
do beg of those who think that there is no financial consideration
tq be allowed into academic studies to bear in mind some of these
elementary truths about public finance,
Now, Sir, as I have just said, the recognition of this
truth hasn't so far involved any substantial modification of our
siqpport for university projects, but it would be an error to
suppose that demand can always be satisfied. This is something
that I do want you to have in your minds.
Nowv of * course so far I have been ta~ Jng a bout finance
but there are other elements no less important perhaps in the
long university view much more important, and they are these.
First of all, to preserve and improve the essential
nature of a university. This needs to be thought about much more
than it is by some people who have the advantage of not being
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Johnny-come-latelies. The essential nature of a university to
maintain and improve the standards of teaching, of research and
of intellectual leadership these are the things for which a great
university like our own stands and must stand.
Now, Sir, what is the essential nature of a university?
Well, in the first place, if I may repeat a truism, we must aim at
some balance between the natural science and the humanities. I
repeat that. It needs to be repeated quite a lot. We have had an
awful lot of science in this century a tremendous amount of
technology in this century. The only way in which the world has
failed in this century is by man's inhumanity to man and therefore
the humanities which give breadth of outlook, a wisdom of judgment,
are of the mos supreme importance. There it is the balance.
In the second place, Sir, I think that the essential
nature of a university involves a high standard of attainment
leading to a widespread recognition of the degrees that the
university awards, a high standard of attainment, You might fill
Australia with a hundred universities, but if their standards were
low, their degrees iwould fall into contempt. It is vital to me
and to you in this university, that the degrees of the Melbourne
university should continue to rate high all around the world, and
that means a high standard of attainment.
We must have post-graduate and research work on a scale
which will improve the peaks of attainment. I don't talk about the
ordinary average level, but every university, every seat of learning
that has distinction has achieved it not infrequently by having
men of immense distinction, women of immense distinction in the
various faculties. These are the peaks. We are not to produce a
flat graph, are we? We are to produce one interrupted by peaks of
distinction. We must have work of that kind which excites the
minds of undergraduates, It is not a matter of Just going
through as a matter of routine, " Well I have to read this and I
have to read that. If I can get 5O-odd per cent., Itm through." 1
This is terrible. The best kind of undergraduate ought to be a
man or woman whose mind is excited, and it will be excited if the
student is working under or in direct or remote contact with people
of an immense standard in the post-graduate and research field,
And, of course, on top of that, a university must serve
to generate much-needed teachers to satisfy the future demands of
the students who are to come. Now this is not so much a definition
of the essential nature of a university. I don't profess that it
is at all exhaustive, but what I have mentioned refers to those
matters which achieved will make a great university and which not
achieved will make a poor one.
I think, Sir, that it is unwise for these reasons to
treat as universities institutions which fall short of these
requirements. That is why we have, as a government, in the light
of the Martin Report offered to support institutes of colleges
up. to a tertiary diploma standard. It is just because we believe
that you can't lower the standards, that you can't have things passing
as universities which are not universities according to the defined
structure that we ought to move carefully in this field.
Encouragingly, the more tertiary education we have in
the country the better, but it doesn't need, of necessity to be
university education in the sense in which we understand It.
It's a great pity for people to think there is no middle course
that it is either a university or it's nothing. There is plenty
of room as the Martin Committee pointed out, to have tertiary
institutions which will give most valuable instruction in the
tertiary field but which will not be universities. .1.
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Now, Sir Leslie Martin, in this last report a very
long, carefully considered, valuable report, with some aspects
of' which we haventt found ourselves able to agree has had
much to say of supreme value in this field, and having erposed
the problem more or less as I tried to expose it to you myself,
the Report says " To assist in this development, it is suggested
that each State Government should establish an
Institute of Colleges."
and then later on " The function.... should to consider
general plans for the expansion of technical and other
tertiary noa-unjyersitXy education...."~
and then later on it says, looking forward very appropriately-
" At some appropriate time in the fut ure, the
Institute might arrange for more advanced training
leading to degrees such as Bachelor of Technology..."
" The Committee's proposals envisage a greater
diversity of tertiary education in Australia but any
hope of achieving this diversity would be nullified if
Colleges attempted to transform themselves into
Universities, The responsibilities of Colleges to the
community are of a different kind."
Now that is worth thinking about. It is very easy for
somebody who is a little parti pris on some matter to say, " Oh,
yes, but there is such-and-such a technical school and it does
very good work." Of course it does. The R. M. I. T. does splendid
work and has tertiary elements in its courses, I don't deny
its I admire it. But the thing that is brought to our notice
here is that a university is one thing. It has some essential
structure which we are not to forget. And that a non-university
which may still be in the tertiary field can be an entirely
different thing. And the Committee, I thought with great wisdom,
promoted ways and means by which somebody having done some course,
a diploma course in one of these colleges in the institutes of
colleges, might pass from there to a university in orde4' to take
a higher course and take a degree.
Now, we are not going to settle this problem in a few
minutes. All I am asking you to do is to think about it, and I
start my thinking with two premises one, I want to see an
enormous extension in this country of genuine post-secondary
education. I will define tertiary education in that sense
genuine post-secondary education leading to higher skills of the
kind that people need both in industry and in business and in
other aspects of life, and I don't want to see the great name,
university, pulled do'wm, I donft want to see its standards low~ ered,
I don't want to see bodies or institutions called universities
which are not according to the structure that I have described.
And believe me, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a matter of
intellectual snobbery. We have lived too long for that kind of
nonsense, There can be no room for intellectual snobbery. There
can be room only for a high intellectual standard which ought to
be maintained. And that brings me to the last thing I wanted to say to
you and that is that the greatest problem of the lot today is the
problem of standards, maintaining the standards, not letting them
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slip away, not letting them be swept away in the flood of numbers,
These are hard words I know in some sense, but standards are all,
If in fifty years' time the standard is no higher than it is now,
then it will be worthless, Standards ought to rise and rise all
the time. I had something to say about this when I was invited by
the University of New South Wales to do the Wallace ! Jurth Memorial
Lecture. Do you mind if I quote you a few lines of what I then
said? I had longer to consider them than I have had this time.
I quoted first of all the Robbins Report in England which said
this " Throughout our Report we have assumed as an
axiom that courses of higher education should be available
for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment
to pursue them and who wish to do so. What type of
education they should get and in what kind of institution
are questions we consider later on; and the criterion by
which capacity is to be judged is clearly a question on
which there may be a variety of opinions. But, on the
general principle as we have stated it, we hope there will
be little dispute."
That's, what the Robbins Committee had to say. And then when I was
discutsing thiis in the U-urth Lecture, I went on to say this and
again I trespass on your patience
" Far too many people in our country when they
urge the creation of a new university, seem ? o think of
it in terms of financial provision by governments, and the
bricks and mortar of practical construction, Yet the fact
is that the value of a university depends primarily upon
the standard of its research and its teaching. In short,
the greatest problem about the expansion of universities,
or the creation of a new one, is that of securing a highlyqualified
staff. Any man who has any share of responsibility
for the general national balance and prosperity cannot
fail to be conscious of such problems as the pressure of
numbers on financial resources, the pressure of numbers and
demand on physical resources, because these things form
part of the economic problems of the nation. They have to
be considered. They can produce some limitation upon the
financial provision by governments. But, in the ultimate,
the capacity to establish new universities or to expand
old ones is primarily to be judged by reference to the
maintenance of the quality of research and teaching and
the value of the degrees to be awarded.
" Greshamts Law, if I may say so, applies to
universities and their degrees just as much as it did and
does to money, In short, we have occurring under our eyes
a tremendous explosion in the number of those who seek
tertiary education. Our task is to see that they get it
without lowering the standards.
" Unless we can, by one means or another,
encourage and produce an increasing percentage of
university students who aim at higher degrees and
research work, then we will do a gross disservice to
university education by concentrating our minds
exclusively on numbers and on money." G. a/ 7
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Now these were my views, and as I stated them I don't
alter them but I was interested recently to read the journal of
the Royal Society of Arts, an eminently respectable body in
London of which, for some reason quite obscure to me, I am
Fellow. Sir John Lockwood of the University of London was speaking
on tertiary education in the Cantor Lectures. Now I will quote
a little of him, if you don't mind
" I want first of all to discuss one of the
major issues which is being faced by many countries
of the world. Social theory in most places insists on
the essential importance of equal educational opportunity
for all young people. The consequential logic of such
theory seems then to require that consumer demadai s the
basis of educational provision, For entry to higher
education, tHis principle would appear to mean that anyone
who has satisfactorily completed a particular period of
secondar education should have the right of access to
some form of higher education.
American State Universities have largely
followed this principle, and in areas where the American
practice has been developed, for example in the
Philippines
( I speak subject to the distinguished representative here from
Mindanao) " admissions and policies of universities are much the
same. The effect on a unlversity of indiscriminate
expansion to satisfy demand is incalculable. Educational
inflation may be socially desirable as a theoretical
proposition but it has an insidious capacitvto do damage
to the currency value of education."
Now I quote that. it's worth thinking about. Without adopting
it all, it is very well worth thinking about. And he went on
to say, a few minutes later in his lecture
" To the economist......'"
Well, I don't venture to speak for economists. They speak for
themselves with an infinite variety of tongues, but
" To the economist, a full ' open-door' policy
to meet ' consumer demand' is well-nigh stupid folly.
It is the very negation of wise and constructlve planning.
It takes no real account of the needs of the economy.
It is based on the self-interest of the consumer, and,
if uncontrolled, leads to an output of graduates who may
not find employment within their own speciallst competence.
India was an unfortunate example of this situation."
And I should add to that without adopting all those
words that it is fascinating to read of what has been going on
in the African countries about universities, about the conferences
they have had and about the way in which they are trying to
channel university education in such a way as to serve the
overall interests of the nation. Very interesting; very
difficult; much too complex to be gone into tonight.
The Chairman of the meeting at which Sir John Lockwood
made this speech was Mr. Walter James, who is the Editor of the
" Times" Education Supplement, and he said something quite
provocative and worth thinking about. He said
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" There is one point I shiould like to put to
him ( that is, the speaker) about the relation between
a rapidly-expanding university system and schools in
the developed countries. ( A good deal has been said about
the under-developed countries.) Does he think that you
can expand the universities rapidly without bringing
a certain diminution of standards in the schools? I
have heard from a number of English people who have gone
to America the assertion that the sort of people we
should find teaching in sixth form in this country are,
in general, not teaching in American schools at all,
but in American universities."
Now this may be an exaggerated statement I don't know but
it does serve as do the last two citations that I made, to
bring back into our minds the kind of problem that we have.
Not a problem to be ignored, not a problem to be dismissed by
being told that you are old-fashioned or something of the
kind I'm not a bit old-fashioned on this business. My life
has devoted itself for years to the development of education
in this country. Nothing old-fashioned about it, It's mostly
been brand new. But I think we would do badly by getting
into our minds the idea that all you want is a lot of money
and all you want is a lot of builder's labourers and building
material and you can create a university. We must get that
out of our minds, You could have the finest buildings in the world
with all the greatest facilities in the world and have a thirdrate
university. You could have the most shocking buildings
and a great university. It depends entirely on the people
inside and how they look at it and the people who teach and
the people who investigate and the people who work, and the
great object of modern statesmanship is to reconcile the two
things to have the best people, the keenest people? the
most enthusiastic people doing research, doing teaching, 7
giv-ing leadership to their students, have them all in tha
sense and combine with them buildings in which they will be
proud to work and live and surroundings which will give them
happy memories in future years.
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