UHIV23Xñ jj2K 031911 IX. 111 4Y. i6
I want to say, Siz, that I am very grateful to you for
what you have said about me, and about my Government. I think It
proper that 1 should also reind all of you hore today that what
hats been done could not have been don* without the most extensive
financial co-operation on the part of the State Oovornent
bnoause the now era, as I like to think It in In univeraiy life
whioh began with the Murray Rport# and the ZA0ption of the
Murray Reprtg imposed great burdens if we accepted them, on the
Commonvoalth and on the S3tatel and I think it is a very remarkable
thing# worth remembering, that all the Oovernments, in Australia
ooncerned and Indeed all parties conoerned, acoopted those
rosponsibIl itien, which of course* as you know, are not growing
lese As a result of the Murray Commission we round ourselves
called upon to find a sum of money which was staggering to me
arud I cani only assume, catastrophic to the Treasury. Juat we
Wallowed three times and in a snail voice siaid " Yes* and my
state oolleasusg I have no doubt, swallowed five times and In a
small voice said " Yes* and then we appointed a Universities'
Comission, under as mild-mannered a collection of bandits as I
have ever come across In my life, When they made their
reoomendations for the next trienniu I ns one of the bandits
horet) when they made their recommendations i'or the next triennium
well, they were roughly twice what they had been when we swallowed
three times and said " Y~ es" . so this time we swallowed six times
and uaid " Yes".
Suit theso are, of course, light-heasrted ruxarks about a
very, very remarkable period of development,. The development In
the university's field has been and Is of course eoing to be so
phenomenal that one would almost have oxpoctod It to Datisfy the
demand, Jut of course It won't; It won't because circumstances
in Auistralia. are such that the demand for tertiary education is
grwing much more rapidly than the population Itself* Buit all
this is a pood thing, thoujh It poses the most tremendous problems
not only in terms of money but In terms of trained and adequate
teachers and enquirers. There Is a tremendous challenge to
education In Australia.
Now when one thinks of a University one, of course
thinks of a Variety of methods, but for myself I would like to
say that I think that not only is a fine library the heart of a
university, but In a real sense It is the University. One
cannot imagine a university without a library of such quality and
of such extent that the sager students in their thousands will
not be prepared to find sustenance In It and enooura ement in it.
A~ library is a marvellous thing, and books are marvellous things,
Carlyle, you know, saids " In books lie the soul of the whole past
time, t? e articulate audible voice of the past when the uoy and
material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream".
Nov that was, I think, a remarkable observation in 011eroes and
Hero-worship He was thinking of books primarily as the
repository of the mind and expe., ienoe of men in past days. He
was speakIng as an historiang and I am very ; lad that lie was,
bucause a university that loses Its sense of history a student
who has no sonsis of history is only half a university or half a
student. And so, if a ligrary is to be the repository of the
past forms and experienc, of men, It must be an adequate one.
I know that in my days at the University of Melbourne,
if I may refer to so humble a foundation In your presenoo a
JrnIversity that was once decorated by the Vice-Chancellor
himself In our time a library was a small affair rather dark.
I romenter it so wells a bit ding a few students coming in and
peering at the book-shelves and jetting as near as possible to the
window to get a little light, and a magnificent person oalled
idward Ilippius Jrombyq who wore a beard, presiding at a desk and
being ; reatly shocked every time someone dropped a volume of tho
Law reports on to the floor# an art whiob I acquired theni and
which turned out later on to be extraordinarily useful when
appearing beflore a somewhat somnolent High Court,
Nowv ir it is saidt and one, can quite understanid it,
* Awe't we putting up too many libraries; aren't we setting up
too many of these ,, reat places?" And the comment is a oomment
niot to be surprised at beoause I believe in reoent times, almost
In the last few years, there has beon a greater burgeoning of
library buildinj and equipment in Australia than at any other time
in our history. I doubt whether it can be matched In any other
* ountry of our population. Tharefore people of economical minds,
which distinguishes them* of course* very sharply Vrou economists
the word is quite different but people of economical mids will
say to uss " Wells why spend all this money on a university library
when only over thero you have a National 6ibrary?" : ust as I said
at Canberra University$ people say ' Vhy spend all this money on a
University Library when you are already devoting your attention to
the preliminary planning of at great National Library in Canberra?"
The answer Is that no University can do its work, and
above all a University so tremendously over-. crowded as this In In
torms of numbers, no University can do Its work if It doea Its
library vori Its study of books, at a distance, The book must be
with the stu~ ntg the facilities for work must be in my opinion,
instant facilities because$ unless students have Improved a great
deal since my time, It doesn't take more than a mile and a half for
enthusiasm to evaporate, You want the Library on the spot and,
of course, If you have It on the spot, It must be the best kind of
Golleotion of books and of documents, that you can possibly achieve;
it It isn't, then the great student, then the great resuarch
scholar, the man or woman full of ambition to probe more and more
into the knowledge of some matter will find himself or herself
leaving lustralia and going to where all these resources are
available, We will tend to lose some of our best students,
. Ehereas on the other hand if w have here on the spot a library
of extensiveness and signIficance and value, selectivity, then we
. fill not only maintain our own students and keep themt but we will
gather students from other places and that is very important for
Australia because for somebody In Australia to omue to a library
that has great resources from some other part of Australia involves
a relatively small journey, but for Australian students to have to
go to the great repositories in the world involves not only large
sums of money, but many, many thousands of miles of travel. This
Is, one of those thing inm which ve ought to aim at beinu as selfoontainied
in resouros as we possibly can be.
There is, of course# one aspect of that matter that
perhaps I ought to refer too I do not think, myself, for the
reasons I have given you, that there Is any Inoonsistencr between
having a great library here and another one three miles away , a
public library. Not at all., jut there will be ; reat trouble for
us In getting what we ought to jet for our resources if our
libraries are allowed to be unduly competitive for scarce resources.
-do det the idea oqoasionally, don't we, lookcing at the
book-. shops, that the flood of books now pouring out over the world
3.
is phenomenal. Your reforenoee 31r, to the statemnent in
Soclosiasticus is very much appropriate, because evenr then they
thought that writings published, in the sons in which they were
published then, vwr pretty plentiful and rather exceeded the
scope of one man's work or lit.; but today we got the idea that
books and reoords are flooding out on the world, and no doubt they
are, but of the books we need as students, of the publioations we
need as students, there will always be in our time a supply smaller
than the demand because as all the new countries come to lifa, as
all their inteliectual processes begin to deliver, so will they
more and more be demanding then* precious resources In the world*
If we# therefore, are going to do our best for the nation,, as
apart from one univeruity,, we will need to have the alosest oooperation
between all the universities and other libraries In
Australia so that we may do the best that we can for the resources
that we haves Nov Jir, the only other thing Viat I want to tiay is
this# This library is named after one of~ the ; roat original far.
soelng benefactors in this dtate, I venture to say that Noew South
dales and, In particular, Sydney has been very fortunate In having
0 thhaidn gisn otfh e thaiss t kminedn , whAo nhd adw hUatI mthgenya tihoanv e, a tndI ~ tfh oirneks, i ghsht owann d two huo s bIegsan
that every man' s collection of books and papers may itself, though
private today, have something to contribute to a groat library in
the future, and that poes particularly f'or documsents.
0 Now I want to make a confession to you: I am more
addicted to the waste-pape: basket than I ought to be; and I have
no doubt that many times I have thrown things into the waste-p
basket which would havre made screams of rage aome from Mro -oe
4hite, the Comonwealth Librarian$ If he had seen me engaojd mint.
A= he one looks back and thinks of all the pamphlets that
have been published, the various occasional documents that have
bea pblished In Australia -what would an ordinary private
Xisn interested In political history, for example what would
he # Weto have on his shelves a complete, set of all the paphets
that wore published, in the nineties, In the great period ofth
campaigns for Federation . well I wasn't engaged In political
affairs in those days but if I had been I an sure that I would
have read them and said KRubbishl" and put It In the waste-paper
basket; or If It suited Xy book, 04hatts splondidt" I must lend it
to my neighbour" -from who It would never return. And so both
ways they have gone,, I want to say that I believe that It In the
duty of all people * fltaged' In affairs to try to contribute not
am boring autobiogrpy because that would be mostly Ra ayhov,
mostly self-justifying aniw, but to contribute something of
contemporary observation oithe e tents of the country and the
events thiat people theuisel rs have witnessed, be : ause a greoat library
Is the one that contains mises, almost myiads, of documnts of
pwofbund interest to the a lar, and not only to the scholar of the
htmaities but to the saie tist, to the man who, an a scientist must,
not only proceed on his experimental work In the laboratory but
whio also must reach out gather Mion all round the world the
written product of the wolof others.
Sol Sir, it is a pod thing that this is the Fisher
Library, because he, set us an example in that field. It Is & good
thing for this Univeralty o have this groat library, whioh will
provide facilities for, I pe, eager students in their thousands
for maby, many years to c It Ina ood thing for the Gtate of
VNew South Wales that this hould happen, but above all I venture
to say, It In a good thin for Australia, beoause It ; W be oneS
more contribution to = kin Australia more and more a centre, in
civilised life, of intelligent researah, of cultivated understanding
and of eagerness for greater knowledge*