SPEECH BY THE PRIM MINISTER9 THE RT. HON. R. G.
I4ENZIES9 TO STUDENTS OF TOW'NSVILLE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE$ ON 20TH J NE 1961
Mr, Warden, and ladies and gentlemen:
I would like to relieve your mind at once this is not to
be a long, heavy, political speech; nor do I propose to make a
speech to you of any comprehensive kind about universities and what
they do. All I do -want to say to you is that after the last war one
of the remarkable things that occurred in Australia was that there was
a tremendously increased demand for university training. The number
of students qualified for and desiring university training grew
phenomenally. It became quite clear that the task of providing for
them, the task of keeping the universities going and growing, was
going to be beyond the capacity of the Governments of the States and
could not be brought within their capacity by extraordinary increases
in fees because that would have the effect of depriving people, too
many people, of the opportunity of study,
So I went on a sort of frolic of my own. I got hold of Sir
Keith Murray when I was in England, the Chairman of the Universities
Grants Commission, and I asked him whether he would become the
Chairman of a Committee to Investigate the universities position in
Australia. Hie said that he would provided that his Chancellor of the
Exchequer for whom he worked was agreeable. The Chancellor was Mr,
Hai-old Macmillan, an old friend of mine, and I was able to cope with
him. And so we got Sir Keith Murray.
4e got together a very, very fine committee, partly people
from overseas, partly very eminent men in Australia. And the result
of their report, I believe, was phenomenal. It was regarded as quite
shocking I know, by people in the Treasury because it presented us
with a 13111 which we speedily accepted I did a little more
dragooning on my own account and which increased the Commonwealth' s
outlay on universities from a figure that it had stood at of about a
little over œ CLm. a year to a total of œ 21m. in three years what we
call the first triennium. This was accepted by the Govrxe nt. It
imposed not only great obligations on the Commonwealth, but it
imposed even greater ones on the States. One must always remember
that the development of the university structure in Australia
represents a remarkable piece of co-operation between the Commonwealth
Goveirnment and the State Governments, each of which has accepted large
burdens, financially, in relation to the matter.
Then we adopted another recommendation of the Murray Committee
and we appointed a Universities Commission which is presided over by
Sir Leslie Martin, the eminent scientist. Not to be outdone by Sir
Keith Murray and his myrmidons, they brought in a B3ill, the other day,
which increased the œ 21in. over the first three years to over
the second three years. I haven't yet begun to think of u~ hat the
third triennium may bring forth. But it remains true that in
Australia among us all, we are spending now sums of money on
university development which would have been regarded as simply
fabulous and absurd., before the war. This I believe is a Lreat thing.
And one of the things that has happened is what is happening
here. You can't Just create a new University, so to speak, fully
fledged, because it is a very expensive operation. I would hate to
tell you what it would cost to establish, in the full sense, a full
univorsity, with all the equipment that goes with it. It runs into
many millions of pounds.
But in various places in Australia the first stCep has been
taken some of them were taken before the war; some of them taken
after it the first steps have been taken by creating a university
college and attaching it to one of the established universities, In
Canberra., for example we have had for many, many, years a Canbe rra
University College which was attached to the University of Melbourne
and the degrees that were ,, ranted, though they were earned in
Canberra in the University College, wore & ranted in the University of
Melbourne. Recently I brought about a marriage between the National
University, essentially, at that time, a post-graduate research
institute, and the University College. So that they are now all part
of the Australian National University and a student may start in
First Year, go through to post-graduate work, to hiigher degree, and if
lie is of the right kind, and has the right feeling for it, move into
higher realms of research work.
The University College which was established at Armidale a
good number of years ago has now become a fall University.
I look forward Wiself to the idea that this so prom~ isingly
beun ' University College will, somne day don't be in too much of a
hurry; these things take a good deal of doing will some day
develop into a University for the northern part of Australia. But that
is on the knees of tile gods or rather, to be more precise, if less
theological, on the knees of' the University Commission which itself
will advise us on these matters from time to time,
But I mention these matters merely to indicate and I am
talking particularly to the students that you have the jroat
priviloc; e really of being the firsL students in a place wihich will,
in duo course, whether here or in expanded form across the riger, or
whatever may come,, develop into a matter of immense import-ance to the
north o f Australia, and thorefore to Australia as a whole. This I
think, is a great privilege. I permit myself to envy you a lithle
because you are at the beginning of your studies; and I occasionally
feel that I must be getting perilously near the end of mine,
I was very pleased to notice, among other things, warden, that
you have already, wisely, if I may say so, aimed at developing even
though in a small way at this point of time, all tile aspects of student
life, A University Collerge which has an ambition some day, to be a
full University, must be able to cater, in my opinion not merely for
the work done at a desk but for the whole life of a iniversity: the
life on the playing field, the life in a social way, the life of the
common room; in due course, I trust, the life of residential colleges.
All these things build up into something that distinguishes a
University from any other institute of learning because it oncourages
freedom, it encourages the ability to meet people? to get to understand
people, which is after all, one of the great problems of life and & no
of the problems that requires a great deal of work, and a great deal of
experience. When I came in I saw an eminently respectable young man who
turned out to be the President of the Union, thle Students' PI-esiddnt.
I uant to confess to you this may discourage you a lot I used to
be that myself. That, perhaps, was the beginning of the end with me.
It marked the beginning of my downfall which ultimately took me into
political affairs.
But it is a fine thing for students in a University to feel
that they have not only an individual existence but a corporate
existence, that they are part of a body and that as the University
College goes on, as the University goes on, more and more they are
part of a continuing body each of the years, each of the drafts of
new students learning something from those who have gone before them
and translating into terms of the future their own inafluence, and
their own work and their own knowledge. It is a wonderful thing to
belong to a continuing body. I want you to have that firmly in your
mind. If you just came along here and were told " Well, you are
going to do a year's work, and then disappear and the whole t11iad
over", that would be a rather depressing thought, wouldn't it? But to
be members of something that will : o on and on and on if' we are left
alone, for a century, for twocenturies, that will ultimately build up
its own immense tradition, its own marvellous moral and spiritual and
intellectual compulsions on the mind, this is a great thing. So
that people some day will be able to say, " Oh, yos, I know so-and-so,
he's a Townsville man", jus' as they might say, " He's an Oxford man",
" He's a Cambridge man". Getting something and giving something all
the 1ime. I could talk to you for a long time about this; it is a
ma ter very close to my hort. I sometimes pormit rayself the unworthy
hope that when I have departed from politics, voluntarily or
involuntarily, when I have departed from public lifo and somebody sits
do wa, as somebodyill, perhaps rather unpleasantly to say, " ell what
did lie do, anyhow, what did it all amount to?" I hope No. 1 in my
credit list, which will be a short one I hope the deficit will be on
the next page so that you have to turn over to reach it will be,
" Well he understood the need for Universities in this land; he understood
something of the need for the highest intellectual and
scientific training that can be given in this country".
Ours is a new country crying out for first-class -eople; and
first class people, trained people, are always, as the economists say,
" in short supply". It is very true; it is very true that rhen I
survey the whole of the university structure in Australia and discuss
it ith the Universities Commission tre are naturally influenced in our
minds made a little fearful, when we contemplate the enormoue'inancial
demands that will arise. But much more important than the financial
demands will be the demands for first-class people. You can't have a
first-class University with second-class University teachers. We must
maintain the standard of the Professor, the standard of the lecturer,
the standard of the demonstrator, if we are going to be satisfied that
we are going to produce graduates whose degrees will be honourably
recognised around the world* and who, themselves, vill be able to make
a powerful contribution to their own country, or, indeed, to other
countries outside Australia.
That, Sir, is one of the _ reat problems that we have in the
future: the problem of keeping up the supply. -Je can't hope to get toc
many teachers from overseas because they, themselves, have a growing
demand no less than ours. There are new countries around thd world
which are bound to help if we can and they certainly w-on't be able
to help us much in the field of teaching and of scholarship. So we
have the responsibility of doing it ourselves to the utmost of our
capacity, to concentrate our minds on it, to seek to achieve the
ultimate in excellence because if we do we will be able to furnish the
universities of the future, and the university students of the future,
with the high level of teaching that they require. It is because I
have been able to do a little about this matter that I not onl]. wish
you well and envy you this opportunity, but would like to have that
little credit entry in the book of my life that I did something about it.
But chiefly, thismorning looking at you, I hope you will allow
me to say that I do envy you a little
" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive;
Buat to be young, ttwas very heaven."
That is the way to look at this thing and you will create a new heaven
on earth. ( Applause)