CONFERENCE OF AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES
at Sydnay. 1_ 926__ 6
att nRG ens
Speechby the Prime inister, the Rt. HoRG._ Men,.
Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen:
It is quite true that today is for me, or this few
minutes will be for me, an interlude. Last night I was engaged
in the complexities of the European Common Market, and when I get
back to Canberra after lunch I will no doubt resume thoze
complexities; only to find that before the Test Match is
completed I will be involved in the complexities of the Budget
Debate. So you can imagine that it is something to come away from
it all and to see such a distinguished collection of people
gathered together for so magnificent a purpose, a purpose of which
Iwill say something in a moment.
I should explain to you that these unearned increments
of mine, these Honorary Doctorates tiat I seem to have been
collecting around the world involve one embarrassment. Whenever
I attend something and they say " Academic Dress" of course I must
be glorious and wear a Doctor's gown. But in what capacity shall
I masquerade? Well that problem has been solved for me because
although 12 or 13 Universities around the world have made me a
Doctor, and I had occasionally got away with a hood, the only
time I ever got amay with a gown was in Queensland. ( Laughter,
applause) And even then hen the gown was delivered to me, and
finally unpacked in Canberra, it had the bill for it at the
bottom of the box3" Laughter) But I am bound to say to my
friend, Dr. Schonell that I haven't taken the bill seriously.
( Laughter) I am wailing to sou whether in due course a rather
curt little communication arrives, named Account Rendered. If
that happens I shall have to do something about it.
But when I come here the Vice-Chancellor of the Sydney
University is good enough to lend me his Bristol gown, which I am
just as much entitled to wear as he is; but which he happens to
own, This is a matter of contention between the two of us. I
always say to him, " How did you get away with a gown? After all
the great Winston Churchill invested me, and then took it back".
Put he got away with it. And the result is that when I come down
here I just have a message sent forward " Bristol please", And
of course he is shrewd enough to know that I am referring to the
gown and not to sherry.
This Conference is, I think, one of enormous
significance. All of us ho have been concerned about tertiary
education you, intimately from the inside of University affairs;
and I, as a very friendly outsider have all been exercised in
our minds, I think, about the future. In one sense, in a very
important senseo, it is a oreat thing that in Australia there
should be so many more thousands, year by year, anxious to have
Univrsity experience, and to achieve a univeLsity training.
That is a very, very good thing. But from the point of view of
practical administrators, and even from the point of view of
practical politicians, the prospect of coping, decade after
d,, cade, with so many more thousands, and thereby incurring all the
responsibility in the completing of present universities, and the
creating of now ones, is a tremendous problem,
I may tell you that I have heard it said in political
circles, even in the purlious of the Cabinet, that the
Universities will need to make more effective use of what they
have if these numbers are to be coped with within the reasonab. e
limits of Budgets and materials. That, I think, is very true.
The day has ; one by when we can jo along quiatl: y the day has
certainly, I am proud to say, gone by when universities have to
live from day to day or if not from day to day at any rate from
year to year. In my own university days I am perfectly certain that
the authorities of the University of Melbourne had no idea as to
how much money they might have next year; it was enough to cope
with the problems of this year. From tine to time they went
along to the Premier of the day and did their best to extract from
him another œ 10,000, œ 20,000. I remember one Premier who said,
" Yes, I'll give you œ X, 000 more on the grant provided you make a
certain anprtaYment." WIell that is not a very satisfactory state of
affairs. But it merely illustrates how two things coincided: the
major dependence of universities on Governments; and their
inability to know, in any one year, what they could plan for in
the following year Because of this, because of the enormous
post-war demand for university training, and after a few years of
special grants worked out on a fairly arbitrary basis, which I
began in 1950, I myself came to the conclusion that there ought to
be something more forward looking, taking a longer view, taking a
broader view. And so we established the Murray Cormmission.
Sor. e of you before today have heard me say that the
Murray Cormmission appointrent represented a certain -amount of
sleight of hand on my own part. I don't think anybody else
realised that you couldn't have a pow,-rful committee investigating
the condition of the Universities in ZAustralia without having
recommendations that would involve very large sums of money. My
experience has been that when something is going to involve a very
large sun of money, you want to deal with it on the highest
po. s'ibl. lovel, and get people to accpt a certain number of really
first-class ideas before you cone down to tile sordid question of
cash, That is what happened. I saw Sir Keith Murray in London and
asked him to conme He said he would if the Chancellor of the
Exchequer would allow him. I saw the then Chancellor who was Mr.
Harold Macmillan, and he agreed. Then I knew that all that was
needed was for the committee that he presided over to make an
investigation, and make a report and something would happen
provided the Australian Chancellor of the Exchequer proved to be
agreeable. As I don't need to remind you, the first result, one of
the results that perhaps the outsider doesn't appreciate to the
full, was that it looked at the problem in relation to a 3-year
term: it wanted to create a financial state of affairs in which
people could plan forward, Now you may not realise . s clearly as
I do i-yself chat this i. s in the toetii of all traditional Budget
practices. The Budget is an annual Budget; the Treasury very
properly and very spiritedly takes the greatest possible
exception to cormitting future Budgets and as for getting a 3-year
y . a ij. . o p
iaounts of money, this is alumot anathema. But; in Gcis ca~ s wr;.
got away with it and the first triennium went into operation. It
involved a trer: ondous increase in the CommQonwealth financial
responsibility. From 1950 to 1957 1950 being the first year in
which there was a State Grants ( Universities) Bill we found a
total of œ l116 millions. The first trionniium of the Mi:? urr. y
Report which was, of course, adopted by us, meant that in 3 years
the amount was to be just under œ 22mo Now compared to the total
cost of maintaining a proper university structure in Australia
that perhaps is no very grLat sum because the State Governments
themselves have boon called on to find larger amounts of money in
their turn. Then we appointed the Comruission under Sir Leslie Martin.
He is, I have no doubt, regarded by the Universities as a little
bit on the cheese-paring side, a little bit niggly over a mere
matter of a million or two, I can assure you that when he comes to
see me at Canborra he looks three ways to see that there are no
Treasury officials aoout because he knows that they regard him as
the most extravagant r. mn we ever had attached to a Conmomnwealth
instrumentality. Therefore I tnink I might say that while he has
no hope of unbridled popularity, he has, in his present position,
a narvellous opportunity for reconciling demand and supply, for
constantly reminding the political arm of the immense importance
of university training and, at the sane time, occasionally
reminding professors, particularly professors of science, that
there is such a thing as a Budget, that money has to be brought
from:.. oamewh: e. So I regard him as performing a very great
public service. When his Commission sat it produced its reco m-endations
totalling very nearly œ 41m. for a second triennium.
Now there is one other fact that is worth having in
mind. Before the war the university populations in Australia
were not very great. After the war there was a sudden
burgeoning of demand for higher education: the universities
became crowded; probably because of the shortage of facilities,
the excessive size of classes and so on, the failure rate,
particularly in first year, becajei very disturbing. But the
population continued to grow. Sir Keith Murray thought that he
was being a little extravagant when he estimated in 1957 when the
university population was 30,000 odd, that it would rise to
48,000 by 1960 and to 71,000 by 1965. This was an enormous
prospect. The fact of course was that in 1960 the population
wasn't 48,000; it was 53,000, And the estimate now made and
I don't think it is at all extravagant for 1965 is 90,000.
This has produced a probl wahich I believe is one of your great
purposes here to consider.
Is it reasonably to be supposed that we can go on the
well-trodden paths, maintain our original and somewhat orthodox
conception of a university, and at the sane time cope with
university populations of this kind? Because this, of course,
will mean enormous expenditures, It doesn't follow that
Governrments in future will necessarily take the same vioew of
these matters as my own Government. You can't gamble on that.
There will be, we know, tremendous demands. Consequently we
began to discuss I did r. yself with Sir Leslie and with his
Conrrission whether there was a possibility, in fact a demand,
for a review of the structure of tertiary education, to see
whether it can be made more diversified, whether every
univuersity, every tertiary establishnent called a university
ought to be pursuing the sane lines of study, and doing the sane
kind of things, and achieving the sane results. This is an
enormously difficult problem,
They have, as yo-. i know, established in England a
Conittec to investigate this, having regard to the nods and
resources of the nation, I expect within a day or two now to
announce the appointment of a Committee in Australia which will
perform a similar function. I was delighted when I found that
you were having this Conference this unique Conference, because
it seemed to me that the subjects that you had taken for
discussion and indeed the paper is already distributed had a
profound bearing on this very matter, and that the Comittee that
will come into existence ought to achieve immenso benefit from
the results of your work.
But if you will allow me to say so, there are two
things I would suggest to you. A Conference occasionally
attracts a distinguished collection of ninds: it has the lost
valuable discussions; it has its records prepared and it
dissolves Somebody reads the report; somebody reads the
record; somebody else doesn t. It all tends then, to sag a
little. I believe that you are meeting to discuss matters which
. must produce a genuine impetus and a continuing impetus if these
problems are to be solved with wisdom all over Australia. So I
would like to think that after this great Conference finishes
you would think fit, perhaps, to establish a few working parties
to follow up some of the things that you will have discussed, to
develop then, to be in a position to bring before the Colmmittee
that is going to be appointed, the results of your studyo
I firnly believe that you are going to discuss a
problon, that this Committee is going to examine a probloe of
the utmost complexity. It is one not to be solved by any casual
onlooker but only by having people who know this business from
the inside and who have a sense of responsibility for the future,
putting their brains to it and continuing by some such method as
I have suggested, to pursue their oxaL. inations and to push
forward their results.
Ag. n, of course and it is unnecessary to say this to
you, but I s3y it because there are Vice-Chancellors present
the Universities themselves have an im.: ense responsibility in
this field. They can't leave this just to a Coiir. itteo; they
can't leave this just to a body of advisers. I know perfectly
well that they realise that there is a great problem of
organisation in front of then, the constant search for nore
efficiency, the better use of resources.
There is another aspect 3f all this and it is the
only other matter that I wanted to say snmething to you about.
There is a great disposition in our country to think of
everything, evaluate everything in terlns of noney. ' All you need
to do' and " you" always means the Cormonwealth I suppose ' is
to find œ X millions and theproblem is over'. That, of course, as
you all know, is not true. I can't cormit my successors but I
believe m-yself that the social conscience of Australia will
require Governments to go on finding physical resources, noney
and otherwise, for the development of tertiary education, I
haven't the slightest doubt that that is so. But the problem
that concerns ny mind much more is whether those universities of
the future, con. anding these resources, will be able to maintain
the academic standards that have hitherto obtained. This is a
tremendous problem.
In 1959 the total academic staff in the Universities of
the States was 3,392. It is nou estimated that by 1966 which is
not far off, that number will have to be increased by 3 613. In
other words hero, in a period of five or six years we will need
more than to double the existing numbers of academic staffs in
tertiary education. This is not easy. Even to me, a layman, it
seems to present the most formidable difficulties.
Because here you are, University people, teachers,
researchers, people who have found your vocation in this great
occupation and every one of you, from time to time, in the still
watchos of the night, . ust ponder over the future of the
University that you are attached to; its future standards, the
maintenance of the highest possible quality in the teacher so
that the highest possible product nay be obtained in graduating
students. You don't get that result just by having enough
money. It is well for us to renreber that we are living in a
world, the population of which will more than double between now
and the turn of the century and that as the standards of living
rise, particularly in the groat new countries, there is going to
be a greater and greater demand for universities and for
university teaching. So our prospects : ff, so to speak, buying
additional people from the rest of the we rld is not a very rich
one. Some people will be attracted here. I hope so. I believe
so. But in the long run we will be thrown on our own resources.
to a major extent. That oeans that our universities thioselves
must produce these teachers, these professors and lecturers of
the future. And if they are second class then before long the
university itself will be third class. Deliver us fron having
in Australi a a sries of second-rate hones of learning,
It will be a tragdy for Australia if, as a result of
university dovelop: i. ent, we dn't produce, year by year, out of
our universities people who are not just qualified to earn a good
incone, but people who have the heart of learning in their
minds, who go on learning, who have the scholar's habit even
though they nay be engaged in some highly practical undertaking
as the world would see it. The standard must go up. We must
not have a sort of GroshrLm's law applying. That means not just
that we want 3,600 -ore academic staff; it means that we want
3,600 first-class poorle for the academic staffs; people of
individuality and learning and enthusiasm and who will,
therefore, produce their own kind out of their class rooms in
Clue course. So, Sir, these are great and difficult problems. I
believo that they will all be solved. But the first thing to do
is for all of us to recognise that the problems exist. We must
make better use of what we hove. ! eo must seo that whatever we
can get in future is related properly to our basic conception of
what the particular students need to get. Above all things, we
need to make it quite plain that for the universities of the
future, and for the old ones as they continue, the standard must
be nothing lower than the best.
You know every one of you has been an undergraduate;
every one of you can look back on some professor you sat under,
some teacher you sat under. I find the greatest pleasure in
looking back on some of the men who helped to fashion mo, to
realise that they were not only men of learning, but men of great
character and quality. They are the people who make a
university; they are the people who maintain in the conmunity,
increasingly, a sense of pride in the university. If people
have that pride, and arc determined that it is to be maintained
during their lifetimes, I believe that you needn't worry about
the community reaction to what may need to be done. The great
things to be done, the kind of thing that you are hero to discuss
is to see that the quality is upheld, that ways and means are
discovered of not wasting talent, but of employing it to the
highest possible extent for what I believe to be the greatest
educational task that this country confronts.
Sir I declare the Conference open. ( Applause)