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medical teaching of the University. So far no detailed estimate of the cost of the Institute has been made, but manifestly the project will involve substantial capital expenditure and substantial recurring charges.
13. Resolutions XIII and XIV outline the views of the University on the relations that should exist between the Civil Medical Department of Government and the University.
Resolution XV indicates how the University proposes to deal with the consulting practice allowed to clinical professors, a fruitful source of local discontents hitherto.
Resolutions XVI and XVII indicate means whereby the University and the Government Education Department might work together with common advantage.
14. Paragraph 89 of the University (1987) Committee's report referred to conditions on which study leave had been given. This matter was dealt with separately at a Council meeting held on February 11th, 1938, when short rules governing the grant of study leave were approved.
15. Two related matters arising out of the report were considered and the judgments of the Council and the Court are contained in resolutions XXIV and XXVI. In the first it was resolved that it was unnecessary to attempt a definition of the powers of the Vice-Chancellor, in the second, that it was unnecessary to restrict the freedom of the Senate to discuss matters touching the interest of the University. These resolutions arose out of the comments in the report on the state of discipline in the University. Another resolution arising out of the same series of considerations is in resolution XXVII which lays down the constitution of the committee that hereafter will deal with complaints of breaches of discipline levelled at senior members of the University staff. The purpose of this resolution was to change a procedure whereby, at present, disciplinary charges can be discussed in a mixed assembly, the Court, consisting of nearly seventy members.
16. Attention may perhaps be called to resolution XVIII. This arises in part from a belief accepted by the Council and the Court that hitherto the University has tended excessively to stress the practical and teclinological quality of its course and bas failed sufficiently to emphasize the value of a University as an instrument of civilization in a commercial community. The Vice-Chancellor has on several occa- sions addressed the members of the Court on this and on cognate matters.
17. The remaining resolutions of the Council and the Court are self- explanatory.
18. No specific reference is made in the Court Minutes to certain important matters of the University (1937) Committee's report, but generally the reason for the omissions are clear. For instance paragraph 64 of the report comments on the organization of the Department of Education within the Faculty of Arts and recom- mends the abolition of the Professorship of Education. Both in the University and outside there has long been dissatisfaction with the work done by the University in the training of teachers. For this reason, in my speech of Congregation on January 7th, 1938, I announced my intention to appoint the committee to which reference is made in an earlier paragraph of this despatch. As the University was adequately represented on this Committee and as the Committee was to report directly to the Governor, I understand that the Council was content to abstain from passing any resolution on this issue. The Committee, as has been already stated, did not accept the conclusion of the University Committee (1937) Report but, on the contrary, has advocated a wide extension of the training of teachers for Anglo-Chinese and Chinese schools in which, it is contended, co-operation between the University and the Government Education Department will increase the responsibility and the volume of work to be done by the University Department of Education.
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19. I invite particular attention to the Court's resolution No. III. resolution was moved in the Council by the Honourable Mr. M. K. Lo and was passed unanimously. The Council and the Court deliberately abstained from express- ing opinions on any resolution of the Senate which did not call for specific action by the Council or the Court. In effect, this meant that the Council gave its atten- tion in the main to the Senate's resolutions calling for action and these resolutions were taken in conjunction with motions preposed by the Vice-Chancellor which in almost every case dealt with the same issues. The chief exception to this is in the resolution now under consideration in which the Council (a) repudiated criticism of committee's procedure made by the Senate and (b) asserted its view that com- ments interpreted as derogatory of the professional status of members of the University staff had been read in a sense not intended by the committee. The members of the committee. who were all present at the Council meeting, supported this motion which was accepted on behalf of his colleagues by Professor Ride, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. The resolution has had the effect of removing the sense of grievance under which a number of the members of the staff have suffered. It is significant that. at the Court meeting, dissent from the resolutions of the Council was expressed by only a minority of the senior members of the University staff. The same group dissented from the proposal to limit the area of engineering teaching and from the contingent proposal touching the future of the Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. Among the rest, I gather, the resentments expressed against the report when it was first published are no longer heard, and in general the senior members of the staff with four exceptions have actively supported the proposed changes. This disregards the opinion of two men absent on leave, one of whom would have supported, the other probably would have opposed.
20. It may, I think, be safely claimed that the reforms advocated by the Court, which are derived almost entirely from the able and penetrating report of Mr. N. L. Smith's Committee (1937), go far towards the right adjustment of the University's aims and methods. Interdependent as many of them are, I trust that they will succeed in obtaining your complete concurrence.
21. I am aware of the suggestions which were made in 1937 that an indepen- dent academic commission should be invited to study the problems now in question. Sir Andrew Caldecott in his Congregational Address of 4th of January, 1937, men- tioned such a possibility and the Questions and Answers in Parliament on the date 26th of May, 1937, which accompanied your note of 3rd of June, 1937, were also concerned with this.
I have no hesitation in advising you that the conclusions now reported render it unnecessary for such a proposal to be further considered at the present time and I trust that that view will have your concurrence.
22. I should take this opportunity of paying a tribute to Mr. D. J Sloss who from the moment of his arrival as Vice-Chancellor at the very end of October, 1937, has worked whole-heartedly towards finding solutions for the many and difficult problems which the Report in question raised. That a conclusion should have been reached on the various issues raised which is practically unanimous is due very largely to his energy, tact and personality.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
G. A. S. NORTHCOTE,
Governor.
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