The university system

Abstract

Between the two world wars, we used to complain sometimes of the neglect and the obscurity of the universities. They were accepted as training schools for the professions, but they were ill-provided for financially. They produced a few personalities, such as Edgeworth David, Arnold Wood, Francis Anderson, Griffith Taylor and John Anderson in Sydney, who achieved a reputation beyond the classroom, and became moderately well known as subjects of public respect or public controversy. From time to time they were attacked in some quarters as citadels of social privilege and political conservatism. But for the most part they were ignored and left alone. Certainly they were not continuously in the minds of governments and the public. Things happened slowly. The University of Sydney of 1935 was not very different in most respects from that of 1915: much the same is true of the other universities. How everything has changed! Since the end of World War II, and especially since the appointment of the Murray Committee, not many problems of the day have been more persistently and closely discussed than the universities.