Obiter dicta by Professor Gavin Brown AO

Then and Now

7 May 2004

In the conclusion of his speech, moving the second reading of the Bill to establish the University of Sydney, William Charles Wentworth predicted "that from the pregnant womb of this institution would arise a long list of illustrious names … who would shed a deathless halo, not only on their country, but upon that University which called them into being".

Oratorical style has changed and so has the institution, but the prophecy continues to be fulfilled.

Last week I received the latest policy document from the Royal Society, Making the UK safer: detecting and decontaminating chemical and biological agents. Inside the front cover is a forward with two messages and two photographs. There is the Chair of the working group, Professor Herbert Huppert, and there is the President of the society, Lord May of Oxford, both University of Sydney alumni who maintain close links with their alma mater.

In science, they say, you are only as good as your last paper and last week, also, I had cause sharply to remind the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald that by current measures of what he calls 'academic clout', research income and student demand, we are a very long way ahead of local competitors. Just as 'Man bites dog' is a more eye-catching headline than its natural alternative, so have we come to expect that 'Further success for Sydney University' makes reporters yawn. We expect also to be pardoned for the occasional statement of immodest fact.

Wentworth's words were readily to hand because I recently received the delightful gift of Robert A. Dallen's 1925 revised edition of The University of Sydney – Its History and Progress, first published in 1914. One may discern but slow evolution of the language of the New South Wales Parliament of 1849. Dallen writes "While there is at present the absence of hoary age in the buildings, every year gives time its opportunities for our University to gain more and more of the spirit of learning, and of the immortal atmosphere which pervades the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge." He was trying to explain academic clout.

In truth, Dallen made me think at once of Mathew Arnold who recognised a sleepy Oxford when he saw one: "so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age. Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties."

Charming though a long history can be, it is only through change, renewal and refocussing that a university can remain vibrant. That is why the young University of Sydney prefers to be recognised for its present achievements which are, by any benchmark, exceptional.