Jubilee celebrations 1902

The Union Book of 1902

On September 29th 1902 "The Union Book of 1902 " was published, the other chief contribution of the Union towards the celebration of the Jubilee.

With the aid of a grant from the Senate of the University, and the ready support of a large number of subscribers, the Union Committee was able to collect from its records a substantial volume of much historical and permanent interest.

It consists of Presidential Addresses, Lectures and Essays,
composed for the Union at various times in the thirty years
or so of its existence, from the discourse of the First Presi-
dent (Dr. Badham) upon the relations of such a society to
academic study and the life of the community, to the retro-
spective review of the aims and hopes of those who did most
to establish the University as a teaching institution, by the
last retiring President (Dr. Wilson).

Among the other selections are a paper by Professor Scott upon the " Use and Abuse of Examinations," and an address by Professor MacCallum maintaining the old teaching function as against recent proposals that degrees in Arts should be granted without attendance at lectures and upon examination alone; literary and philosophical studies of Burke, by Professor Butler, T. H. Green by Professor Anderson, and Ibsen by Mr. N. J. Gough;
together with entertaining accounts of the Oxford Union by the State Attorney-General, Mr. B. R. Wise, K.C., and of older Sydney University days by His Honor Judge Backhouse, who took a leading part in the foundation of the Union itself.

The book concludes with a piece taken from the shortlived Sydney University Review and dealing, over the date of 1882, with the need for the institution of that Biological Department which now has its own large building and its own important place in the scientific curricula of various faculties. The writer, Professor Stephens, reveals a great literary erudition and taste appropriate in one who served the University equally well as Acting-Professor of Classics and Professor of Natural History.

Information

Details come from:

• The Report of the Senate of the University for the year ended 31st December 1902, pages 363-4, 1903 Calendar