Universities Of Australia

From the Film Australia Collection. Made by the National Film Board 1951. Directed by Malcolm Otton. This survey of Australian Universities is another of the films produced by the Australian National Film Board to celebrate the Jubilee of Federation. It shows that the young Universities which have grown up over the last hundred years have absorbed the traditions of intellectual freedom and exploration which are those of the great and very much older Universities or Great Britain and America. The film tells something of their story but most of the action is devoted to explaining why graduates are so important to the general community. We see them being trained for the professions, in the arts and crafts which together make up the cultural fabric of a people. We learn that the social and industrial progress of the nation is partly in the hands of the young people who emerge from the cloistered halls of the Universities. The film breaks down the old illusion that the Universities are sequestered, that they are apart from the community. The film, in fact, stresses that these institutions are main cogs in the machine of society. At the same time it emphasises that the Universities of Australia are suffering a financial famine which must be eased if they are to accomplish all of their aspirations.