Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 1, No. 2. March 16, 1938

[introduction]

In an age in which the most urgent need in all human activity is co-operation, it is surprising that the University should still lay chief stress and emphasis on the individualistic attributes of originality and indepentdence. Yet perhaps this need not surprise us, for it is but the natural outcome of an individualist conception of society and laissez-faire economics.

The haphazard and unco-ordinated thesis-writing of the University that we know—held together, it may he by no more significant link than the impress of a teacher common to all the authors—is eloquent evidence or the way the university tends. To quality personally is the aim. Competition is the keynote, and the more a man can absorb the work of his fellows and erect thereon, unaided and alone, his solitary and exclusive contribution, the more highly he is praised. The unusual or unique derives from this competitive atmosphere a fanciful and unreal value. Research reaches ever higher peaks of comic puerility, so long as the quest for individual newness or topic be fulfilled.