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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 13. October 4, 1951

Whacko Finals! — Or A Prelude To "1984"?

Whacko Finals!

Or A Prelude To "1984"?

Dear Students,

It is so easy to conform. On the other side of this page the other half of this article says an unkind word or two to the staff who are one part of this University. They are accused of bad lecturing, but that you know.

They are accused of being a long way from the students, but that also you know and the fact that they never have personal opinions in lectures is notorious. We except one learned gentleman from this but then he has only recently arrived as a welcome addition to the small band who dare to say "I think.." May he survive and prosper.

In all probability if you are reading this you cannot be included in the dull grey sludge which floats up here to get a degree. Salient only had about 300 readers, about the number of persons who do show some interest in the College. Nevertheless how interested are you?

Most of you have never written for Salient. Your opinions are unknown at annual General Meetings and in lectures you are silent. That is your privelege. It is also a danger. For eight months we sit in lecture rooms listening to the various theories in philosophy, political science and even in English. Those are the stuff examinations are made of and we note theories down one after the other.

In some faculties, zoology is a good example, we take books and books of notes at a breakneck speed. In the law faculty we discuss the nature of law and come to no conclusions, hear no conclusions, but we do not worry. The economics faculty deals with the piece system, the co-operative system and the iron laws but gives the community no lead. Has research in the economic field led to conclusions. Are there other economists besides Professor Tocker? University teaching appears to have no coherent result or purpose. Even the value of furious note taking is questionable and yet there has been no serious attempt to question the present system of University education.

The recent visit of the Evengalist Canon Oreen pointed out one thing: some thousands of people thought that religion of some kind was important At the highest educational institution in the province religion is admitted as an afterthought and through the efforts of student organisations. Our society is called Christian but by the trend of University teaching no one would know. Have you as a student heard a lecturer postulate the thesis that God docs exist in a lecture. Every subject taught here is affected by that question. Do you as students consider that to bo true? if you do do you ever say so or does the objectivity force you into an acceptance of the neutrality, the shelving of basic issues?

This year students have been very apathetic. One subject was a certain provocation: red politics but that has gone from this University—at least for a time. No other intellectual controversy has caused any disturbance in [unclear: sight] months. Our minds have been [unclear: dulled] into the kind of neutrality which emasculates the search for truth. As students we have done very little about it. Time and time again we have sat and listened to lecturers talking nonsense or implying nonsense but because we are so used to that approach which means that the lecturer only repeats other men's views we know there is no point in enquiring and in criticism. If the truth be known we are frightened of failure in examinations and we let our teachers get away with excuses which do not satisfy. "We have not the time now. We have these notes to read and this book to get through." The lawyer can ask what is law, the philosopher is there a God, the economist is there a better economic system but the questions will, for the most part go unanswered.

Are you as students all satisfied with that degree when you have it? Has University study developed your attitude towards life and solved any problems? Or has it merely added to the amount of accumulated knowledge, given you a degree and confused the issues ? More likely the result is the confusion.

If so it may be compensated for by the living wage assured by that degree but it is from our confusion that the tyrannies: Fascism and Communism sprang and unless we have some positive solutions tyrannies will eventually win. George Orwell predicted victory by 1984 and he was no alarmist, what good will our B.A.'s be then? You can quite easily conform to the knowledge machine which is our University but it would probably be wiser to rebel.

This article will probably do little. It may annoy some but at least it has been written to show that someone at the University looks at the system and sees chaos, watches the results and glimpses despair. A tradition of confusion is no tradition and the only one we have in its place is, as the first issue tried so hard to disprove, the tradition of the University red. That we have such a tradition is your fault and mine.

Professors And....
Diverse interpretations
Of any kind.
Welcome deliberations
Of a free untrammelled mind.
We reach no conclusions
We are safe from delusions
Of an absolute kind.

Dear Staff,

We have been studying under you for eight months. Your lectures are in our notebooks shortly to be regurgitated for those exams. When that process is over a few more students will be able to attach a degree, leave the University and demand perhaps, a living wage. Learning for learning's sake does not interest us particularly. We have not been taught that way.

In 2000 students there are sure to be some duds. Few prepare for lectures beforehand and those reading lists are often neglected. Those who do emerge from Victoria with a philosophy of life in all probability brought it with them and as students we are probably a fairly dull lot. Anyway our exam papers will tell the usual story.

For this confused and unsatisfactory state you are partly to blame. Our share of the apathy is clear: 600 students elect our Executive and about two hundred are really active in University affairs. Your share is more difficult to pin down.

It is not untrue to say that lecturing is not of a high standard, some lecturers being almost incomprehensible. Some students do not know and have never had a lecture from the Professor in charge of their faculty. Values are not taught and theories are never set out as personal preferences. Intellectual controversy is therefore dead. A few members of the staff are exceptions to the general rule that the staff do not interest themselves in the students as human beings or in student affairs.

We were, for example, entertained by a debate between staff members and students but for the second time in two years you, the staff, chose to entertain rather than to argue seriously an important subject. Serious argument does not prevent wit. During this year there have been lectures on religion, peace, biology, international law. College organisations have produced plays and organised verse readings and debates. The staff do not take part.

Students are well aware of the staff shortage and the demands upon the time of all staff members. Students who are interested in the University realise that students are to blame for some of the intellectual apathy at the University, but you are in a better position to discuss remedies.

In recent years two books have been published criticising the modem University: "Crisis in the University" and "Redbrisk University." Yet this matter does not cause great concern. In fact one staff member assured the writer that discussion in your common room about profound issues and between faculties is negligible. I am inclined to think that the attitude of neutralism, of objectivity, carried so far in our lecture rooms pervades the University as a whole. No student will be provoked into intellectual enquiry by a fence sitter. No student will have views to hold, or ever seek to have views, if he sees that the University staff avoid absolutes, values and personal theories like the plague. Obviously there are too many students. There is a dull mass which litters lecture rooms and takes up time without being really interested in University life or in learning. You have to cater for all and most of us are only interested in money. This attitude is excusable. Society has taught us to worry about little else, but it does not excuse all students nor does it excuse the staff from their first duty: the search for truth.

It was once a truth, and it needed no searching, that the University was a corporate body. University claims were common claims, University causes common causes. It is not so at Victoria. What causes have we in common? Has the staff vigorously supported bursary increases or the application by N.Z. U.S.A. for a student representative on the Senate? If they have done so students are not aware. Have the students taken up the cause of your meagre salaries? During 1951 the staff showed two signs of activity: two letters to the paper.

We are no longer a University. We are a number of faculties using a building, subsidised by the Government, for the passing of examinations which consist of the statement of various theories, for the gaining of degrees in order to earn money. That is the first result of the University system as it stands. Even the Senate, at its last meeting began to suspect that somewhere the University was failing in its task to search for the truth. Perhaps the University does not believe that truth exists. If that is so let us say so and forget the platitudes and the righteous cant. For ever afterwards our intellectual apathy will be consistent with our intellectual confusion and there will be no need to reconcile our declared purposes with our mercenary results.

At the moment we do not lead the community nor do we lend much vigour to its intellectual life. It is our common responsibility but you at the moment are the teachers. Are you facing your responsibilities?