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Until Too Late

In a previous issue we touched briefly on the question of the corporate spirit that should exist within the University. We suggested that a necessary prerequisite to a university course might well be two years spent full time at the university. That this suggestion came to be made is largely the fault of the students who pay no heed to the activities in the college that go on around them.

While it is true that a person who is a full timer has more opportunity to put something into the collage than the part timer, yet it is as much upon the energetic efforts of a minority of part time students as it is upon the full time students, that the success of the association's ventures depend. Both groups have their part to play; it is a kind of symbiosis.

Nor are the full time students free from blame. Their duty to the college is stronger, because their attachment is stronger. In most cases their duty is acknowledged, though in many cases it is shirked.

With the part timer the matter is different; the duty is not even acknowledged, it is denied. That is why the problem of the part timer is greater; because to stir the part timer into activity it is necessary to convince him first of his preliminary duty, before one can even start to persuade him to do anything.

The part timer has got time to spare for university activities; he has that amount of time which he puts instead into outside bodies. When he turns to outside bodies he denies to the university something it is entitled to demand from him as of right; his active support and cooperation in its activities. Simply put it talks him that if he is prepared to take what the university has to offer, he must in return give back to the university such things as it requires of him.

And the effect on the trudges is apalling: we know that they do not acquire a university education. Just what they miss is not even known to them. Perhaps the most pitiful story that was told to us of one of these, was the tale a graduand who attended his first university function; undergrads supper, as he was leaving the university. When it was over he said: "I did not know what I was missing. I have lost the best period of my life; and now it is too late." And what happens to university functions because hundreds never find out until it it too late? The functions themselves continue and are moderately successful only because of the loyally of the few.

It is soul destroying to dedicate a part of once life to the [unclear: realisation] of an ideal: and to find that the dedication is frustrated by the very ones whom it is intended to benefit. It is destroying, to return again and again to the task of trying to build: to find that the mortar between the bricks is but damp sand. To return to the task, again with no real prospect of success, but with only a hope that ultimately turns to despair—with effort which is kept alive only by determination, and the belief that what is being done is right, and the knowledge that there are some at least who benefit.

—This is done so that there may be less who do not find out until it is too late.

—F.L.C.