Obscenity

—I have been wondering why students traditionally show their most obscene side to the public in Cappicade. There seem to be three possibilities:

(1) "The city likes dirt. It is easier to make money with a dirty magazine than in any other way. We want money and we don't care how we get it."

If this is our attitude I suggest the community has no further need of a University. There are already enough people making money by exploiting the less attractive side of humanity. (Why not try running a brothel?)

(2) "We don't care about the money. We write Cappicade because we like that kind of thing."

Frankly, I think this is just not true. Students are not so much dirtier-minded than anyone else. If some organisation other than a University regularly published a magazine of the standard of this year's "Cappicade," students would regard it with disgust and would be among the last to subscribe.

(3) I hope there is a third alternative. Namely, that it is traditional for Universities in New Zealand to produce "daring" capping books. We feel we would be letting somebody down and failing to be dinkum "students" if we are not obscene at Capping time.

This is in fact the tradition which enslaves us, but it is surely an unnatural one. The essence of a student is not that he is particularly obscene or enjoys upsetting people, but that he approaches problems with an open, intelligent and fearless mind. This is hardly the impression given in "Cappicade."

Better Unpublished

There is little doubt that this year's Cappicade would have been better unpublished, but we would all be a little sorry to see it go for good. The effective Extrav. programme ("Time") gave [unclear: ample] indication of what could be done in a different style. Why not, for instance, do an issue extraordinary of the "Evening Post," with a strong political flavour.

And why must Cappicade be so long? No wonder the editors revert to the old patterns when saddled with such a huge responsibility. We must become reconciled to being students, who only incidentally publish things for public consumption.

This year's lamentable effort was by no means entirely the fault of the editors. They are certainly capable, and probably willing to produce a magazine of quality, but the University has mutely assented to the unhappy tradition, and the editors have felt it was their job to follow suit.

Cappicade is an official publication of the students' association, and it is therefore the responsibility of us all to change this tradition.