People! You are at university now. Let's forget that you're a bunch of isolated, unsophisticated New Zealanders. Alright—so you have been brought up to exhibit the mannerisms and accept the ethic of an archly conservative middle class Victorian age culture. Does this mean you have to accept this way of life? Accept its isolationism, its self righteousness, its mental sloth?

And you believe you're civilised, you're well educated and broad-minded, you're mentally and physically ranked with the best in the world.

Ignorant cant!

Wake up and take a look at yourselves. You are well fed. Stuffed and bloated with New Zealand self-righteousness and insularity.

You're at university now. Not night tech. Not the Victoria Training College For Memorisation Of Textbooks And Granting Of Entrance Tickets To Cushy And Regularly Paying Jobs.

Now is the time to take a mental purgative. For just a brief period of your lives you have an opportunity to Think. Why just calmly accept the ideals and ambitions that are passively stuffed into your heads by parents, schools and press?

Listen people, listen! Gather up the glad news and start shouting it out. You Can Plan Your Own Lives!

Sure, you can settle for a reasonable income, many the girl next door, and all that. But this is not the only ambition going the rounds.

Start now, you 17-year-old sophisticated freshers, you jaded and world-weary part-timers.

First: you want to learn more about the world and the peoples in it. Do you realise that here in this university are people from Canada, Sarawak, Latvia, Malaya, Borneo, Ceylon, Australia, Cook Islands, Samoa. to marry a woman doctor or a woman lawyer or a woman executive."

All these opinions show that women graduates see many disadvantages deriving from their university education. Many feel it would have been better if they had never attempted to invade the professional world.

A Man's World

Among the women lawyers, scientists, teachers, and psychologists who have talked to me over their "family wash-tubs," all believe they are not fulfilling their obligations to society or themselves; that their costly training is being wasted.

Among the same professional group who are unmarried and working at their careers, many consider their university education has worsened their chances of achieving a "family wash-tub" of their own.

If I have not quoted one woman prepared to state she has wholly benefited by her university training, the reason is simply this— I was unable to find such a woman.

[Abridged, Editor.]

He's shy. Get to know him. You'll be glad of it. He Wants to talk with you. And you can learn from him. Learn how it is to live in a country that's crowded, cosmopolitan, and with extremes of wealth and poverty that to you are completely fabulous. Or learn how it is to be dedicated to the service of a country and its peoples, with the renounciation of our own typically selfish and unambitious ideas. Meet Africans, your own age, going home next year to be leaders of their countries.

Come along to international club and have a ball at the most alive club in this university! This means You. "International" means its a club where you meet People—it's no exclusive gathering of foreigners—it's a cosmopolitan gathering of Victoria University Students—on a level where you can really get to know and have fun with them.

How about university staff? Club secretaries: invite, cajole, intimidate or force them along to your meetings. Let students know that they are human. Not tin gods stuck on a podium delivering oracular proclamations to the mob.

University is not merely a place for the transmitting of ideas. It is a place where ideas are sought for or created, and then analysed, sifted, and considered. Nobody is Right in a university. Our information is a living entity, always growing and reforming and You are a part of that entity. Grow With It—don't be part of the deadwood or the excreta.

—J.H.