Degrees and Appeals

We recommend the following letter to the attention of all students.—Editor.

Dear Sir,—On behalf of all students who intend sitting for degree examinations, I would like to make it known that a precedent has been established in the matter of appealing against the adverse decision of an examiner. As you will know from the College Calendar, there is a way of doing this—a recount may be ordered on payment of a guinea. Another appeal, the personal "ad misericordiam" appeal, can be made, and has been made, but it seems to me both undignified and unjust, and it is on the latter count that I take exception to it. If once begun, where may it end? Where will the Senate be able conscientiously to draw the line? An examination and its result should be a purely impersonal affair. If a student is dissatisfied with the decision of an examiner and feels that it does not represent his true ability, his professor will be able, under the system of internal examinations, to see that justice is done him. The student of to-day is more fortunate than the student of past terms, who had patiently to Suffer defeat by one mark or two, nor ever dreamed of importuning for a pass. It is a good thing that an appeal is allowed, but let it be impersonally made and impersonally granted.—I am, etc.,

The Glad Hand

"Spike" extends the glad hand of friendship and the welcoming smile of brotherhood to the latest acquisitions to the teaching-staff of V.U.C., namely awl to wit, in the first place, to Professor D.C. H. Florance, M .A., M. Sc., the new Professor of Physics. Comrade Florance comes to us suffused with all the romance and glamour of the East (see Kipling or any movie ad.), havin'r previously occupied the chair of Physics at Hong Kong University, and he is to tell us all about it in the near future. He is a graduate of V.U.C., and thus adds one more to our list of New Zealand-grown professors. Welcome likewise to Miss Thora C. Marwick, M. Sc., a graduate of Otago, the prof's learned assistant; to Mdlle. d'Ery and to Mr. W. Alexander, MA., L.L.B. (also Otago), asistants respectively in Modern page 59 Languages and Classics; and finally to the new dog-fish expert, Mr. Maskell, B.A., B.Sc. Ave, Spike vos salutat. We can hardly welcome Professor Tennant, but we can congratulate him on his elevation.

Agriculture

It is common knowledge now that Sir Walter Buchanan has given £10,000 to the College to provide for a Chair of Agriculture, SO we can do no more than add Spike's heartiest thanks to the general chorus. Sir Walter is one of those men who appeal to our sense of what is fitting and right in this world's affairs—would there were more like him! What a lot of money V.U.C. could do with! Meanwhile a trust deed has been approved, the Government is under contract by statute to hand out £10,000 subsidy, and by the time this arrives no doubt the worms of the Wellington University district will be indulging in an anticipatory shiver. It remains for the Council to see that only the very best man is appointed to the new chair, and we sincerely hope they will do their duty accordingly. We remain Sir Walter Buchanan's debtors.

The Extravaganza

The Extravaganza has been put off and off, and at the time of writing it seems doubtful if it will reach the stage of performance at all^* We understand that dates were pencilled in for the Opera House, but that Williamson's, having a general option over all performances there, stepped in with their own companies, and relegated us to the backest of back seats. This is very unfortunate; for if the Extrav. does come off now it can only come as a great interruption to the scholastic year at a very awkward time; and if it doesn't, it leaves the Stud. Ass. stranded high and dry and out of sight of funds—and funds in large quantities will be urgently wanted at Easter next year, not only for the Tournament, but for the proposed Silver Jubilee celebration. The position is very awkward.

This brings up once again the whole question of Stud. Ass. finance. Accidents like this are apparently always liable to happen; last year the Capping celebrations were cut in two for the same reason; and it is more by good luck than good management that we have escaped such calamities before. But, in any case, it is an entirely wrong principle that the financing of all the chief activities of the College year should be made to depend on the anticipated profits from the Extravaganza. A thing like this happens, and the Executive is at its wit's end—and no wonder. The Association ought to have a settled and calculable income, which can be depended upon to turn up punctually and without fail. The only reasonable way, it seems to us, to ensure this, is to do as we believe Canterbury and Otago do—i.e., to levy a certain amount on all students at the same time as they pay their fees. There are 700 odd students now at V.U.C.—put the levy theoretically at ten shillings (which surely every student can afford?) and you have an income, roughly, of £350—say £300, to be on the safe side—Which is more page 60 than enough for all ordinary expenses. And then, if the Extravaganza makes a thumping profit, well and good—there are plenty of worthy objects the expenses of which it could help to defray. But if our eyes are going to be forever hungrily fixed, with a kind of demoniac glare, on those profits, it is going to be a bad thing for the Extravaganza as well as for everything else. We don't want the criterion of the Extrav's success to be the amount of money it makes—for heaven's sake, don't let us commercialise our College pleasures! Last year "The Spike" got into serious trouble for the gentle criticisms which it levelled at an Extrav. which had made dose on £200! We hope "The Spike" will look with the same undazzled eyes on the Extrav. which makes £2000. After all, we are students of a University, and not primarily purveyors of the third rate musical slush which in these days in New Zealand does duty for the British drama.

However, we must have money, and there is only one proper way to get it. The matter has been talked over before; we hope that, thus re-opened, it will this year be thoroughly thrashed out.

Engagements and Other Fatalities

The Old Clay Patch

This year C.U.C. has celebrated her Jubilee; and in doing so has issued an anthology of College Verses (which we review elsewhere in this issue). On this subject the April number of the C.U.C. "Review" has some words which appeal to us strongly. Substitute for the words "Jubilee Anthology" in the following extract "The old Clay Patch," and you will see our meaning:—

"Undergraduates of to-day! Your College has a past. If you would live your present College life to the full, you must identify yourself with this past. Can you do this? You may at least make the attempt if you possess a copy of the Jubilee Anthology, for you cannot know the best that can be produced in College life if you know your own time only. A history of the College is not enough. That is a skeleton merely. We must have also a history of its ideas, in order to perfect and round the form.

"For is it not an atom in eternity—this College life of ours? The individual may pass on; but, whether we see it or not, he leaves his mark upon the enduring life. Some of the visible marks have been collected and preserved by the compilers of the Anthology. For the spirit of the past might have skipped away in the varied interests of to-day, had it not been embodied in these literary selections now published for you, and for all time, we hope, by the Anthology Committee."

There are still plenty of copies of "The Old Clay Patch" for all who thirst for the waters of the spirit, for the miserable sum of 3/6. Will every student who reads this note get one, if he hasn't already got it'? It is quite worth while.

The Library

It would be a pleasing thing on the part of the powers that be to lay down matting along the floor of the galleries in the library. We believe it has been promised for a good many months, so the sooner it is done the better. Thus might the 'crashing progress of the heavier footed of our brethren (and sisters) be somewhat mitigated in its effects on minds already with difficulty attuned to a studious note. Thus also might one wrinkle be erased from our revered Librarian's harassed brow.

Likewise in the Library is the "Spike's" democratic soul considerably amazed and hurt by the legend writ in gold "This Register and Table Opposite for Use of Staff Only," or words of equal import—we are not sure of their exact obnoxious form. So it has come to this, in our own Victoria! The staff must have a little table to itself, with the greater privilege of never using it, and a golden notice warning off from indelicate intrusion Mere Students. Oh, professors of V.U.C., whose was the fatal brain that conceived, the fatal words that commanded, so impious a blot as this on our fair traditions of brotherhood? Shame on ye, haughty and stiff-necked ones! For shame!