University Magazines.

The literary productions of British universities are as varied in standard as they are in number, those from Swansea University College, the London School of Economics, King's College for Women, and Sydney University are a few of the many we receive in exchange for "The Spike."

Of "Dawn," the Swansea University Review, we are not competent to speak as half of it is written in Welsh and there is no Taffy in our midst. There is no item of outstanding merit, but one or two of the articles and poems are indicative of a bright future. This magazine is very much in its infancy, only two years old.

The summer number of "The University" arrived with an official account of the Bristol Congress. Sir John Reith is extolled and the subject matter of lectures delivered by other celebrities is given in a few notes. This matter has been treated in our earlier issue.

The most interesting article is entitled "Stocktaking." Disillusionment regarding university life is the theme. The writer advocates reform of "this iniquitous system of lecture-giving and receiving," and abolition of the entrance examinations to be replaced by a test of mental moral and spiritual fitness for life at a university, and here we may be permitted to quote at some length: "No more would those unshorn and unshaven beings, etiolated as the rankest weed ever grown in a damp cellar, the victims of some strange eruptive disease, and of a stranger tailor slink from lecture room to library, and from library to lecture room. No more would loud and braying clowns" (lift up your ears, oh ye scientists) "familiar—if only in a scientific capacity—with H₂O and similar hieroglyphics, but abysmally ignorant of art and literature, afflict us with the jaw bone of an ass. No more would women, their noses powdered to a leprous white, indulge in twittering feminine conversaziones and quasi mannequin parades in the cloistral peace of the library," .....

At present "in any other activity besides dancing and games there is an all pervading lethargy which drains the life out of the most promising societies and combats any attempt to reach a full intellectual life...... Until the universities establish some page 41 thing approaching the old Athenian Schools, where the spoken word, the interchange of ideas made education real and vital instead of being the mere accumulation of fact it here and now is, they must be weighed in the balance and found wanting."

The Clare Market Review is a distinctive magazine. There are but two poems, both extremely clever, the articles for the most part are very well written, witty and original, and there are numerous book reviews. Other universities have much to learn from this publication, especially as regards the standard of poems.

The only other we have space to mention is "Hermes." The Lent number this year is by far the best university publication we have ever encountered. The Trinity number is a distinct anti-climax. The binding, printing, illustrations, in fact the quality of the whole, are excellent. Woodcuts lend an undeniable charm and the poems are well above the average. The University of Sydney is very fortunate to have a writer with such a sense of humour and keen appreciation of beauty as A.H.D. His poem, "On Reading Longus in the Bus," is full of delicate colour.

"And when we rested after mirth and meat
"Wrapped in blue shades and silences, we beat
"Theocritus himself for country tales."

His essay on trees is another delightful piece of writing: "The Godship of a tree is impersonal, but I can depend on it and that is a splendid thing. I shall expect from it neither sympathy nor sarcasm, but I shall be sure of an aloof and constant charm."

"The Heroes at Heorot" shows him in an altogether different aspect. This "drama" is sheer undiluted nonsense—a perpetual chuckle from beginning to end.

J.D.H. is another writer whose contributions, both prose and verse, are sparkling and original.

De Bourke's poems are the only examples of vers libre in all the university magazines we have received which are really poetical. "Rain" is an exquisite song, as full of atmosphere as those lines of Edward Thomas:

"Then the rain fell
Windless and light,
"Half a kiss, half a tear
"Saying good-night."

The short stories are another distinctive feature, in fact "Hermes," from every point of view—its broad outlook, quality of prose, verse, and illustration, and absence of petty personalities, is the University magazine par excellence.

—M.L.