Editorial

Such are the fate of writings, and thus we approach this latest prelude to Spike with humility. However, we do wish to place on record the athletic achievements of the current year, and extend our hearty congratulations to the successful football and hockey teams who have won honour for themselves and have added lustre to Victoria University College. Victory in itself is nothing—it is but fleeting and transitory—but when it has been gained through the spirit of good fellowship and healthy rivalry, and as the result of the game being page 2 played for the game's sake, its greatness is enhanced by the passing of years. This is because it sets new standards for those who follow, and herein lies the reason for our congratulations.

We should approach our University career with three ideals—to study hard and to play hard, and, by co-operating with our fellow-students, to leave the University greater than it was when first we entered. Through the years and the bludgeoning of circumstance, there comes to the old student two questions—"What has 'Varsity done for me?" and "What have I done for 'Varsity?" If both can be answered satisfactorily then student days will be happy memories. Academic honours and achievements are not all—neither are "Blues" or idle hours in athletic or social activities, but there is an optimum combining these, which gives the ripest wisdom to be applied to the most important practice.

The influence of a University should not be confined within its own boundaries, but should be too vaguely universal to name or too profound to analyse, and its progress in the sciences and arts should not be greater than its advances towards the ideals of culture and citizenship. From the lecture room comes learning, but not knowledge. To use Bacon's words: "Studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience."' Thus do we commend to all students the activities of the University that lie outside the syllabi of their degrees—the sporting and social clubs, and students' affairs in general. No one wants to see the strength of the football club lying in the first fifteen, or the management of student affairs falling into the hands of an energetic few, but this is the great danger where apathy and indifference predominate. Interest, vital and incessant, is essential if Victoria College is to function, not as a glorified night school, but as a seat of education in the broadest and loftiest sense of the word.