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Editorial

How does one explain the effect of that baneful word, "Editorial"? Truth it is that its merest presence at the head of a blank page seems to stifle every creative and literary impulse stirring to sluggish life in the brain. And even should one survive its initial effect and attempt to set down a few random thoughts, there follow, inevitably, a comparison between one's own effort and the fifty or so preceding editorials, resulting in—depression. One ponders, with an eye to imitation, in the pegs that have served other editors in the recurring editorial crisis—the condition of world affairs, educational reform, Samoa, the aberrations of modern Democracy—only to realise the incompetence and vacuity it is possible to achieves, despite the efforts of our enlightened Journal. One feels inclined to dispense with an editorial and endorse the opinion of a fortunate editorial with the remarks: "They were never necessities, and how few students page 2 used to read these dissertations, unless they were violently aggressive, when they became a source of woe to subsequent editors who had to cope with a large and controversial correspondence thereon." But, again, one sees on one hand those gaping pages which must be filled and on the other an empty contribution box, whence an editorial of decent proportions becomes imperative.

At last, in desperation, one is driven to the meagre refuge of oneself. One has failed to take stock of the world of New Zealand, or even of the University, but there remains this product—in part, at least—of the University system. Let us see what this novel, if egotistical investigation will bring forth, and beshrew us if in the course of our meanderings we do not evolve some moral, or deliver some few grains of pious editorial advice.

First of all, employing—in spite of our customary policy—the advice inculcated by the instructors of our youth, let us use the historical method with our subject. And to aid us in the present situation we have, with admirable, though quite fortuitous foresight, hoarded up historical documents of a sort—to wit, undespatched contributions to "Spike."

The first of these, written in the writer's first term of his first year, is the mature expression of a Byronic pessimism into which he was at that time irrevocably plunged. Let us quote from this screed, entitled "From a Boardinghouse Window."

"I am old and wise, wonderfully wise with the wisdom of many a wasted year (there's a pretty piece of alliteration for you!)—some label me cynic, but that is because I speak my thoughts, sparing none. My abode is a cheap boarding-house in a hilly street—not an abode, let me add, of my own choosing, for the world is not kind to those who speak the truth. I now love the drab old house, for from its unwashed windows I see many a wondrous sight. All day long there toils up that narrow street an endless band of pilgrims. From early morning, when I am rising to glimpse the sun, until the dying hours of night their footsteps echo on the stony path.

They are young, these pilgrims labouring to the temple of learning on the neighbouring hill. Some there are with fresh faces, innocent of worldly care; others—and these the majority—wear the marks of many a conflict and fruitless struggle. The types are many—clerks, with dusty suits and pallid faces (I trust this was not a first impression of law-students), teachers, who come to end a weary day with a little academical recreation, and often a pathetic figure, with thinning hair and spectacles who strives in sober-hued maturity to retrieve the errors of his youth.

It is learning, they tell me, that these tireless streams are searching (a singular delusion!) To what end? I ask myself in contemplative mood. Worldly wealth will seldom be the fruit of their studious hours. Inward peace will not follow their professors' teaching, for thought has ever been the foe of happiness. Why do these poor delusioned idealists pour out the sweetest years of youth if their end is but to realise the futility of endeavour?"

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Perhaps enough has been quoted to give one a fairly accurate picture of this "fresher," destined one day—oh, pardon me! We may condemn him—and rightly so—as an affected little prig afflicted with the moralising distemper, but there is evident in his effusion a feeling of deep disappointment; he had begun the year with at least a few illusions about University life, but these had soon been shattered; Victoria College was to him a place where weary people trudged up to encumber themselves with unprofitable knowledge. This disillusionment, sincere enough in its way, is, we fear, no infrequent phenomenon even in these enlightened days. The young student, fresh from a school to which he has become adolescently attached, is launched into an institution where lectures are delivered by impersonal professors, among students whose ideal of humour is the hooliganish launching of crackers in a memorial library, and whose intellectual energies are directed to the composition of trite and fatuous remarks for the disfigurement of notices. But, let us check our editorial selves, since we are in danger of forgetting our customary urbanity, and—horrid thought—of rendering ourselves liable to a charge of sermonising.

* * * * *

Let us now, in the words of our favourite subtitle writer—something of an anachronism, we see—draw the curtain of time for three long years. We take another manuscript, and lo! we have evoked one who has sunk to incredible depths of depravity; one, indeed, who writes exhortatory letters to "Spike"—letters rightly undespatched from certainty of refusal and humiliation. What has this interesting phenomenon to say? We shall quote a few selections, sparing the reader any lengthy infliction,

"I think, too, of last year and my feeling of despondency increases. I think of that farcical capping ceremony, when the most sacred event of University life was travested by the vulgar display of a vainglorious politician (what immense satisfaction that phrase must have given him!), was converted into a social event for the delectation of Wellington society. I think of the tragic failure of the Singapore Base debate, when, as far as could be ascertained, the only members of the College staff who deigned to be present were those loyal upholders of College tradition, Mr. and Mrs. Brook."

We must crave renewed pardon for raising this ghost from the past, but allow us one last quotation, a rousing peroration:—

"New students! yours is the chance to recreate your College. The students of latter years have failed—can you not infuse into the lifeless body some of the spirit which pulsates through 'The Old Clay Patch'? Begin anew. What remains is bastard rock. The few traditions of University student conduct are mere reflexes of the rowdyism which is an unimportant element of Old World University life. The epoch of the Philistine has passed. Sweep away indifference and narrow parochialism, be honest! And you, giants, who throng the hall at 8 p.m., admit to your Olympus some of those who slink to the cloak-room and home, by the back door. Professors, too, such of you as deign to read these pages, could you not, without sacrifice of dignity, attempt to know your students? A page 4 portentious spectacle, indeed, to view the professorial board with their wives at a College dance!"

We have, we think—and the reader will think so, too—gone far enough in our indecent resurrection of these ghosts of the past; and, also, we must hasten forward to the production of our morals and our admonition. To revert to the subject of our investigation—we note that three years separate the two effusions. Since "From a Boardinghouse Window" was penned the University has had a powerful influence on the writer; he is still disgruntled—that, perchance, is congenital—but he has some faith in the Institution, some belief that there is the possibility of improvement. He has advanced far from the days when Victoria College meant to him only a trailing procession of dispirited students. He does not now lament the pouring out of "the rich red wine of youth" for the sake of barren knowledge—he has accepted the fact, and now laments the failure of the College to make those sacrifices worth-while. The University has taken hold of him, has narrowed down his range of associates and interests, has even robbed him of some ideas—what has it done in compensation? Something certainly, and much more than he has chosen to avail himself. Yet, ultimately, is he not in the position of Shaw's bright boy—"fastened on by schoolmasters; trained to win scholarships like a racehorse; crammed with second-hand ideas; drilled and disciplined in docility and what they call good taste; and lamed for life so that he is fit for nothing but teaching"? We have, we fear, raised important issues in our investigation, and since we find ourselves totally incompetent to deal with them, let us hasten to our close. Our moral? Ah, well! "Si consilium, requiris, circumspice," an inapt mutilation, no doubt, but since an editorial should contain at least one misquotation or classic tag, let it suffice.

Against the myrtle
Glow the fair young faces,
Percoba, Olla,
Ollina, Ollivani.

Changeless they are,
Ageless 'gainst the dark green myrtle,
Four young faces
From the world's beginning.

Only the myrtle
And the four young faces,
Percoba, Olla,
Ollina, Ollivani.

—P.B.T.