Editorial

Eheu ! Having overcome the temptation to editoralise on either Phar Lap or the Tournament, we find ourselves confronted with the College Spirit, which, like the poor (and how poor!), is ever with us.

This will never do! So, in self-defence, we are drawn to expatiate free o'er sportsmanship and suchlike abstractions dear to collegiate hearts, and feel our choice is a graceful gesture to both the original temptations which we ruthlessly routed.

Well, here is a subject for everyone, since every-one assumes this attribute as his or her fundamental virtue.

Sportsmanship! Is there a word more often used with less understanding of its true significance? What does "Be a sport!" mean? Too often it means "Be a good, easy fellow!" or, occasionally, "Come, forget those scruples!" What does "She's a good sport" mean?

The biological definition of a sport is something "which varies remarkably from the normal type," and our task as a College is to keep that definition a biological one, though to look around us one would think—

The Latins would undoubtedly have dubbed Sportsmanship a "squinting construction," because it looks both ways, upwards ad astra and downwards to grisly Mammon his lair. Which type of sportsmanship is going to lead Victoria College?

Victoria College will ultimately be led ad astra, and that by her students—we are willing to stake car judgment on that. Real sportsmanship will triumph.

Well, then, to avoid becoming plunged and gravelled in any more airy speculations concerning precise connotations, we shall admit the two-faced fellow to our councils—squint and all.

Albeit so closely and seemingly inextricably associated with performances of physical excellence, true sportsmanship is by no means inseparable from deeds of skill and prowess. He who is but a footling fellow in the field of sport may be without his rival in sportsmanship, for what can it profit a man though he can heave with the elephant and butt With the bull, and though he be the idol of the Olympic Games if "his soul lives in a garret ?"

Does this mean that we think games' are not so important, after all, in the building of sportsmanlike character? It does not. Would that encouragement and opportunities for our youth both men and women—to throw themselves heart and soul into vigorous sport were more general! Would also that the spirit of camaraderie and team-work engendered on the field of sport were carried more zealously into the greatest game of all—the game of life! Then we should always know, when it is said of any man "He plays games" that he is one who would not forsake friend or principle though the heavens fall.

But games or no games, every University student should be a sportsman or sportswoman. We are all members of one great team, a team with a destiny to win; for our College is yet young (though approaching the grand climacteric in years of human life) and we, her sons and daughters, are the "inheritors of unfulfilled renown." Does that not stir the blood and awake every instinct of sportsmanship? Advisedly, we say "awake,' for had there, been no sleep to banish this College of ours would be standing higher than she does to-day in the hearts of her sons and daughters and in the eyes of the world; not a lugubrious dictum, though certes not an over-merry one. We cannot expect to reach the goal of our ideals as collegians to-day or to-morrow—but we advance too slowly! We take our ease too oft and too long!

In most universities the students naturally fall into three broad classifications; firstly, the true sportsmen and sportswomen who are in the vanguard of the College militant; then those content to accept the status quo—these are the "good, easy fellows," not unwilling to help, yet doing nothing— merely passers-by; then there are the camp-followers—fortunately but few, yet matchless in their depredations. By them a college is usually known to the world.

We do not attempt a definition; we would rather be like him who could not define an elephant, yet knew one when he saw one. That is how sportsmanship is known and recognised— and there will soon be a splendid opportunity for the sports (in the "ad astra" sense) of the College to be known, if not defined; for the Executive of the Students' Association have given their assurance to the College Council and the Professorial Board that the students whom they represent will not descend to rowdyism and organised interruption of the speakers at the Capping ceremony; we do not take upon ourselves to proffer any advice; we do not even make any suggestion; you are sportsmen!