The Common Room Committee.

I am disgusted, overwhelmed, and otherwise duped, doped, and fooled. The Men's Common Room Committee still exists! Not only does it still exist, but it has taken unto itself disciplinary powers! Does this Committee intend to assume an absolute and despotic power over the whole student body by ruthlessly exterminating all competitors? It seems as though our long-loved Common Room is become the trap in which these octopodes will lure their victims. Once we are in the Common Room they will torture us with all forms of "disciplinary punishments' to satiate their lusts, while they gloat at all the misery they cause. No doubt they have spy-holes in each nook and cranny to watch our every movement.

I suggest that they would do much better to spy into the Common Common Room (if last year's happenings are to be repeated), and thus to learn the maner of sundry billings and cooings, or to calculate the S.C.M.'s extortionate profits.

If however, this committee realises that it is considered as a joke by the student body and assumed disciplinary powers, merely as a playful insult, let me warn it that I for one am not inclined to take the insult playfully. I would suggest a meeting between the insulting and instilled, and let that meeting be pugilisic and sanguinary.

Again the Common Room Committee.

A look of surprise dawns over every student's face as he enters the Men's Common Room for the first time this term. To most the array of new furniture which greets their eyes is as "a gift from the gods," but to the cognescenti the matter assumes a different aspect. After much enquiring and questioning it has been ascertained that there is at 'Varsity a body that is operating without the knowledge of a lot of students and several are hinting that the Exec, should take immediate steps to put a stop to the body and seek some explanation from them justifying their existence in the College.

One of the persons who is under the notice of the writer may be seen wandering around the College with a tile under his arm and a frown large enough for a Cabinet Minister. It has been gleaned from a reliable source of information that several students have been approached by certain of these mysterious people and. above all, asked for a donation. It was just a stroke of luck that, as I entered the College one evening, that I should see a student accosted by one of these mystery men. I waited, and then came my chance. A paper was produced; the usual signing on the dotted line; and then a cheery farewell. I immediately approached the victim and politely enquired: what the business of the trouble-worn canvasser might be. I was then informed that he was a member of the Men's Common Room Committee.

Now, Sir, what exactly is this body and their aims in the College? When were they elected? By whom were they elected? For what reason were they elected, and what means were used to select this so-called committee ?

To my mind they are nothing but a lot of students trying to create an impression and force themselves into the realm of the worried business man of our city I approached the Secretary, as he terms himself, and in the course of a conversation I managed to secure a few facts about this body in question. It appears that they were self-appointed, and that they have taken it upon themselves to olve the quetion of comfort for the male students. They have even gone so far as to approach the Students' Association for a grant to furnish the room. They hold meetings practically every night at various hours to deal, presumably, with problems far too weighty to be passed over in the short space of an evening. Now. Sir, you will agree with me that this is just a lot of "bunk," pure formalism, and utter rot.

Could not the Students' Association have dealt with this matter quite well by approaching the College authorities? Instead of that there is the body, with a Secretary (and I hope a Treasurer), holding meetings, and spending money. When it is all taken into consideration it all boils down to the fact that the Secretary is carried away with his position and just holds the meetings, writes up the minutes, and puffs

You may not have a million, but come to St. James 31st. March.

Students' Theatre Evening—"If I Had A Million."

page 8

himself up and says to his friends that it is impossible for one to realise the amount of work in the College administration until one has held some position of that kind.

I do not in any way wish to derogate from the ultimate value of their work, but I do think that the Secretary should, per medium of your columns, give some explanation as to the constitution and the personnel of this body.

(This letter has been shown to members of the Men's Common Room Committee, who state that on account of its "glaring inaccuracies" it has not been deemed worthy of a reply.— Ed.)

The Student Christian Movement.

One longs for an organisation within our walls to combat the propaganda spread by the Student Christian Movement, but it seems that we are not to have any body of men and women, apart from a moribund Free Discussions Club, sufficiently interested to guide younger students from the maudlin state of metaphysical sentimentalism which is fostered by the Movement.

Why, of all places, should the Movement have such strong hold in an university? We belong to an institution that exists for the breaking down of age-old and ignorant dogmas; for the inculcation of the logical mentality; in short, for the enlightenment in some part of the abysmal ignorance of our nation.

Instead of such obtaining, few—too few—are concerned with any intellectual broadening at all, and this happy few is subject to a mass attack by forces organised to push a metaphysical set of beliefs and morals so deeply engrained that no appeal to any true mental faculty can remove the hotch-potch of vague sentimental mysticism that envelops its adherents.

What do these cherished members of our flock have to say for the endeavours of past and present philosophers towards human enlightenment in the war gainst the Divine dogma? They dub them "atheists" and spit the word with the venom with which old hags spat "aristo" at the foot of the French guillotine. They lop off and subvert the teachings of centuries of truth seeking effort. For the years of intellectual groping that culminated in Kant's complete and logical annihilation of all metaphysics, they care nothing. Or is it ignorance that will not, permit them to grasp the logic implied?

As did their medieval counterpart, Luther, they refuse the prodigy of a new Renaissance, and seek only to confound the student minds that could accept the offering, The miserable half measures of learning plus mysticism that are produced in abundance at this time are on the shoulders of them and their kindred metaphysicians that would seek the intellectual guidance of our people.

This College should be the home of Reason, wherein metaphysical dogma is a subject merely of historical interest, not the resuscitated subside of two centuries past.

Zarathrustra's apprehensions about the spread of Christianity in the College is, we hope, prophetic. He gives the student Christian Movement credit for a less direc[unclear: t] method of self-advancement than it actually adopts. Propagation rather than propaganda its mode of survival.

The Free Discussions Club is not, apparently, in its own esteem, moribund; nor could the College afford to have it so. It is lifeless only in so far as it is insincere and concentrated on debating points rather than on understanding.

Your correspondent rightly deplores lack of interest in the younger student, but it is quality rather than in quantity that the lack appears in existing societies. Interest may be in what a man can do, in what he can be made to accept intelletually or in him himself. Whichever society is most genuine in this last form of interest will have the most far-reaching effect on student bought.

Zarathrustra's interest is rather of the second type, and he exaggerates its importance in the Christian Church, where dogma and dogmatism have a poor record. Doctrine is rather another thing, and comprises the Christian phiosophy. The Student Christian Movement would be superficial indeed if it shirked the intellectual problems of the Christian. A great part of the circle discussion is devoted to an honest investigation of the doctrines which have emerged from man's consideration of Jesus Christ. But the mind, in common with other parts of a man's physical self, does not serve him best when devloped in isolation. Jesus constantly insisted that only in conjunct ion with practice could truth be grasped by the human mind and puzzlement banished. "My doctrine is not mine, but /His that sent Me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself."

One attitude implied by your correspondent I must flatly deny. The Student Christian Movement does not regard the "atheist" with contempt or animosity. For the rest, what he rather loosely calls "Divine dogma" thrives in war.

The closing down of the Wellington Training College has lost Victoria College many students. To all these old friends we extent our best wishes, and hope to see them at the Easter Tournament at Auckland.

At St. James Theatre 31st March.