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Thoughts on the third university exam fee increase.
Like most things Salient's price has risen. Readers should know why. If this paper was supported by all students it would be a powerful voice on their behalf. A warning should be given that Salient needs support.
In
Advertising is increasingly hard to get. Many shops are decreasing their advertising outlets as costs rise. As it is Salient advertising only pays half the cost of publication and student sales do not pay all the balance. If we had 1500 readers our budgets would almost balance.
Students would do a service if they supported our advertisers. Many of them have supported us for many years. If you mention their advertisement in Salient it helps ensure a renewed contract
Clearly the continued existence of a paper anxious to report student affairs and present the student case reasonably is desirable. If you know of anyone who wants advertising space please write to: The Business Manager, Salient.
Students are invited to avail themselves of space in Salient at 1/6 for ¼in.—or about 35 words—Sale and purchase of books, board wanted, things for sale, wanted to buy or exchange, lost and found, agony notices. This is a more efficient medium than the notice boards. Advertisements will be well set out and headed. Simply leave your advertisement and your 1/6 in an envelope addressed to: Editor, Salient, in any of the letter racks.
Minimum Number of Readers: 500 and Increasing.
R. D. Smith has for sale books, contained in a literary palace of infectious delights.
English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew, Chaldee, Maori, Greek, Latin, Hindoo, and Gaelic; I won't say we have them, but we will buy them.
School Books, Voyages, Travels, Arts, Scientific, Novels.
We once employed the Dewey System of Classification—Now browse-Prayer Books for Saints, Play Books for Sinners. Calvin and Comic Books. Wesley and Tom Paine, Voltaire and Cummins. Luther and Robert Owen, Sermons and Song Books, Medical Minerological, Mathematical and Quizzical. Orthodox and Heretical.
If we have not, have you? We'll buy . . .
No tokens taken. We never sell stamps and won't take them as payment for literary treasures.
To oblige under paid Students and members of the Faculty, short of cash and ideas—fresh eggs and good butter, perhaps taken in barter to a limited extent.
Don't prate of paltry gold rushes, or of individual, cash abundant. Political Ideals—enrich your minds—rush and buy books of Smith's or lacking a rich uncle, here, rush and sell.
With apologies and yours faithfully.
Editorials about beginnings are boring.
This is a great truth which Flaubert missed when he wrote: "Many things are boring: it is boring to pay back borrowed money, it is boring to make love to the woman one kissed yesterday . . . but what is more boring than anything on earth, in hell or in heaven is . . ." Flaubert's ending about tragedy and comedy missed the truth.
As the platitudes well up in the mind one longs to stifle a subconscious full of such ghastly thoughts as: This is your University; the more you put into it the more you will get out; there are more things in life than money. The worst of it all is that such platitudes are true.
"Write," said a friend, "about what freshers can expect from Vic," and this excellent idea did appeal for a while. It was the hopeless confusion which made me decide against it.
Victoria is a University with a split mind where traditional law and modern social science are faculties; where the part timer outnumbers the full timer, and all students are in three kinds. First comes the idealist pursuing truth and, disappointed by workaday Victoria, he or she soon, retires to an ivory tower. The careerist, anxious to set up fully qualified in the market place arrives for lectures determined that the less seen of Vic the better. Between the two the students who are the University steer a course bedevilled with the apathy of their 1700 fellows who are the first to squeal when an outburst of red politicking upsets our tradition of honest and reasonable radicalism.
Nor is the staff helpful in clarifying the confusion. Fence sitting is a popular pastime and recent tradition appears to have been against staff and student activity. On the other hand the staff who are accused of contributing to the lack of direction which is the keynote of most Universities are an approachable lot.
To write on your expectations is a tremendous task. You may encounter a lecturer who has the art of exposition, but it is even odds you will take reams of notes in an automatic fashion or try to make notes of a rambling discourse. Perhaps the shortage of staff has something to do with it. No editor pretends to omnipotence and to write about all this division and confusion without forgetting a dash of tradition and a mention of our hazy ideals would require omnipotence.
Not all readers are freshers. They have heard sentiments on joining in University life before. Most of them have not taken the slightest notice. At Executive elections 600 students vote and most of these do nothing else.
Whether one begs, pleads, curses, entreats, asks or orders—University torpor gets most of us. Unfortunately it cripples our intellectual vigour and has resulted in the citizens of Wellington mistaking a minority for us all. The city attitude is one of tolerance and suspicion.
If board is hard to find, bursaries low, if education grants are small and University buildings inadequate, if graduates find learning little respected, the public cannot be condemned. Students are to blame simply because they are not students but sluggards.
Editorials about beginning, are we repeat, boring, even if they are true.
We are grieved that some of our readers, both staff and student, were pained by our last issue for
These suggestions make it clear that our critics do not understand our point of view. So we repeat it in simple, simple sentences.
A University is supposed to have a corporate life.
Victoria is a University and therefore ....
But our corporate life is negligible: If a University is to benefit students that life must be encouraged and the staff are in the best position to do so. On the whole, they do not.
This problem has been tackled gently before and cajole and carrot have got nowhere. So we have sharpened the rapier, if our critics both staff and student disagree so strongly let them say so in Salient
Reports of N.Z.U.S.A. Congress, Curious Cove: University Catholic Society's Congress. Raumati; Student Christian Movement Conference: Student Labour Congress
A series of articles on N.Z. Writing. Why the Weir House Tariff Increase?
Your more sophisticated and experienced friends who are not—repeat not—freshers will tell you that the talk by the principal is not worth wasting your time on . . . some of them have never been to this talk themselves they had their minds made up for them by their more sophisticated and experienced friends . . . how about making up your own mind?
* * *
As a Sign That you are Now Adults and no Longer Schoolchildren it is not necessary to raise your hands in lectures when asking questions and the lecturer will refer to you as ladies and gentlemen.
And so, when you take a meal in the Caf—where the elite meet to eat—you do use the ashtrays, do not carve on the tables or steal the cutlery. You think Salient is being superior?
Why not write and say so?
* * *
Did you Get a Copy of the SCM Handbook? It tells you about all the clubs and gives secretary's addresses and phone numbers, provides a timetable in blank, includes a calendar for the year, sets out some of the important facts and events. This handbook is free and was available on enrolment. They will be available at the Exec. room.
* * *
Those persons in the library dressed in green smocks are librarians, charming creatures, if treated the right way. They will try and assist you find the book or periodical you want. The college library receives Time and Newsweek, The Times Literary and Educational Supplements, Statesman and Nation, the Economist and other magazines. Time runs a privileged customer gamut but is there eventually. Some books, those behind the counter, are available only for weekends. Remember—kindness pays.
* * *
The noticeboards near the Caf and the main noticeboard are for your 'convenience. Important executive announcements are on the noticeboard at the foot of the main stairs next to the plan of the college and a list of the staff.
* * *
A telephone for your use at the top of the Caf stairs is not to be used for (a) toll calls, (b) over long conversations, (c) love lyricising. Other people are often waiting.
Some people may say Salient is "going to the dogs," that we are losing our punch. What we are going to is trouble to see that Salient is respected by students and staff, that as many people write for it as possible, that younger students get a look in, that Salient be reasonable. Your contributions about anything will therefore be welcome.
All readers are warned that very few copies in addition to subscription orders will be printed this year.
The College Library is available to all students who have paid their library fee.
As it extends stackroom by stackroom the only way to appreciate its size and variety is by studying the lists of new books, consulting the catalogues and looking through the new book shelves—on the left inside the library proper.
There are three parts to the library, if the booklined passage is excluded; the Science Room (on the left), the arts room (on the right) and the main library with balcony. All sections are open to students but the arts room hours are more restricted.
Some people are too shy (?) to venture on the balcony. Technical journals. American literature, bound legal periodicals and very appropriately, the religious section, are on the dizzy heights.
Why the balcony is treated with so much diffidence no one knows.
A plan of the library organisation was once provided in a small booklet and arrangements are under way for it to be reprinted.
In the meantime students use the diagram plan on one of the tables in the main library and the librarians who are often very helpful. With the name of the book, its number and the plan most students find what they want.
All law students ask and suggest that other students do not sit in the alcoves lined with law reports. There is a good reason for this.
Law students must make constant references to law reports and if they have to get up and walk from the other side of the library, students are disturbed. Other law students often require the same volume a few minutes later and still more unnecessary disturbance is caused.
These peculiar conditions do not apply to other sections of the library. No rules govern where you may sit but convenience does.
The science room, for example, is almost exclusively populated with zoogs, biols, chems and bots, although many of the books in the room are outdated and comparatively useless.
All students should take a close look at the library. Wander round. Look at books and periodicals, and work out the various divisions.
To make full use of the library it is necessary to know where everything is. Some students never know at the end of five years.
There are some valuable things New Zealand students can learn from students "in college" in the United States.
A peculiar claim? Not really. Most of us New Zealanders have been so impressed with the unevenness of academic standards in American universities that we tend to lose sight of the very important facts that (a) the best American institutions are, at the Very Least, as good as our own best patches; and that (b) American students in many institutions have gone far beyond us in building up communal life so as to make a student's years at college a valuable corporate experience as well as the gateway to a job and (we hope) an introduction to learning.
We can deplore, with some American investigators, the harking back of some mature Americans to their college years as irretrievable golden years, and the consequent idolising of the way of life of the student, fully capable of life's enjoyments but not yet burdened with many responsibilities. We can dismiss as a sign of emotional immaturity the desire to return to a younger, less responsible self.
Still the fact remains that life at most American colleges has in greater measure than New Zealand student life ingredients which make it an enlarging of the student's experience in communal living. The students I met really had a feeling of integration into college community; it's not a feeling I'd expect to find among the majority of Vic students.
Before studying in the United States. I had imagined (having seen, no doubt, the wrong films) that American college life was largely two all but contradictory things: a hectic social whirl cheer-leaders and co-eds in sweaters advertising Camels were the symbols and a sideline pursuit of earnest young capitalists; on the first rung of the ladder from smalltown apartment to Long Island mansion, and needing cultural consolidation. Not that these groups don't exist they do, about equally as far as I could see; but they did not set the dominant tone of college life.
Now, it seems to me that a lot of confusion is caused by the wide currency of the phrase "working your way through college". What the American usually means by this is paying your own way or part of it, while following a full-time programme of university studies. The work meant is part time and vacation work, and plenty of help is available at most colleges for students wishing to do this. Some students, no doubt, get their degrees like so many Vic students—through a slow piling up of unit after unit ("credits", they're called), gained in night class study.
But the curriculum of the average American college is not planned in a way that makes this course very feasible. On the other hand, many students—teachers especially—who want to collect a degree while supporting themselves at some full-time work, do so by attending summer schools. Here work is said to be intensive in spite of the holiday atmosphere; in say a three month period. 4 student may gain two or more credits. An excellent example of this sort of study is given by the Foreign Language summer schools held by a famous womens college. Mount Holyoke. I believe. Students have to pledge not to speak anything but the language they are studying for the whole course. Experts in the language, usually nationals, give lectures, conduct discussion groups, and expect thorough preparation for their classes. Students graduate from such courses with excellent accents, and a practical working vocabulary which covers their everyday needs (they wouldn't get far in camp life without it!). Such courses are more possible for teachers because their holidays, maybe because of the heat, seem to be somewhat longer than ours. That may be one reason why American children leave high school a year older than ours, and take four years to complete the average B.A. course.
The colleges I visited seemed to offer both a wider variety of subjects to undergraduates, and a more rigid insistence on a planned programme of studies than Victoria does. Nearly everybody takes four years over their first degree—it's the exceptional student who graduates in three and a half years, ending up out of step with his or her classmen.
The concept of a "class", as the group of people graduating together from a university is of course, almost completely absent from the University of New Zealand. For most of us—and we're still generally part-timers—no certain prediction can be made on the day we matriculate as to the day we will graduate. It's certain that a lot of us won't graduate at all. On the contrary, the American student, unless quite unfitted for university studies (and the better universities have entrance tests designed to prove all the students accepted capable of profiting from further education and of graduating from college) is expected by everyone to emerge, diploma in hand, at a certain definite Commencement. The "Class of '52" is thus all those students now in their last, or senior, year at college, who are expected to graduate next June.
Though there are excellent (and otherwise) State universities, free usually to citizens of the State which supports them. I suppose the majority of American universities are still endowed, privately run, fee-charging institutions. The cost of supporting a student at one of them is not light, and has become heavier in recent years, so that college presidents are perhaps beginning to be chosen for their ability as fund-raisers as well as their academic qualifications. Many parents make great sacrifices to send their children to college. The utility value of a university degree, in terms both of social success and economic security, is great. (The New York Times scarcely ever runs the engagement of a girl who is not an alumna of some well-known college, or a student at one.) But there are always those who would find it impossible to pay fees and living expenses for their children, on whom the responsibility of finding the whole or part of the cost necessarily falls. A good deal of scholarship help is available at endowed universities, such as the one I went too.
For the rest, that invaluable American institution, the "Placement Office" steps in. These student employment bureaux, now found at most American colleges, generally staffed with experienced people, find part-time jobs for students who want to make some money while they study. Baby-sitting, waitressing, typing. etc., were popular with the girls at my college. The college also employed many girls directly as library assistants, demonstrators in science courses, etc. Another, and even more vital aim of the Placement Offices is to see that each of the graduates goes to a position on leaving college.
A well-run Placement Office does not seem to be an undertaking beyond the grasp of a college such as Victoria. A trained vocational guidance officer would be needed: some of the necessary finance could be simply raised by charging a nominal fee for consultations: perhaps the college authorities might be persuaded to meet the rest.
More students might feel able to come full-time (and take advantage of the extra bursary help often available to them on condition they do so) if they could be more certain of finding spare-time jobs and profitable vacation work. Since we New Zealand students fortunately do not have to pay fees, a student helped in this way might not find it too hard to keep afloat financially through the fewer years needed by our undergraduates to complete their degrees. Having done odd part-time jobs found for me by the Wellesley College Placement Office. I'm reasonably sure the break from studies is often a help rather than the reverse, in fact baby-sitting, provided there were customers enough, gave one a better chance of study than one's own room in a hostel!
More full-time students: after a year at a college where everybody was a full-timer, I'd put this as one of Victoria College's most urgent needs. Others, as Salient readers don't need reminding, are the new Student Association building, and more and better hostels for students who have to live away from home. With these achieved, an improvement in the college's academic standards would probably result. But these measures would also helo tremendously in building up in Victoria College the sort of corporate life which is my strongest impression of my year at Wellesley. We Just don't know what we're missing in the way of extra-curricular activity, and in terms of contact with our fellow students.
Miss Pauline Hoskins, a former member of Salient's stall, recently returned from the U.S.A. and Boston's Wellesly College, where she completed an M.A. in American Literature.
Salient records with regret the death of His Late Majesty King George VI.
Long Live the Queen!
This is the Apitor of Eddicade speaking. I only yish you sould cee me here as I recline in my uptuously sumpolstered office, surrounded by uptuously sumpolstered stenographers who note the wow of flit pich wours in an incessant stream from my brimble nain. On my right is a fassive mile index containing every woke and jitticism known to the muman hind - fus a plew of my own.
Pam that done! Nay and dight ring, ring, ring.
"Is that you Dennis? Fine job you made of T.I.F.H. this week. What's that?-Oh give him a white horse it doesn't matter about hair when it's a man. Ta ta."
Dery vifficult to concentrate with my edistant - assitors Perelman. Searle, Davie Low, Sid Holland, Wallie Nash, Ploy Potter, Thurber. etc., running in and out.
Capitoring Eddicade is just a bush putton job with all this talent avaiable.
Of course I'm not the first capitor who ment wad because he could get no contributions but crenty of pliticism. Do you fink you're thunny? If so, and if you think you are capable of scriting weamingly funny material for Eddicade you had bet ter do so and then you san't cay "I can do better than that!"
Yis thear Eddicade will parody a well known periodical and shontri-butions could be tailored according. The name of the pagazine to be warodied is a grupulously scarded secret which we hish to wide from the lorld at warge but will reveal to fina bode contributors who leave a note in the botice noard addressed to Eddicade.
Prizes will be awarded to the best contributions!! Prood Grizes, too
Take it From Here.
Onbehalf of all students who disagree with the new marking system Salient wishes to thank those responsible for the issue of unofficial mark cards.
DR. James ("Jimmy") Williams, LL.M (N.Z), Ph.D. (Camb.), formerly Challis Professor of Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law University of Sydney and formerly Professor of English and New Zealand Law, Victoria University College of the University of New Zealand now Principal of the College.
Dr. Williams is remembered by his students for two things. First that his lectures on the Law of Property rarely finished on schedule, and secondly for his dry wit, practical view and approach ability. Now relieved of cumbersome Real and Personal Property, Dr. Williams will probably still be remembered for two things: first, his dry wit, practical view and approachability, and secondly for lifting the ban on alcoholic liquor at some College functions.
If his decisions are made administratively in the same manner as they were in law lectures nobody will consider himself taken lightly or dismissed without reason. Characteristically he stood slightly to one side for one view, slightly to the other for the opposing view. His own he declared from the middle.
Nevertheless, outside of the law his views are comparatively unknown. There is no Rationalist background as there was in the case of Sir Thomas Hunter, no open support of causes. No one knows whether he follows or has read Newman, Truscot or Moberly. Victoria unfortunately needs someone to give it direction, but perhaps more important is a man who has often been among his students. With Dr. Williams as Principal the movement towards greater staff student co-operation may be accelerated. A united University will be better able to present its case for learning and safeguard its traditional freedoms.
The Principal speaks to new students March 10: C3.
All students should know how far we are removed from that body which controls the New Zealand University. It is this body, the Senate, which is responsible for the new marking system. No student body has any official voice at Senate meetings and all representations can be made only by letter. This is unsatisfactory.
Victoria College of the New Zealand University is controlled by two bodies: The College Council and the Students' Association Executive. Student representation on College Councils is a recent innovation. In spite of forebodings similar to those which may fill the minds of the members of the Senate this arrangement has worked excellently.
The national organisation for students, the New Zealand University Students Association (N.Z.U.S.A.), has at various times suggested to the Senate that a representative from N.Z.U.S.A. on the Senate would be wise. Salient was informed by an observer at the last N.Z.U.S.A. meeting that this suggestion is unlikely to find any favour with the Senate at the moment. N.Z.U.S.A. is therefore waiting until the members of the Senate have changed.
Exam fees rose quickly only a year ago and so far no realistic adjustments at all have been made in University bursaries. Students who have to pay exam fees had little opportunity to make any protest. There was, at the Senate meeting, some opposition to the new marking system which is supposed to be for the benefit of students. N.Z.U.S.A. itself is aware that in some universities the new system is unpopular. It was not possible to present the student case to the Senate which was responsible.
It is a long time since most of the members of the Senate were at the University and as students are not confident, that their meditations alone are sufficient would the Association President make enquiries for the benefit of Salient's readers?
This is a state of affairs which has been allowed to continue without action too long. The sooner students know why the Senate is without an N.Z.U.S.A. representative and why the sooner will student opinion and organisation be able to present a reasonable case.
Until a few years ago freshers could not vote at the elections of the Executive. This vote had been denied to them on the ground, still valid in many cases, that most freshers did not know who they were voting for and were inclined to vote by guesswork.
In fact only about 600 students out of the 2000 do cast their votes at the elections. A minority controls the college. At the annual general meeting of the association it is hard to collect more than 100 students unless some resolution of particular interest is being discussed. Those who do not attend these meetings or other meetings of the association are the first to shout and scream when the association acts in a manner which they do not approve. The only way to safeguard your name as a student and to prevent irresponsible political resolutions is to attend association meetings, if you do not then—to use a phrase—you've no kick, brother!
Every fortnight the executive meets and attends to the business of running the students affairs in its sphere. The association is big business with over £4000 in funds each year, a weekly newspaper, an annual magazine Cappicade with a circulation of 10,000 and a stage show costing over £1000. These are the more notable activities and it would be impossible to set out the many duties assigned to each executive member. Executive members do work—and for nothing.
All students may attend any executive meeting. They may write to the Executive and are entitled to a reply. They are also entitled to ask any executive member to make their suggestion or put their question for them, if you want an executive member to bring such a matter as the shortage of towels and soap in the washrooms up for attention—do not hesitate, if your complaints or queries are not attended to—write to Salient and we shall ask why.
The minutes of every meeting are pinned on the main notice board just so that you know what is going on without having to sit for a couple of hours.
Two letters suggesting that our Executive send delegates to the Australian Peace Carnival and an attempt to send not delegates but observers, were rejected by the Executive at their meeting on Wednesday, February 27.
Officials for the Capping ceremonies and Extrav are appointed. Two Extrav scripts have been received and one will, Salient hopes, go into production very Shortly.
Indications are that Holland separated from her interests in the East (Indonesia) will go bankrupt at the present rate of export and import. Perhaps the Dutch plan may have been wiser after all.
This book is an immensely readable and enjoyable, but profound, history of your college—Victoria University. Its style is midway between "Time" and Trevelyan. It has been so brilliantly and effectively written that it has been called "The New Zealand history." It is so, because it is human. In the words of Professor Beaglehole: "The college seems to have existed of human beings, men and women, whose relations to their fellows have been so interesting that in the end I seem to have said more about students than about anything else."
This book, then, is about students. Students "who also stood in the hall and read notices, debated, played football or hockey, worked in the library, took notes, swotted, turned pale in November, or flushed with triumph, before a printed page of questions." The students who made the Victoria University of today.
In
In
But education, even this cheap, seemed a luxury to Colonial parliamentarians and the bill was thrown out. After seven years of inattention to the matter, Premier Seddon suddenly proposed "a Victoria University Act to promote Education by the Establishment of a College at Wellington in Commemoration of the Sixtieth year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria."
This was in
What amazing men those foundation professors were! They were faced with creating a university which they had understood to be already in existence, and heavily endowed. "Fortunately, they all had qualities—comparative youth and a vast good humour, or a faculty for genial contempt, or an undemonstrative endurance which gave them a high survival value. The amazing four were: Brown (Classics) "the cautious, brilliant, kind Scot whose belief in Classical Culture led him to plan the Greek history. Art and Literature course, for those who hadde little Latin and lease Greek"; Mackenzie (English) the other Scot, irrepressive, expansively genial, laughter loving, generous (he wrote love letters for Scotch lassies without the learning of the pen) Easter-field (Chemistry) the Yorkshireman, the German-trained researcher, idealistic, a high-spirited practical joker (he turned a hose on a colleague and the result was anything but academic!); and lastly, the brilliant MacIaurin (Mathematics), almost a New Zealander, tolerantly critical, versatile and charming. He left Vitoria to virtually create the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To cope with the situation the professors each took extra subjects: Brown, French; Mackenzie, Mental Science; Maclaurin, Law; Easterfield, Physics and Mechanics." if the professors were enthusiastic, evangelical in zeal, what is one to say of the students, those 100 undergraduates?" The year
Almost before those hundred knew it they were a Universitas a body corporate.
Now that the University was a reality the need for a home for it was urgent. After some consideration of the Mt. Cook gaol site, the specific mention of the Kelburn hillside (with a donation of £1000), decided the Council. Estimates for a building were called for, then whittled down. A design competition was held and an extra storey was added to the winning plan as a means of getting the most from the smallest site. The building was "in late perpendicular style" euphemised the "Evening Post." "Inside the style changed to a sort of bastard Early English, breaking down in the science building into plain utility."
The foundation stone was laid in 1904, the opening was held in 1906. Then four tennis courts—the original "Old Clay Patch"—were dug out of the bank. The short view of practicality and immediate convenience always won through. "From short view to short view the Council proceeded, from excavation to excavation, and then to retaining wall, biting deeper and deeper into the clay and crumbling rock, while the unlovely line of buildings advanced higher and higher up the hill.
After great financial campaigns a gym was opened and even "won the envy of an eminent visitor from the University of Melbourne." (This was in
As the University tightened its grip on its perilous hill, the staff was increased. Such names as Van Zedlitz, Laby, Picken, J. S. Salmond, Colton, Hunter, and Kirk—"a professor of Bohemian appearance"—appeared. A coincidence surely, that at this time, too, the Heretics Club appeared. The worthy burghers of the city found for the first time the unconventional students an irritant to their respectability. Capping ceremonies Were hilariously rowdy, but not only, were the students troublesome, but the very professors attacked the New Zealand University system, and formed a Reform Association!
Then came the First World War and the rift "between the University and the city community became serious. Although never as violent as "the town and gown" riots of Oxford, this rift has been both spiteful and bitter. This most tragic collision has come to be known as the Von Zedlitz Case.
Professor Von Zedlitz, son of a German father and an English mother, was a man of culture who had long ago lost his German nationality. Unfortunately, he had not considered it necessary, as a civilised European, to take out British papers.
Patriotic Societies, with a warped sense of patriotism, were looking for someone to concern themselves with "So Von Zedlitz, the honourable, the civilised, the humane became the target of every uncivilised fool in the country who could write to a newspaper." Von Zedlitz offered to resign but the College Council rightly considered this unjust. But now the cry was up, the hunt could not be stopped. The Council stood firm against the bayings of the mob. In this they were supported by the Professors and the students. A Royal Commission on Aliens gave a favourable report, but the screams for Von Zedlitz's removal continued. The Government was not as honourable as the College Council, and, overnight, gave way. It threatened legislation to achieve its end. Von Zedlitz again offered to resign, but the Council stood firm, convinced of the right of its position. The result was the Alien Enemies Teacher Bill. The Council petitioned, but "the Government felt its own interest, its own prestige, too much at stake." It deliberately misinterpreted a letter of Von Zedlitz's. The M.P.'s now used the bill as an excuse for an orgy of pseudo-patriotism. They guiltily attempted to hide their injustice to an individual by proclaiming the bill "general in application." The result was that Von Zedlitz retired to a position in a Church school; The Council had defied the popular outcry, until the State had beaten down its resistance.
Professor Beaglehole sums up: "Depressing as is this story of defeat, there is nothing in the college's record of which its men and women have the right to feel more proud."
After the sacrifice of the war, students, looked forward to a new age of unselfishness in domestic and international affairs, an era of understanding and of good will. There was a bitter sense of disillusion, and a feeling of protest when the world slumped back to its old materialistic values.
And in the atmosphere the University once again antagonised the Community by differing with the common view. This, and the unsettled state of the world gave alarmists and denouncers an excuse for excessive vigilance. Their minds reasoned (?) thus: "Any criticism of the social order is preaching Communism." "Students criticise the social order." "Therefore, students preach Communism. Ipso facto, students are Communists."
The pretext for wiping out the "heretical" views of the students was the finding of a Training College student selling Socialist literature Most damning was that she was a B.A. from Victoria! The Minister of Education then demanded an investigation of the teaching at the College, and of several College Clubs, said to be permeated with "undesirable influences." The College refuted any slanders as unfounded and ridiculous, but was ignored.
One of the offending clubs—Debating, lost its patron, the Governor-General, and flourished without him. Its palmiest days were reached in
The twenties saw, too, the arrival of the ebullient Boyd Wilson, the merry Murphy, and a new librarian, a Rhodes Scholar, Harold Miller.
With eight hundred students, now, the college was less of an intimate group, and more of a loose collection of part-timers. The need was felt for a move towards the ideal University centre—a residential hostel. At this opportune moment died Mr William Weir, bequeathing the college between seventy and eighty thousand pounds "to found a men's hostel." "It was astonishing, staggering. Under the University Act of
Once again, the students, being young, and ready to reform all about them, antagonised the mass. But one perceptive Mayor remarked that "Undergraduates represented the eternal spirit of unrest, and were thereby a foundation for progress." Communism and "twisted teaching" ("Truth's" description) were again the bogeys, usually without justification. "Spike" was banned by the Council. The gap between the large number of students and an ageing staff grew wider.
In
The drop in student numbers removed a lot of the intensity in college affairs. Enthusiasms were switched to helping the country. A left wing, popular in ratio to Russia's war-time popularity, gained influence. Its blatancy gradually lost its friends. Its militancy brought it enemies. An Indonesian protest procession in
The clubs had their ups and downs, with the emphasis on Culture, as a means of preserving civilised values in a barbaric world.
After the war the University expanded to its present bursting point, with "temporary tinhuts" scattered over clay-patch and reclaimed rubbish dump.
The history of Victoria College has moved on another three years since this book was published, but the essentials it describes are still the same. There is the energetic, enthusiastic minority shaping presentday history and "the great dull flood that sweeps up the hill and back again with its ticket to a better job"—It's motto; "Cram for Jam." There are the amateur politicians, left and right, the orators and the thinkers, the reformers ad infinitum. "Through the years the students work and take degrees, win various scholarships, do their bits of research and write theses. They continue the Easter struggle, they keep on celebrating capping, now and again in a fierce frenzy of controversy—controversy with the Professional Board, controversy amongst themselves, over Extrav. They keep on criticising the University, and follow their elders in demanding reform.
But all along there has been general enthusiasm over the delightfulness of existence as it is at Victoria.
There is something deeper in the existence, the responsibility of a student as summed up by "Spike."
"More and more students are at last learning that their task is not merely to Interpret the world, but—to change it! This is an unconventional and responsible attitude, too advanced for the mass of the community But there must always be leader and now, as in the past, the leaders will be the students of Victoria University College!
' This question cannot be answered by merely stating facts, Salient is "an organ of student opinion" at Victoria College, published weekly by the Victoria University Students' Association. Because emphasis is on the student the most important features are: it is entirely student staffed, most contributions are from students and it is an organ of opinion to which any student may contribute.
Why have a student press? Haven't we our daily and weekly press already? A student press exists because only a student press can fulfil the student need for free, sometimes violent, discussions on matters outside the scope, and often the perception of the ordinary prese. It can encourage a spirit of University and community consciousness so alien to modern materialistic individualism on the one hand, and state collectivism on the other. The students idealistic criticism is an antidote to blind conservatism or extreme radicalism.
The name Salient sums it up; and the words of early editor,
"Send out. Salient, the swift satiric point
To smart the sluggard mind awake."
This first issue, specially prepared as an introduction for freshers, is evidence of that spirit. To cope with weekly publication demands some contributions will be, as far as possible, organised on a regular basis. University affairs, such as executive and club reports will be given space. Articles on the University system will appear alongside those on national and international affairs. A critical survey of New Zealand writing is planned and there is sure to be verse and reviews of books, drama and films.
Members of the staff will, we hope volunteer contributions and write letters to the editor. Our aim is an article: How to Pass Exams Without Actually Cheating.
If You have anything to praise, criticise or curse; or any thoughts at all, if you have some scandal (such as the state of the Common Common Room) to reveal; if some experience anywhere, in the Botanical Gardens or a lecture (most unlikely) has moved you to poetry—put it in black and white and address it to "Editor—Salient." Leave in a Common Room letter rack and we will take it from there.
Don't hesitate because you have never been in print. Salient will print everything readable and neither obscene nor libellous. Although not essential contributions should be typed, on one side to the paper, and no longer than 800 words, but extra space is available.
Here is a chance to take part in an activity most characteristic of a University. Thinking, plain speaking and argument. Salient is a combination of informal, round-table, debating, those pleasing discussions you have over coffee, caf chatter, the remarks of the corridor groups and even the bitter wisecracks of common room stoics.
This is a discernible expression of the University's intelligent give and take. We hope that you do not stay on the sideline when it is so easy to join in.
The focusing of the University spirit in Salient has not been haphazard but the result of differing opinions and emphases
A tradition is built slowly and is finally found to be solid and certain. Salient's was first accurately charted last year by Old Timer as:
To lead students in the fulfilment of their responsibilities and the maintenance of their rights;To keep students informed of events in the college and what is of importance outside the college.To act as an honest muckraker in commentary on national and international affairs;To stimulate intellectual controversy; andTo create a V.U.C. consciousness by making students aware of the origins, traditions and purpose of Victoria College.
A turbulent history, including bannings and suspensions for various good and bad reasons since the first issue in
"The spirit of the times demands that any suggestion of Olympian grandeur or academic isolation from the affairs of the world should be dropped"—said the first issue.
Those views are still true and are today more relevant. At all times they were forthrightly advocated, occasionally brilliantly, but in the very persuasiveness of argument there was danger. Salient is an effective propaganda platform for any organised group with a policy which they wish to impose on the majority. In Salient's first year "Spike" (another Varsity publication) warned "beware of clique control."
A split developed in Salient's youthful personality. The spirit of free thought, a challenge to convention, the demand for reform was perverted to a one-sided expression of a codified, anti-social, political philosophy. That of left wing Socialism.
Salient began to return to tradition in
"It was not the Old Timer tradition, although of course many fainthearted and woolly-minded opposed that too, not the espousal of causes worthy and unworthy that rankled. The irritant was supplied by the red tradition with its own peculiar approach so often echoing, following and changing with the party line of Communism. Salient's mind was so made up, so blind to the protests of other people. . . ."
In a University paper a more impartial approach la necessary. A Salient editor, rightly unable to impose his view or refuse copy can only encourage impartiality by balancing copy if there is sufficient offering, correcting gross errors of fact and by use of the editorial."
A sufficient supply of lively copy from readers is the best defence against a monotonous parade of prejudice. Apathy on the part of ordinary readers will Invite party pro pagandists and amateur apologists to unbalance the content of Salient.
To guard against the misuse of Salient and to ensure that it becomes a strong and reasonable voice putting the case for all students:
Take a Subscription to Salient and Read Your Copy.
Write for it Either By Letters or in Articles.
Write and Ask to Join the Staff.
Come, if You are a Fresher to a Special Meeting for Freshers Early in the Term.
There is no need for Salient to comment on the third increase in examination fees in three years. When students have read the following balance sheet the position of many students will be dear enough.
Salient has assumed that the student is a part-time law student. Civil service salaries are higher but this student is on the award wage.
Debit with—No smokes, no beer, no dances, no pictures, no, newspaper, no books, no holidays.
In the case of this law student income will not equal expenditure untill he is in his fourth year at University. Fulltime students who are on bursaries would have to earn about £75 in the long vacation. Salient will report all Executive and N.Z.U.S.A. action on this matter.
Other students in other faculties are invited to send a balance-sheet to Salient for publication.
Stop Press: An inquiry has been instituted by NZUSA, and our Executive, has written to the Registrar asking for reasons.
This is the fiftieth tournament and all the officials listed on this page are working as hard as possible to make Tournament successful.
First requirement, and most difficult, is billets for 300 visitors. Faced with Training College's decision to hold their tournament in Wellington just a little while before the tournament organisers appeal to you.
Representatives from other colleges are coming on Friday the 11th for events including swimming, athletics, cricket, rowing, boxing, shooting, women's basketball and, of course, drinking horn.
Those who cannot volunteer for jobs could persuade parents and friends to billet a student or two. Billeting Officer Maurice O'Brien has three telephone numbers: 43-561, 46-387 (business), 84-281 (home), or assistant Ian Free: 77-476 (night), 42-316 (day). These are numbers you ring to leave your name or the name of anybody willing to take a student. Please leave particulars of your preferences. (No whispering, that stupid boy in front there!)
There are jobs for all students: helping with hops and dances, recording results, assisting at Operation H.Q. Please ring the Association Office, 40-726, and leave your name.
Weir House types should be interested in the Haka Party—the membership of that is an honour.
Make This Tournament a Jubilee in the Victoria Tradition!
Ken Phillips 77-659 (Night) 47-258 Extn. 786 (Day) Senior Delegate (Controller).
Trevor Turner, 81049 (Night) Junior Delegate.
Peter Chatwin, 43-563 (Day) Corresponding Delegate.
Maurice O'brien, 84-281 (Night) 43-561 (Day) Billeting Controller.
Ian Free 77-476 (Night), 42-361 (Day) Asst. Billeting Controller
Graham Patchett 240M (Night) 47-258 Ext. 738 (Day) Ways and Means Controller
Harold Titter, 45-012 (Night) 70-566 (Day) Financial Controller.
Des Dalgety, 43-136 (Night) 41- 045, 60-326 (Day) Entertainment Controller.
Denny Garrett, 40-759 (Night), 42-320, 42-780 (Day). Programme Controller.
Frank Curtin, 40-450 (Day) Headquarters Controller.
Ian Mitchell, 13-136 (Night) 43-150 (Day) Records Controller.
James Hogg, 87 Eastbourne, 43-000 (Day) Publicity Controller.
Gerry Fox, 28-426 (Night) 42- 106 (Day) Athletics Controller
Malcolm Hanna, 78-168. (Night) 53-533 (Day) Athletics Controller.
Lois Holland, 42-643 (Night) 43- 940 (Day) Tennis Controller
Malcolm McCaw, 45-012 (Night) 70-566 (Day) Cricket Controller.
Pip Piper, 27,596 (Day) Swimming.
Lance Colquhoun, 28-357 (Night), Women's Basketball Controller.
Les Smith, 54-380 (Night) 49800 Extn. 941 (Day) Rowing Controller
Vance Henderson, 41-602 (Night) 49-040 (Day) Shooting Controller Convener Jubilee Committee.
Bruce Brown, Boxing Controller.
300 Billets Wanted
Science Students are famous for ivory towerism. They come to University interested in nothing else, but science. Their Association Cards come in with one Club marked. Outside of that their minds and bodies appear to have no other interest.
This applies to a majority. They remove themselves from College life into their specialised field to specialise in knowing more and more about less and less.
Even the outbursts which activate the inert mass who are not interested in study leave them cold. Science is their god, their recreation, their everything. The University is poorer for all this disinterest and so are we, the students.
To vegetate scientifically requires concentration and hard work, but it rarely means good scientists. After a time even the science club of their choice falls from favour and a few bother to go to meetings. Maths and Physics, Biology, Chemistry Societies do not even receive the support of these specialists.
But it is not from among the ivory towerists, the vegetators, the disinterested, that the good scientists come.
If you must vegetate at least support your own Clubs and vegetate scientifically, but if your aim is to be a good scientist look for your First Class Honours outside as well as inside your own particular field.
Well, did you tick one Society on your Association Card?
Commerce Students are a great part of the dull grey flood, the lifeless mass.
If it appears that Salient preacheth too much, having homilised science students on the opposite side of the page; it is only a storm warning.
The ivory towers of science are higher than the temples of commerce. Ivory towerists ignore University affairs from the beginning. A pretence of interest does not occur to them.
When the active students take rash action or even take action at all the dull grey flood roars up pretending to have been interested in College affairs all the time. Sometimes they take action. Often they moan loudly, often and long about our "irresponsible."
They never attend meetings. Don't bother to vote. Salient is unknown to them. Other Sports Clubs claim their loyalty. Culture is a naughty word somehow associated with long hair poets and is definitely "not done." Drama, debating, poetry readings and lectures are outside their ken.
In New Zealand Commerce graduates filter in to influential bodies such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturers Federation and others. In these organisations narrow minds do no good and although it is from them that support for better Universities should come it often does not. Far seeing minds in New Zealand will rarely be seen certifying balance sheets if the flood remains: dull, grey and mainly commercial.
Published for the Victoria University Students' Association and printed by the Standard Press. 25a Marion St., Wellington.