Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 6, No. 1. March 01, 1943

Editorial — "Salient of 1943."

Editorial

"Salient of 1943."

It is not without pride that we realise that Salient of 1943 faces a far brighter prospect in the world than did Salient of last year. We are now accustomed to the idea of war closer to our shores, our troops are proving their great worth in the Near East and we can name many hundred V.U.C. students among them. Moreover at home here we are able to work on the National Production Front. These are not mere words, we are proud of our students, those in essential work here and especially those in the forces.

The war has taken from our ranks many of the senior students, but also it has brought it home as never before that what happens in the world around is of vital importance to us. It can no longer pass as clever for a student to be apolitical—the first issue of Salient some years ago announced its intention of bringing the students into a proper consciousness of importance of decisions token by the leaders of our own and other countries. Salient has an anti-fascist history of which we are proud—in 1938 for loyalist Spain, and throughout its history against fascism generally, and now more than ever in the intensification of the struggle we can say that this war is to our mind the most important news and the most important issue.

Message to Students

This New Year, 1943, not like its predecessor, is one that begins in an atmosphere of renewed confidence in an earlier victory for the United Nations. No longer are the lights going out over Europe, but on the contrary not an unsubstantial portion of the Fascist occupied countries are experiencing their first taste, after many years, of regained freedom. In all countries, both occupied and unoccupied. University students have played an active part in the struggle against Fascism. In New Zealand, the greater majority are either in the armed forces or on essential work. Both spheres are equally important, for without one the other must be a nonentity.

For many students 1943 will be their first year at a University. To these I extend our welcome. Yours is an onerous task, for this country of ours needs trained men and women, and needs them quickly. That Victoria can excel in the academic field is evident from her outstanding success in securing the major number, of scholarships awarded last year for the whole of New Zealand. But we need men and women trained not only in Academics but also in the art of extending and cementing of our democracy. It is unfortunately true that, some students pass through the Universities as mere recorders of received knowledge. They no part in that centres around the cultural and social activities of the College. Society is a loser thereby. For the citizen who is an automaton's an easy prey for the dictator. The facilities of debating drama, and discussion of every kind are at the hand of the willing student as are the numerous sporting organisations. These are your preserves, your privileges—do not hesitate to use them.

The Executive of the Students' Association has decided to pursue an active social and cultural policy. There will be tea, dances, lectures, a Capping Week, and perhaps a Students' Congress, amongst many other events. In all these things we will need your co-operation, your support, and above all your assistance.

To our Training College friends I wish to extend our New Year Greetings, and hope that the same spirit that pervaded our relations last year will be continued in this.

Finally, let us make 1943 a year not only of academic achievement but also one in which our social and cultural activities are equal to, if not surpass, those of previous years. If we do this I think we will have done something tangible to maintain those traditions of progress that Victoria University Colleges has so meritoriously acquired.

M. L. Boyd

, President.

What every Undergraduate should Know.

The Shadow over New Zealand—venereal Disease.

This publication is as difficult to review as it must have been to write. Venereal disease is at the same time unlicensed game for bathroom butts and the occasion of much spinsterly oohing and aching. To be buoyant and not offensive, sober without being pontifical, these are the beacons between which the middle course must be steered. Judged by these standards, "The Shadow" does pretty well most of the time, and is quite the best of its kind that has come our way.

Sociologists, historians, statisticians, lawyers and moralists (the grouping is fortuitous and not necessarily in descending order) will all find crumbs in it, but the real meal for the man-in-the-street (and student, that's you) is undoubtedly Dr. Blanc's section on the medical aspects of venereal disease. Simple written, without technical abracadabra, we lay a sizeable side-bet that it will bring heretofore unrevealed knowledge to fully 90 per cent, of our readers. Let him or her use the rest of the pamphlet for shaving paper, this portion is a Must with three stars, on the reading list of every boy-or-girl-about-town. And even, perhaps more so, stay-at-homes too. Factual Footnotes: Price 1/-, Size: pages 40, Publishers: Progressive Publicity Society. Sources of supply: Modern Books and all other intelligent dealers. Not Railway Bookstalls.

(There will be a lecture on the subject of Venereal disease, early in the series to he sponsored by the Executive, by Dr. Hubert Smith.)

Four Films.

When Calvin Coolidge came home after his first visit to Sunday school has grandmother asked him what the parson had talked about.

"He talked about Sin" said Calvin.

"What did he say about Sin?"

"He was against it."

So let me begin my account of the four films that I saw during the holidays by saying that they were about the War and in favour of it.

Three of them can be dealt with very shortly.

About "Prisoner of Japan" it will be as well to say nothing at all except that in an indirect way it fulfills the highest tests of tragic art—if one turns one's attention from the film itself to the audience for whose pleasure it was designed, one is seized with powerful feelings of pity and terror. "Sergeant York" begins very well—the account of York's early religious experiences was particularly effective—and ends very badly I suppose heroism does involve an element of something very like vulgarity but not like the kind which disfigures the second half of this film. The Russian film "In the Rear of the Enemy", is a simple tale of action which I enjoyed very much; I could have wished that the hero had not found it necessary to announce he was throwing his second to last hand grenade on behalf of the old folks at home and (the last was for Comrade Stalin) but a Bolshevik friend assures me that this was a substitution for something obscene in the Russian dialogue.

"Mrs. Miniver" has been criticised by various people because it deals with the upper classes and shouldn't, this being a people's war. But it seemed to me that its Value lay in the representation of the impact of war upon happiness—or rather the happiness of the ordinary sensual man or woman—of which the elements (sex, security and gratified vanity) are the same for people in all classes but are most easily available to the wealthy. That happiness is not usually questioned even in peace-time and by the most drastic of our revolutionaries who merely urge that we should enable more people to enjoy it. So I am not disposed to denounce its rather naive apotheosis in this film. For its preservation is surely the most honest and least dangerous of war aims, unlike aspirations regarding the Dignity of the Human Spirit with which, indeed, it can hardly be reconciled.

Club Secretaries.

The club secretaries are listed below, except in one or two cases where the secretary has resigned and as it was impossible to get the information regarding the new secretaries in time other officials of the clubs are listed.

  • Athletic Club: I. D. Morton.
  • Basketball Club: Miss M. Parsons.
  • Biological Society: H. Marwick.
  • Boxing Club: R. L. Oliver.
  • Catholic Students Guild: Miss S. M. Moriarty.
  • Chemical Society: R. N. Seelye.
  • Cricket Club: J. Seater.
  • Debating Society: Mrs. M. Boyd
  • Dramatic Society: Miss Cecil Crompton.
  • Evangelical Union: Miss Jean Brown.
  • Football Club: O. J. Creed.
  • Glee Club: Miss N. Langford.
  • Gramophone Committee: Miss J. Bogle.
  • Gymnasium Club: Miss M. Wicks.
  • Harrier Club: F. O'Kane.
  • Men's Hockey Club: A. C. Ives.
  • Men's Common Room Committee: J. W. Winchester.
  • International Relations: J. W. Winchester.
  • Mathematics and Physics Society: C. S. Ramage.
  • Law Faculty Club: K. G. Gibson.
  • Phoenix Club: H. Witherford.
  • Photographic Club: M. S. Grinlington.
  • Rowing Club: D. V. Henderson.
  • Social Committee: H. Williamson.
  • Student Christian Movement: Miss M. Orr.
  • Swimming Club: Miss H. Harirson.
  • Table Tennis Club: R. Hannan.
  • Tennis Club: M. O'Connor.
  • Tramping Club: D. Saker.
  • Weir House Association: G. R. [unclear: Swinburn].
  • Women's Common Room Committee: Miss A. [unclear: McMorran].
  • Women's Hockey Club: Miss S. Mason.