The Twenties

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 1924, when, after much controversy, the club defended "Bolshevism" against a visiting team from Oxford. Other international visits followed, until, in 1929 a Victoria College team was touring the United States and Canada.

The twenties saw, too, the arrival of the ebullient Boyd Wilson, the merry Murphy, and a new librarian, a Rhodes Scholar, Harold Miller.