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 1874 the University of New Zealand—" an institution on which men have recorded their sentiments from time to time with fury, loathing and despair; but never with the passion of love"—was set up as an examining body. "It had a Chancellor and a Senate but it had no students, no teachers, no library and no habitation." Canterbury College and Otago University affiliated. Then an 1882 Bill founded Auckland University. The Government was clear that it had done enough for higher education.

"Bad Fairy"

In 1884 there appeared Sir Robert Stout, of the bushy beard and deceiving smile. His concept of universities was that each should specialise. He presented his intentions for Wellington in a Bill—"I do not think it necessary that much expense should be incurred in starting a college at Wellington. All that need be aimed at, first, would be part of the arts course." Then, a combination with the museum would create a chair of geology, and evening classes would provide the necessary qualifications for law clerks and civil servants.

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 1897. The College Council first met the next year, deciding that the university should be in Wellington and have four chairs: Classics, English language and literature, Mathematics and physics, and chemistry. The arrival of the professors in 1899 forced the decision on accommodation. Rooms were taken at the Technical School in Victoria Street and at the Girls' High School in Thorndon.

The Foundation Four

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 1899 was an annus mirabilis. A Student Society leapt into activity. The Debating Society was founded. Sport was represented by a Tennis Society. In 1901 there was a Hockey Club with 11 members and in 1902 the first Winter Tournament (we advertise the 50th on our back page) was held; 1902 also saw the first publication of "Spike," a periodical with a point. (So pointed, indeed, that the first issue had to be reprinted.)

Almost before those hundred knew it they were a Universitas a body corporate.

"The Old Clay Patch"

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 1909, not 1952!)

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!

The Von Zedlitz Case

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."

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.

Weir House

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 1914 a government subsidy was payable, pound for pound. £150.000! It was more than staggering, it was incredible. Incredible it turned out to be." After the site was acquired, the plans drawn up, the Government reneged and amended the Act to limit its subsidy on any bequest to £25,000. The cut subsidy prevented the original plans being carried out, a block was abandoned, and the accommodation much reduced. "Nevertheless for a minority, at least, there could be experience of a corporate life."

The Thirties

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 1935, "Smad" (Sapientia Magis Auro Desideranda) was founded as a fortnightly to "proclaim the natural rights of students." After a bright start it fizzled and was replaced by "Salient." Over everything loomed the shadows of war. Students were united in their opposition to dictatorship and dispassionately "decided their choice of duty, and served principles that were compelling because they were thought out."

The Forties

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 1947, and the "Gotwald telegram" incident of 1948 discredited it, and the Socialist Club, in the eyes of many.

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.

And Now . . .

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!