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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 15, No. 1. March 5, 1952

Gustave Misses the Bus

Gustave Misses the Bus

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.