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Salient. The Newspaper of Victoria University College. Vol. 20, No. 4. May 3, 1956
[Introduction]
Philosophy was the order of the day at the Debating Club on Friday, March 20. The subject was for this, the Staff-Student debate "That the line must be drawn somewhere" and the authority of Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Hobbes, and Professor Hughes was invoked during the course of the argument Simple souls frightened of "intellectual snobbery" might have wilted, but everyone else enjoyed it.
Walker spoke last. Accordingly Mr. Rowe opened for the staff. Drawing the line was practical, not merely abstract, he said. It was the essence of balanced life; only extremists refused to do so. Leading the students was Whitta, who criticised national boundaries as being barriers to the unity of mankind.
Things warmed up when Mr. Brookes moved on to weightier matters like fashion. There must be a line drawn somewhere between the ankle and the . . er . . . ; and again between the neck and ... a point he was not prepared to specify. If the student team did not draw the line he would be forced to conclude they were anarchists, nudists, libertins and gluttons, therefore quite beyond the pale.
Replying to the charge of nudism Miss Jackson was unfortunate enough to begin, "Now I'm going to show you . . ." Cheers drowned the rest. Hobbes, she said, was out of date, and to prove it she went on to quote Witgenstein, Ayer and Ryle. Mr. Braybrooke was a "blurred concept," she said, though "quite workable.