Sentiment?

What this College needs is a little bit of patriotism, or even parochialism, if you prefer to call it that Such a spirit, if not carried too far, is good for any group or body. We are afraid to cheer the Green and Gold" because we fear that we will be scorned as sentimentalists. We are self conscious and adolescent. We fear that we will make ourselves into schoolboys shouting for school. Under the leadership of cynics we have wrapped ourselves in a cloak of pseudo-detachment, and scorn the enthusiasms of our youth. We attend Victoria, we play for Victoria, but. (save, perhaps in moments of hilarious abandon) we would not think of being proud of the fact. It is not a thing which has happened suddenly, but it is an outlook which has developed over the years, having its, roots, in the materialist outlook of the 'thirties, or even earlier. We scorn pride, because we have been taught that it is beneath us, and in scorning pride, we have rejected self respect.

In a sense it is a revulsion from the jingoism, and the "rah, rah, rah!" of the first worId war years, and it has been bred into us in generations of "Salients," and formerly, "Cappicades," We have been faught to scorn the emotions because they lead us into war; we have been told that we must be guided by our heads, and not by our hearts; love, we are told, is an emotion, so love for Victoria must go. Its place is to be taken by cynicism and contempt for those who feel deeply about the University to which they belong. In this atmosphere, team spirit, and unity in the University, cannot live.

We are not told these things in so many words; it is something which has insinuated itself as a by-product of something else. It is the attitude bred from the slogan "we will not fight for King and Country." The leaders of student opinion in this college in the past have worked well. They aimed at criticising institutions which were "British" and there fore imperialist. They did not succeed in implanting a scorn for "the Empire," but they went a long way towards it. They shook our faith in patriotism and taught us that it was wrong. This faith, though alive to some degree in the higher level, has been destroyed in its lower levels, for they were not capable of withstanding the sustained attack. Thus we have no patriotism for Victoria, for we feel that patriotism is false.

When we came here, we came to this tradition, already firmly established. We were caught up in it and accepted it. We look with scorn upon those who felt for "the old clay patch" and "the Green and Gold." and forget that they have made better citizens than any of us will ever make, and that their contribution to society it such that we can only hope to emulate them.

We do not suggest that we should abandon ourselves to an orgy of flag waving. All we do suggest is that we should think, occasionally, of Victoria as an "Alma Mater," and not just as "Vic." Some self respect would not go amiss.

—F.L.C.