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The Spike or Victoria College Review, June 1905

[editorial]

"Without regret for what is gone You bid old customs change."

Cochrane.

There sat along the forms like morning doves That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, A patient range of students.

Tennyson.

Image of devil hammering nail through mortarboard

A

At the last meeting of the Association a letter from the Registrar of the University was brought before the notice of the students in which it was announced that unless Diploma Day proceedings were more orderly in future, the public conferring of degrees would have to be discontinued. The Chancellor also took occasion, in his address to the Senate at Auckland, to comment very unfavourably on the behaviour of the students of some of the Colleges at Degree meetings. He complained that no opportunity was given for the discussion of questions of University Education and that the conduct of the students was such that it would be wrong to invite anyone to speak at such functions on educational subjects.

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Although we do not think that the conduct of students at Wellington last Capping Day was such as to merit this severe criticism, yet it may be admitted that there was perhaps some room for improvement. In the past, Capping Day has been looked upon by the students as a time of licensed disorder, whereas the authorities have, in most cases, ignored the existence of undergraduates altogether. Students have not hitherto regarded the consideration of educational questions as the primary object of the meeting—they have even imagined that Degree Day without speeches would perhaps be preferable.

We think, however, that the authorities have acted unwisely in the past in not giving them a recognised place in the ceremonies.

We understand that for the coming celebration the Students' Association will submit a programme for the approval of the Registrar, who has promised to consider it favourably, and to so arrange matters as to allow some intervals for amusement during the course of the afternoon. With this concession the students ought to be satisfied, and as the Association, on their behalf, has promised to discountenance any disorderliness we are confident that this year there will be nothing to complain of. It is recognised that it is not the occasional witty interjection that is annoying to the speakers, but the trouble is that, in a great many cases, the humour of a remark is only apparent to the interjector and that the interruptions tend to degenerate into mere noise, intolerable alike to speakers and audience.

With this we do not think the great majority of the students have any sympathy, for they can clearly see that meetings like that to which the Chancellor took exception are obstacles in the way of bringing about that closer union of University and civic life which it is one of the aims of our College to promote.

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We have much pleasure in congratulating P. W. Robertson, M.A. on his selection as second Rhodes Scholar. When passed over last year in favour of Mr Thomson it was felt by his fellow students that though they would have liked to have the honour of claiming the first scholar as a Victoria College man, yet his final election was in any case only deferred, and the delay might be to his ultimate advantage. It was hardly doubted that his recognised ability would ensure him the honour of being the next chosen to represent New Zealand at the University of Oxford.

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The fact that he was chosen in preference to such a representative as C. F. Cook of Canterbury, gives us every confidence that he will do more than hold his own at Oxford—even though there are gathered there the brightest intellects from all parts of the English-speaking world.

In another part of this issue will be found an account of his multifarious accomplishments inserted for the encouragement—or otherwise—of his fellow collegians.

Robertson's future career will be watched with the keenest interest by his friends in New Zealand. They confidently look forward to a time when his name will be as well-known in the world of science as that of that other brilliant scientist, Professor Rutherford.

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It is our duty on behalf of the students to congratulate Sir Robert Stout on his election as Chairman of the College Council during the present year. It is particularly appropriate that the Chancellor of the University should be appointed to fill this position at a time so important in the history of the College as the present. The new College buildings will, we hope, be opened during his term of office and it was evidently recognised by the Council that his appointment would be the most fitting one that could be made in view of the services rendered by him to the College ever since its inception.

The new chairman's work on behalf of University Education in the Middle District, and in particular the interest he has always shown in anything pertaining to the welfare of Victoria College, are too well known to all students to need recapitulation here. They remember with appreciation the stand he took with regard to the question of appealing to the public for subscriptions towards the Building Fund. In this matter he made it clear that he did not share the curious views of personal dignity held by some members of the Council whose sense of what wa due to their position was wounded by the thought of appealing to the public for that help, which, at the time, the Government was unable to give.

Had the scheme been taken up with the enthusiasm, and supported with the generosity, shown in other parts of the Colony on behalf of similar objects, he might have had the pleasure of opening a building more worthy of the City—a building which, in architecture and equipment, might vie with the American page 8 colleges, a description of which he gave in his address last Diploma Day.

This desirable consummation will not be obtained, it is to be feared, for some considerable time, but meanwhile, what we have already obtained, and what is promised, we owe, in a great measure to Sir Robert. There can be no doubt that his unceasing advocacy of the claims of University Education on a progressive country has done much to awaken both Parliament and people to the necessity of providing more liberally for its extension in the future. He has done much, too, to dissipate the notion that college training is too far divorced from practical life to be of any real use to anyone not entering on a professional career — a notion which, we need hardly say, is not held by such unpractical people as the Americans and Germans. With them all classes seem to have been long awake to a fact which he is always impressing on our citizens, that a liberally endowed system of University Educationis not now to be considered a luxury but has become a national necessity.

Publications Received.

We have to acknowledge the receipt of a large number of new books, for which we hereby thank the authors. To review each work as it deserves even at reasonable length is. we regret to say, quite beyond the possibilities of our space; but it may be said without exaggeration that there is none of them which does not contain a mine of useful information, as the names of the distinguished authors mentioned below should alone suffice to indicate. We give the titles of the books and the authors' names:—"The Life-History of a Great Statesman, or the Rise of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P." with a eulogy of his far-reaching Fiscal Policy, by P. J. O'Regan, dedicated to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce; "A Short Road to University Degrees, or How to Avoid the Painful Process of Swatting," by the Bight Hon. R. J. Seddon, P.C., L.L.D., Cantab., dedicated to "My Constituents"; "My First Drink, or How I Looked on the Wine when it was Red," by A. R. Atkinson, B.A., dedicated to "My Hapless Companion, Tommy Taylor M.H.R."; "Humbugs," a lecture by Dr. Findlay, L.L.D., and dedicated to "The Average Politician"—without permission.