Editorial

Speaking ns one of ourselves and not in the editorial sense, we are hound to say that, much as we shrink from patting ourselves on the back, we have reason and to spare to feel a glow of righteous—not to say sanctimonious—satisfaction with our self-restraint and courtly hearing throughout the excitement of Capping Week, a period always vibrating with galvanic possibilities.

The students generally were what Hums would have called "unco' guid," and the Kellog Peace Pact was left simply nowhere, especially during the Capping Ceremony. Since in academic groves, as in lay walks of life, processions have ever been held responsible for much, this may in part have been due to the absence of a Capping Procession—but only in small part; nor was it that the students were intimidated with any fear of Alma Maternal abjurgation. We know that they were mainly actuated by the desire to keep faith with all who sponsored and organised the Capping Ceremony this year on the assurance that there would be no super-ebullition of. shall we say. the impetuosity of Young Men.

Tame, some thought the Ceremony, and to many it must have seemed so in contrast to the turbulence, albeit well-intentioned, of former years. But, since there seems to be no practicable via media between Gargantuan self-expression by the students and Qunker-like orderliness, may we hope that as the years pass this Ceremony will gather around it a tradition of solemnity and even a measure of grandeur, as in some other Universities?

After all, the Capping Ceremony is the one occasion when the Council, the Professorial Board, and the students are together in formal contact with the public, and for this it is surely worth while to reserve that one hour in all the year to give "the Dons on the dais serene" a break, and the public a glimpse of the potential virtue which resides in the student heart.

Our word on it, the stout men of the College will lose none of their pristine repute for spiritedness by so doing. We have not the slightest wish to walk in their midst as an apostle of gloom (even we have our moments of elation!), but by experience we are now fully convinced that the observance of a certain degree of orderliness is a sine qua non of any Capping Ceremony conducted under the aegis of the College; and we feel we are not at odds with the generality of student opinion when we lend our voice to the one and only procedure which will ensure that end.

Another thing, there is no earthly need for the sum-total of Capping Week mirth and hilarity to be diminished one jot or tittle: we even think Capping Week as a whole could do with a good deal of gingering up, and judging what the students have succeeded this year in making of a procession less Capping Week, in spite of the decimating shears clipping voraciously at their cowering incomes and chill penury looming in the middle distance, the outlook for the future is most promising. And so may we go on and on, bigger and better than ever.

* * * *

The Spirit of Unrest is abroad in the land—you may hear the beating of his wings.

In these troublous times of civil strife the general conduct of students in all their public and semi-public undertakings last term was all the more noticeable, and it was all the more commendable; and their collective achievements against the heavy odds of an inexorably pertinacious Depression are entirely to their credit.

Doubtless some carping critics may point to certain blemishes in this Joseph's Coat, but after taking thought we are not of their counsels.

Are students the world over by nature "retired as noonday dew"? No. Are they given to stark repression of youthful vim? No. Are they as a class traditional supporters of the existing order of things? No. Yet, in the recent free-for-all did they upset fruit-carts and other more ambitious vehicles? No. Did they hurl bicycles and spare parts of a wheelbarrow through windows? No. Did they cry "Scab"? A dozen more searching questions, and twice as many sturdy No's!

And so the Joseph's Coat barely requires patching: