Recollections and Reflections.

Tournament, as well as providing an outlet for hilarity and physical strife, affords an excellent opportunity for comparing ourselves with the other Colleges and for learning from their advantages. Every college has a different atmosphere, a different centre of activity. In some respects we feel a lack in our own College, and it is this realisation of some missing element which must precede an improvement in any sphere. In some respects we feel that they can learn from as—a realisation which will make us treasure more keenly the advantages we already possess. Self-criticism has not been lacking at Victoria, and a brief survey of the other Colleges reveals that our main difficulty lies in the fact that we are in a bigger and busier city. It is remarkable how most of the greater universities abroad are situated in otherwise relatively unimportant towns.

Here the greater proportion of students resident in Wellington and the greater activity in the city mean that home and city social life form a powerful counter-attraction to university social activities. Our problem, then, is not so much one of multiplying and diversifying activity as of mass participation in any College affairs—of putting the College first in a mass of conflicting loyalties.

Another sphere in which comparison reveals us backward is that of securing greater student control in matters that concern us. Last year C.U.C. pushed with some success the question of student representation on the Council (an issue that was prominent at V.U.C. a few years ago), and they also have an excellently managed residential college entirely controlled by the students in residence. At Otago the president of the Students' Association is a member of the board concerned with disciplinary measures against students. These are indications of a movement which must be advanced much further yet.