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The Spike or Victoria College Review, June 1903

[editorial]

"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host That he which hath no stomack to this fight Let him depart.

* * * *

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers: For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother."

King Henry V.

(Published Twice in the Session)

sketch of devil hammering nail in mortarboard

It is more than four years, O students, since the pioneers of A. Victoria College first gathered together at the Girls' High School. They have been years of toil, and, on the whole, years of toil rewarded. Our successes have not been conspicuous, neither have they been insignificant. Measured in University degrees we have not been found wanting; of B.A.'s and M.A.'s we have a goodly crop. Our commercial friends, who aggregate the magic letters before they strike a balance, may even find some day that Victoria College is paying a dividend.

With such calculations, however, The Spike has little concern. Arithmetic never was our strong point, and we are very much more interested to know that there has grown up in four years a College life and a College spirit of which some older institutions would be proud. We have a Tennis Club page 6 which boasts nearly fifty members, Hockey and Football Clubs which together put fifty-two men into the field every Saturday. We have a Debating Society full of life, and a Magazine bound over "to strengthen the bonds of union and goodfellowship amongst us," which has been described by almost every epithet except "dead." Both students and Professors have laboured to make our homeless College less of a cram-shop and more and more a centre of vigorous mental, moral, and physical culture, held together by ties of common interest and animated by that spirit of esprit de corps which is the boast of English school and University life the world over.

There is no student who cannot add something to the social welfare of the College through one or other of its institutions. We have no quarrel with those who think they have no time for anything but "swat," though we believe ourselves they are labouring under a profound mistake. They must, however, recognise that they reduce the College to the dead level of a night-school, and that their University degree is no earnest of a true University career. There is, however, another class of student to whom The Spike desires an introduction.

There can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who has conceived the idea of a University spirit that to a member of a College the needs of his College club must take precedence over the needs of any similar outside club. If proof were necessary it would be found in the traditions and practice of every famous university of the world. Now, as Victoria College does not happen to be a famous university college, and as, moreover, it can hold out no very dreadful "sanction" for an act of defection, and as, again, it happens to be easier to support an assured cause than to strive for a doubtful one, some students have taken the less heroic course and have deserted the College in her hour of need. It is probable that had this spirit been absent a Ladies' Hockey Club would now be flying the colours of Victoria College. It is certain that the Football Club would have been greatly strengthened and the Hockey Club placed in the front rank in both classes. Here, again, The Spike cannot strike deep, for the constitution of the New Zealand University provides for students who wish to attend "night-school." We are, however, sorry that our friends have not risen to a nobler ideal, and Would ask them to consider the position from what we believe to be a higher point of view.

But if The Spike is to do its duty, "dealing out to each and all their just meed of blame or praise without, fear, prejudice, or favour," it has one word more. It has a right to demand from every member of that Committee to which the students look for page 7 guidance and control a whole-hearted support in the cause of College unity. It has the same claim over those who accept the highest honour the College can bestow—representation at the Easter Tournaments. To accept the benefits and rewards and refuse the struggle and the toil seems to us to be unworthy of the men who have done so, and to promise that when they look the position fairly in the face they will join hands with those who would have Victoria College a great and noble influence in the land and not merely a factory for producing isolated and degreed cyclopædias.

It is our pleasing duty, on behalf of the students, to welcome Professor Kirk to our College. The Professor Biology has already infected his students with something of his own enthusiasm, and we are assured that the College Council will have no reason to regret its latest appointment.

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