Fd O - ! S STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE, 1933
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S I STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE, 1933 Back row: D. J. M. Glover, Miss F. Webb, W. E. Parrott (assistant secretary), Miss R. W. Collins, I. Milner, A. H. Andrews. Front row: N. L. Uniacke (treasurer). Miss J. E. Bull (women’s vice-president), J. G. D. Ward (president), B. A. Banter (men’s vice- president), E. H. Carew (secretary). n 7° P f l > fD O - ! I 93B I 2S' OQ < n > Canterbury College Review Number eighty-five October 1933 W. M. Brookes, Editor D. J. M. Glover, R. T. Clarke, J. H. T. Cumow, Associates C. F. Hart, Business Manager. Editorial Notes 5 Go Not to Lethe J. Patrick Robertson 7 Poetry and Propaganda John Curnow 12 Cartoon Ken 13 On Reading Dickens Again lan Milner 16 The Harmony of Height Denis Glover 18 Storm Dawn Denis Glover 19 Sonnet & J. M. De Heredia John Cumow 20 Reveur John Cumow 20 The New Symposium Walter Brookes 20 A Plea for Compulsory Military Training Denis. Glover 23 “On the Road” B.C.D. 24 The Bed for Sweet Peas M. 24 Lino-cut F. Akins 25 Water’s Edge Walter Brookes 27 Mors Amoris Walter Brookes 27 Legions of Spring Ian Milner 27 The Wapse in the Apse Denis Glover 28 Pootles Denis Glover 29 Only a Tree in the Sun M. Hope Parker 33 Praeterita si Referat John Cumow 33 Cavalcade of Canta R. 34 The Thief J. Patrick Robertson 36 The Storm M. 37 Graduates Notes 37 Graduates 1933 39 Club Notes 41 THE LIBRARY Ca n t e r b u r y u n iv e r sity college! CHRISTCHURCH, N.Z, Editorial Notes Freedom of Speech THERE HAS been, some little trouble this year over the ques tion of student publications, and the liberty of speech allowed to them. Now that the commotion has died down two things stand out. The first is that the right of free utterance often seems more commendable before others take advantage of it. The second is that when they have taken advantage of it, all attempts to mitigate the effects of what has been said only result, ultimately, in emphasising these effects. Degrees and Culture THERE NEED be no cultural disadvantage in taking a degree course at the University and sitting the necessary examinations. But the student who devotes his disinterested attentions to culture often comes to grief between November 1 and 19—if terms have not already wrecked him. The correlation between liberal intellectual development and the acquisition of a degree is not sufficiently complete. The altruistic cultivation of literary art in the columns of Canta, for instance, finds no academic reward: “Dear Mr Y,—you are requested to take the College annual examination in Sanscrit III., to be held, etc.” This Is Education THE TROUBLE with education in New Zealand is that we had such an advanced conception of it in 1910 that we have not bothered to make enough alterations since. Countries consider ably behind us then, which have since effected radical reforms, are now ahead of us. It is time we studied our own needs, intelligently modifying our respect for such studies as were considered necessary when things were different. The grim energy generally shown in acquiring the culture embodied in a degree is not in accordance with the spirit of that culture. 5 What Is Needed IT SEEMS that more real education often results from question ing and resisting instruction than from complacently accepting it. The student is not at the University to learn and to express right views as so predetermined by authority, but to study the views of others and to express his own, irrespective of how they may change in the next twenty years. Only by such active methods can an academic career have real value. But then it is too easy to dogmatize about what education should be when it is considered apart from its interaction with every day life. If we ask for freedom of expression, we must remjem- ber that we must ask, not individuals, but economic conditions to grant it. Valedictory TWO MEMBERS of the College staff are leaving at the end of this year. PROFESSOR T. G. R. BLUNT Professor Blunt has occupied the chair of modern languages since 1901. Having spent a considerable time in France and Germany, after leaving Oxford, he has always inspired his stu dents with an enthusiasm for the study of the literature of these countries. This, as well as Professor Blunt’s close association with College sports activities will make his resignation keenly regretted, not only by those who worked under him, but also by all who knew him. MR C. D. HARDIE Mr Hardie has beep College librarian since 1926, when he was relieving the late Mr H. D. Andrews in an honorary capacity. On the death of Mr Andrews, Mr Hardie resigned from the Board of Governors to take over the position permanently. A graduate of Canterbury College, he has always been connected with education, in teaching and as inspector of schools. The library will suffer a severe loss in the resignation of Mr Hardie. 6 Go Not To Lethe SOME MEN make time pass in one way and some in another. It was Peter Sacrament’s pleasure to torment his wife. By dint of much practice he had become most adept in this neither arduous nor novel sport. So fair a field had he in his wife Martha for the exercise of ingenious cruelty that once married he never looked abroad for new victims of torture. In this way Martha Sacrament, that simple soul, might well be regarded as a benefactor to the comm]tmity. Mr Sacrament did not neglect the delights of physical pain. But his greatest joy was to give his wife mental anguish. Martha Sacrament had a constant dread of public opinion. In particular she was most abjectly afraid lest her two boarders, Mr Plum) and Mr Limpet, should know how unhappy her marriage was. It was her husband’s custom in the privacy of their sitting-room to play such merry games as twisting Martha’s arm or sharply buffeting her cheek, at the same time daring her to scream and so let the boarders in the next room know what mischief was afoot. To vary the fun he would throttle her to the point of choking. She scarcely ventured even to struggle. If in his excessive enthusiasm for these pastimes he went per haps a trifle too far and even Martha Sacrament was compelled to give the faintest of shrieks, he would go into the next room and explain with an indulgent smile: “The missus seen a mouse, she did.” His real artistry was shown at the table. There all his remarks had double sense. The plain meaning was for the boarders’ ears. There was a second inner meaning for the hurt of Martha Sacrament. At times he would make veiled reference to the drunkenness of his wife’s mother, old Sarah Heel". On other occasions he would let hints fall about his own two bastard children, Peter and Jerry Dewdrop. The rattling of these innocuous skeletons in the Sacrament cupboard gave his wife the most pleasing anguish. Often he would swear bawdy oaths and make improper allusions. Or else he would suggest that he was on the point of divorcing his wife. “—And not without cause, eh, Martha?” he would leer. Such playful jests brought no smile to his wife’s sallow cheeks. 7 Her cloistered girlhood had made her prim and prudish. She lacked that tolerant sense of humour which responds to a man’s lighter moods. So far was she in fact from entering into her husband’s whimsies and merry sports with that understanding spirit which it behoves a dutiful wife to show, that often when the fun was most furious she used to rise from the table with inexplicable tears in her eyes. She would say to Mr Plum, and Mr Limpet, “Don’t mind me, young gentlemen. My mother’s heart’s that bad and I’m that worried I don’t hardly know what I’m doin’.” Then she would go into her kitchen and look lovingly at her trim gas-stove. Its fumes were soothing balm- to her nostrils, potent to waft away from) those ardent attentions of Mr Sacrament that she so little appreciated. With eager anticipation she thought of that restful bed six feet under the billowy grass, that she so easily might substitute for the merry couch she shared with her husband. Nor did Mr Sacrament dissuade her from such courses. He would follow her into the kitchen and, slamming the door so that the boarders m(ight not hear, would say: “Gas yourself, great lazy bitch. Who’ll miss you?” But some streak of mulish obstinacy, the sheer animal deter mination to live, held her back from those perfumed streams of comfort and oblivion. Some voice within her seemed to counsel that if she went on enduring her husband’s varied amusements without complaint, she would in the end find solace and reward. However delusive that voice was, it is true that one afternoon in early October a change came in her fortune. For some time at least Mr Sacrament was compelled to seek his carefree sport in other quarters. The day was sunny and very hot. In such weather Mr Sacra ment’s spirit of fun was most active, his mind most ingenious in devising new modes of torture and amusement. When rain fell and the wind was high, his vein of pure artistry would be sullied by a base current of geniality and compassion.