LIFE AT SYDNEY, UNIVERSITY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 187, 4 May 1940, Page 13

LIFE AT SYDNEY, UNIVERSITY

Professor’s Account

COMPARISON MADE WITH VICTORIA COLLEGE

Life at. Sydney University was described by ProfessQr R. O. McGechan, Wellington, when delivering the Victoria University College capping speech in the Town Hall last night.

Comparing tlie capping ceremony there with that of Victoria College, he said that in Sydney the ceremony took place in the great, hall of the University, a Gothic building already verging on 70 years old. There was un atmosphere of solemnity and a dim light, and everything took place accordingly. The number of graduands who came to receive degrees was indicated by the length of the ceremony, which lasted two hours. As in New Zealand, the students held an annual extravaganza, though they called it by a different name. There women students also participated; a ballet by women undergraduates recently won the prize for the best performance Ri the extravaganza. On such occasions as the senate did not prohibit It, the students also held a procession through the streets. It was thoroughly enjoyed by the public, the police offered no resistance —but after two years or so it had a habit of fading out for the next two or three years. There were two undergraduate journals, but uone exactly corresponding to the Victoria College publication. “H-oni Solt” was a weekly elglit-page newspaper devoted to university life. It avoided politics, however. If an Australian undergraduate was interested in polities, it was the natural thing for him to take an active part in tlie Australian politics of the day. The other paper. “Hermes,” was a literary periodical of very high standard. Life at Sydney University did not centre round the undergraduate body. The organization called the Union, comprising both students and staff, kept the undergraduates, graduates and staff in much closer fellowship than anything in existence at Victoria College. He would like to see a similar body established there. The Sydney University Union offered all the facilities of a club, and gave senior and junior members of the university valuable opportunities of meeting one another.