BOISTEROUS COLLEGE BOYS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 26, 31 January 1913, Page 9

BOISTEROUS COLLEGE BOYS

TO TBI EDITOR. Sir,— -I have just finished the reading of "The Life of the Right Hon. W E. Forster," by T. Wemyss Reid. Mr. Forster was responsible for the introduction of the national system of education in England, and was Chief Secretary for Ireland in the second Gladstone Administration, resigning that office on account of disagreement with his colleagues over the liberation f rom Kilmainham Prison of Mr. Parnell and other Irish M.P.'s. Referring to his installation as Lord Ilector of Aberdeen University, Mr. Reid quotes the following entry from Forster'a diary : — "24th November, 1876. — Welit to music-hall a little before 12. In committee-room Dr. Pirie — the principal being ill — presented me with the degree in the name of the Senators. I made a, short reply, and was clothed with gown, hood^ and cap. Professor - came in, in high excitement. The proceedings must be stopped ; tho students more uproarious than ever; they have torn up the benches. However, when I got in> they behaved very well, cheering furiously, and occasionally whistling, but on the whole attentive. . . My address took an hour and a-quarter." (Vol. ii., page 161.) The following evening Forster was entertained at supper by the students, and there soon • established himself on the best of terms with his friends. A little of Forster's common-sense, and a little of the saving grace of humour, j would get over most of the difficulties with New Zealand students. When Sir George Grey, fresh from New Zealand, went up to receive the honorary degree of D.C.L. at Oxford, the students at once struck up the resounding chorus of a then popular song, "The King of the Cannibal Islands." In Melbourne the students regularly lampooned the most popular Chancellor of any University in Australasia, Dr. Brownlow. Yards and yards of doggerel were written and sung about him ; but he never winced or complained. On one occasion the students even "wagged on" the Victorian Premier, Mr. Thomas Bent, to sing instead of orate, and Bent actually complied. Are we altogether devoid of the saving grace of humour in New Zealand, or are wo too exacting and priggish in our demands on the students? I. for one, think we are. — I am, etc., FATHER OF FIVE. Wellington, 29th January, 1913.

"What's tho wages, mura ?'' asked an applicant for n situation <aa cook. "I'm willing to pay you whatever you aro worth/ was tho reply. "I've never worked for as little as that igutn.i,'- ijyd the »ppjisaat»