In the Rest of Humour

Otago Witness, Issue 4033, 30 June 1931, Page 5

In the Rest of Humour

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.) PUTTING THE COLLEGE TO THE PEOPLE.

By

STEPHEN LEACOCK.

These are the days of colleges. There are colleges everywhere and for everything. There are colleges for medicine and colleges for religion, and for dentistry, and for the banjo and for mesmerism and correspondence. And wherever they go, they bring with them the same old college spirit of good fellowship and love of knowledge. In witness of which, let me here produce, or reproduce, the following verbatim report of one of the recent college commencements. It was handed to me a day or so ago and refers to the closing exercises of metropolitan school of capilletics, which used to be called more simply the barbers’ college. . HAIL, ALMA MATER! The graduation exercises at the school of capilletics were held yesterday during the lunch hour in the upper corridor of the academy, just next the cloak room. President Clip briefly addressed the graduating class and spoke with feeling of their approaching separation; They had now been shaving together for over four weeks, and no doubt it seemed hard to part. Lasting ties had been formed, he hoped, during their college course which would endure through life. They would go out, he said, from the academy

where they had received their training and be appointed, he did not doubt, to chairs of their own. He liked to think that the college had turned out some of the most eminent men of their profession. A leading shampooist had said to him only the other day that without his college training he would never be where he was. The president regretted that Dean Follicle, who was to give the commencement address, was delayed a little in arriving, as he was detained below with a customer in the chair, as was also the senior professor of capillary science.' BRIGHT COLLEGE WEEKS. The president took occasion to say that he saw before him not only the graduating class and the juniors and the sophomores, but also the freshmen, who were still in their first week. He was aware that to these young men with still more than three weeks in front of them, the course looked long and arduous. But he would remind, them that in years to come they would look back to their four weeks at their Alma Mater as the happiest days of their lives. .'' *

The president then spoke of the wonderful advances recently made in practical science: he touched lightly upon the electric flat iron,' the new electric facial massage, and the improved mechanical clippers. He said the times damanded further specialisation: we needed highly trained men for the back of the neck; we must have more intensive work on the moustache and better designs for behind the ears. The oldfashioned general practitioner, prepared to cut anything and everything, was becoming, the president said, a thing of the past. We were consigning him to the hair-basket. RAH! RAH! SHAMPOO!

We must educate the public to understand that two barbers for every customer is becoming an absolute neces-

sity; to these, he said, there should properly be added an anaesthetist to keep the customer asleep. In the old days, which he could himself recall after 50 years of practice, the academy —still called a shop—was small and quiet. The customer fell asleep of himself; all that was needed was to give him yesterday’s newspaper. This has changed. The unavoidable noise of the overhead shampoo (he would not for a moment deny its utility), the rattle of the electric clipper, and the terrifying hiss of the hot irons kept the customers awake. The only remedy, as he saw it, was . an extended use of antesthetics. This again demanded wider knowledge and a raising of the standard of the profession. We have got to face the fact, said the president, that the course must be lengthened. Four weeks, he would say it positively and with conviction, is too short a time for turning out a highlyequipped man. The time has arrived when we must work for a six weeks’ course.

At this juncture the arrival of Dean Follicle called forth from the students loud cries of “You’re Next!” follow’ed

by the college yell of Rah! Rah! Shampoo! GENERAL CULTURE. The Dean, in rising to speak, said that he was entirely in accord with the president on the matter of raising the general standard. He might perhaps refer to the monograph that he had published under the title of What a Barber Should Know. Any professor of practical capilletics—he would not say barber —must be a man of education, a wide man. Their customers—or should he say their patients?—expected it. When they come to your chairs, gentlemen, continued the Dean, they want information. They want to know who won last night’s boxing match. It is your duty to tell them. . More than that, they want to know who is going to win the boxing match, or the horse race or the ball game, not of yesterday, but the next week. It is your duty to keep them posted. These people come to you }vith confidence. They put themselves into your hands for twenty-five minutes; they allow you to cover them with a steamed towel, which all argument. They cannot answer back. This, then, is your opportunity for enlarging their minds and extending their range of knowledge. You must keep them informed of the presidential election; you must understand the wet and dry laws of your state; you must follow every line of sport. In short, gentlemen, you must have made a study of yesterday’s newspaper from cover to jjover. A man who has read yesterday’s paper is a cultivated man, a well-informed man, an agreeable man; one who has not, betrays himself as an ignoramus unfit to handle a pair of scissors. THE NEED OF LATIN.

There had been, said the Dean, some little criticism, he would not say complaint, in regard to the examination

paper on general knowledge which had been given to this year’s graduating class. It had been said -that the questions were hard. He would name some of them and let the audience judge for themselves. For example: Who is Mussolini ? What is the salary of a big league ball player? Who flew where? How do they divide the money of a prize fight?

It was claimed that these questions were hard. They were meant to be hard; only a man who knows that Mussolini is “some guy”—or else is not —can hope to interest his customer in European politics. The Dean then briefly referred to the question of Latin. He believed that the time has come when Latin must be made compulsory and that every graduate must have at least a week of it. So many of our preparations made? up now have Latin names, such as Sine Qua Non and Ne Plus Ultra, that no graduate can hope to rise in his profession without Latin. lie could name at least six Latin words that had been of the greatest use to him. CUTS FOR LADIES. At the end of his speech Dean Follicle touched for a moment on the question of women. He did not know, he said, of any 'greater problem in the profession than that of women. The women of to-day were insisting on having their hair cut. And we must cut it for them. If we don’t cut it, some one else will. We cannot stop progress. Is short hair, he asked, here to stay? He looked on this as perhaps the most important social question of the hour. To answer it would require a deep knowledge of history, social science, and human and animal psychology. But what we need, argued-Dean' Follicle, is to meet the situation both ways, so that we can do business which ever wav. The applause that greeted the Dean’s address showed how deeply interested the audience had been. . President Clip then handed out the degrees to each graduate and declared that he and the Dean would go back to their chairs and the other boys might have the rest, of the noon hour free. The meeting broke up with college yells and cheers for Alma Mater.