HONOUR, NOT DEFIANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 71, 15 June 1927, Page 11

HONOUR, NOT DEFIANCE

UNOFFICIAL CAPPING STUDENTS’ ACTION EXPLAINED “It is not in a spirit of defiance that we have acted so, but rather because it is due to the graduates of the year to have some honour shown them” said Mr. D. H. Steen, president of the Auckland Students’ Association, in explaining why the unofficial capping ceremony was held in the Town Hall last evening. “It almost seems that the new University Act aims at the elimination of all those little forma'ities which mean so much to university life, and is tending to make the university merely a machinery for educating and conferring de grees by post upon students who need not so much as attend lectures. Such an action is surely going far past the ideals of a university, which are to educate and broaden its students by the personal tuition of its ablest men and by the daily contact of one with another. Our own College Council has, we think, acted very drastically in refusing, to honour its graduates. “As far as the Easter debate is concerned, we would like to point out that the throwing of fruit was not approved of by any of the students present—save perhaps, by the party responsible. Every effort was made both by the students’ executive and those controlling the debate to apprehend the offender, but unfortunately without success.”