ANXIOUS PROCTOR.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 413, 21 April 1937, Page 2

ANXIOUS PROCTOR.

Oxford “Undergrads.” Comments on -the “effervescence” of undergraduates and 'their tendency in recent months to hold more and more sh rry and < ocktail parties were made by Mr C. H. S. Fifoot, Fellow of Hertford College., Oxford, in his valedictory address to Convocation as •en.’or retiring proctor, sta.es the London Daily Tel graph. “It is sometimes asserted,” he dedared, “that the modern undergraduate is a more peaceful citizen, a gentler creature than his predecessor. The statement is not wiihout a measure of truth. Nor is the ebb and flow of disorder unconnected with economic conditions. The anxious proctor will scan the horizon for the approach of a nice, healthy depression. “I think I can detect in the last few months the influence of a more ’apid circulation of money. One of che symptoms is the prevalence of cocktail and sherry parties. In themselves a pleasant form of social entertainment, they have clearly to be I kept within bounds. The underI graduate who asked leave to invite 1.00 guests, mistook alike the value of his generosity and the forbearance of ihe proctors. They have, moreover, the effect of drawing into the city numbers of guests who seize the opportunity to discharge a superfluous energy and whose activities it is not always easy for their host to control.”

He also expressed the opinion that the increasing traffic of senior members of the university with the “vulgar currency of politics and their closer association with the more controversial aspects of undergraduate life were disturbing phenomena.”