United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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WINDATT COAL CO. LTD. • COAL • COKE • WOOD 506 PARIS BUILDING Phone 927 404 AQUA-TERRE Sporting Qoods U. C. Cardigans with Crest, $8.95 U.C. Crest, $1.95 Crested Sweat Shirts, $2.75 Sports equipment for Badminton, Skating, Skiing, Hockey, etc. 510 PORTAGE AVE. WINNIPEG Phone 33 306 (Opp. United College) SONG OF A MODERN (AND SLIGHTLY REBELLIOUS) HAREM GIRL Master, what is thy desire? Ask whate’er thou would of me. Jewels, roses, altar, fire; Heavy incense drifting higher. Sweet words — (know me for a liar ), I shall give it thee. Master, I await thy pleasure, Speak what thou would have me do. Gold is but a tiring treasure — Plumes and cushions for your leisure. I shall bring; and white wines measure. (Beware a poison brew). Master, dances old I know, Wish you that of me? Eyes cast down (lest boredom show) Through the ancient steps I go. The eyes of other dancers glow But what is that to me? Master, did I hear thee call? See, still I answer thee. But the gifts of love were ever small And oh! its bars weave on irksome wall. Beware, my Lord, lest you summon all And I am free. Donna Munroe SONNET When I describe upon this lasting page, The love I feel for you within my heart, I realize, ’though we give way to age; ’Though time’s grim stroke will move us far apart; Some lover long ahead in untold book — In chapter yet unread by Time’s keen eye — Will love and on my humble words will look, Will think and say the same as here did I. Oh! love dies not as mortal lovers do, But lights it’s vibrant flame in young loves’ minds, And thrives, and brightly burns unending through The ages; to complete its true design. Though thrones may fall — be moulds to dust decaying — Words live in lovers’ hearts for future saying. Paul A. Sigurdson. Page Fourteen

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capable of dealing with these issues? No insti¬ tution could even begin to seriously consider the challenge unless a vital community spirit existed. The mass educational methods have so de-personalized many of our universities that almost any community spirit is non-existent. This has caused a further breakdown of inter- student relations and accentuated the formal academic relations - between student and pro¬ fessor. A university within the university is needed; a group composed of students and staff who are concerned with the great need and who would dedicate themselves to its cause. Such a group can be the means to generate the uni¬ versity from within and be its salvation. Such a proposal is of course not new. It exists in different forms in many universities. The tone of our college is especially susceptible to such an idea and indeed some beginning has been made. The great concern on the part of the administration and some of the staff of our college are added healthy signs. More concern among the students is necessary; those who be¬ lieve in her and love her, who would critically examine her in sympathy and faith. The prob¬ lem is gigantic and no easy or simple solution can be put forth. All that the writer is en¬ deavoring to do or even capable of doing is to raise the problem and ask questions. One question causes much concern. If it is agree d that the basic question concerns the nature of man and his place in the universe, who is capable of dealing with it? Shall it be the state? Shall it be the church, and if so which one? Will each university deal with the prob¬ lem separately, or will it be left to the indi¬ vidual professor to commit himself to his per¬ sonal convictions? We want no rigid dogmas and we will accept no lifeless doctrines. Power¬ ful ideologies are answering this question for thousands of students and we reject their totali¬ tarianism. The University Grants Commission reported: “A university which allows itself to become the ‘tied house’ of any special interest or calling would lose the world as well as its own soul for it would soon be found that every limitation of its academic freedom was accom¬ panied by a weakening of the very qualities which originally made its services seem so de¬ sirable to secure.” The Commission’s report is undoubtedly true, but the problem remains and the university is less a university. It has largely lost its evan¬ gelical mission to generate a purpose in its pupils. Far too many students with a diploma in their hands are asking the first question in this article. For those who enter university with a purpose the situation is less tragic. In the group of near-graduates mentioned at the beginning only one had come with a definite purpose, besides wanting a university educa¬ tion. He felt most strongly about the validity of a liberal arts education and there was almost a resentment towards him from some of the others who felt less fortunate. Perhaps students must bear a greater part of the responsibility for their dilemma. Sir Walter Moberly thinks, “It is probably fair to say that we have this greatly increased proportion of our population in colleges and universities not because of a genuine desire for learning but because of the value of education as a tool of social ambition.” There is a real crisis 1 in the university today. What will be the fate of the university if it fails to respond to the crisis? Dr. Hutchins, the Chancellor of the University of Chicago, con¬ fronts us with a tremendous challenge and judgment. “If education can contribute to a moral, intellectual and spiritual revolution, then it offers a real hope of salvation to suffer¬ ing humanity everywhere. If it cannot, or will not, contribute to this revolution, then it is irrelevant and its fate is immaterial.” LIMERICKS By Albert Schachter There was a young fellow from U, Who had nothing better to dU, Than to sit on his feet, Stand up on his seat, And call to the coeds, “YuhU”! A cat and a mouse and a dog Went fishing one day for a frog; But the frog was too slipp’ry, And the boat was too tipp’ry; So they drowned, all three, in the bog. A hunter went hunting for denizen, And bagged a dozen of venison. They put him in gaol, Said “5000 baol, ’Cause, really, a dozen’s too manyson.” Page Thirteen

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The Luxury Tux J. H. Dow PPHE Canadian government has seen fit to impose upon its miserable subjects a tax which we feel has not been duly appreciated, nor duly extended. Among those items not specifically mentioned in the brief before the House of Commons has been the upper levels of education. To prevent any misunderstanding, let the generic term “liberal education” extend to all upper branches of the educational tree as we now vision it, with the possible exception of those military and business training machines which have such small pretensions that they are willing to train a man to do a job. The apparent aim of all higher education is to ren¬ der a man unfit for menial service and in¬ capable of better, and all women unsuited for any but the most subliminal tasks. This is a byproduct of culture and there has been devised no ready market for its absorption. The college transmission of “the cultural herit¬ age” has been worshipped by John Dewey as a “wonderful mouthfilling phrase.” The twenty- five percent luxury tax has been on education for a long time. Businessmen have indulged in the luxury of philosophy for some time, called it pragmatism, and offered common stock at par value to hun¬ gry summum bonurn seekers. In education pragmatism becomes progressivism, and had been progressive so long as the new methods were applied on apparently necrotic skulls steeped in the preservative indoctrinations of reading, writing, and arithmetic. A recession is due. Progress is possible from a point, but the idea of progress from nature seems to indicate more nature. While Wordsworth and Rousseau cartwheel, we will quote R. M. Hutch¬ ins, a voice in the wilderness of weedy reform. The liberal arts college degree “Seems to certify that the student has passed an uneventful period without violating any local, state, or federal laws, and 1 ' that he has a fair, if temporary, recol¬ lection of what his teachers have said to him. - . . Little pretense is made that many of the things said to him are of much importance.” A luxury indeed, although this was not said of Manitoba universities. We are unfortunately the perpetuators of a necessary society; there is little proper luxury bequeathed to us. We eat common food, drink common drink, speak common speech; we spawn few gourmands, few gourmets, and no orators. We have a lot of college graduates. One of the supposed purposes of the college existence is to preserve culture, especially that of the past. When the monks hid out in the cloistered ruins and illuminated manuscripts, this was a very sound idea. There is no present purge on culture, its only danger is internal decay. When Plato finally becomes untrans¬ latable, let him die in peace. When Jesus seems to teach death as a way of life, he had better be relegated to the land of myth. Until then, the colleges will do little to preserve cul¬ ture, and they would do better to spread it. We are living in a democracy which is ably marked by the freedom to live; we should be living with colleges which mark the way to live well. The college should be a proving ground for life, not an escape or at best a con¬ flict with life. The student parades his dicho¬ tomy of living before an amazed public which tries to sympathize and manages to tolerate. The graduate student is a novice in the world, and generally shirks his responsibilities for leadership, until he feels sure of himself, and then he dies. There is one field in which the college life excels. It is an apparently appreciated one, for the one certain test that intellects will acknowl¬ edge is the test of time. Every college graduate is the most immune to insult of any class of the human races. Small men with small minds read a book and then write another one abbut that book. This is called a textbook and thou¬ sands of immune-from-insult students read, paraphrase and write examinations on that book. Thousands of lectures are oral presenta¬ tions of these hallowed shrines, while the more decent if more outmoded Christian shrines are spurned. Every college text has the suggestive title “Introductory,” and the student wades through more introductions and remembers less of the things he meets than any scorned social climber on his way to the dizzy heights Page Fifteen