TWO UNIVERSITIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19119, 10 September 1925, Page 10

TWO UNIVERSITIES.

TRADITIONS AND TROUSERS.

HUMOUR OF "MR. PUNCH."

What was described as " a delighti'ully irrelevant speech,"< was made by Mr. A.v P. Herbert, of Punch, in replying to the; address of welcome on the occasion of the visit of the Empire Press delegates to the University of Sydney last week. "I feel in this great hall and solemn atmosphere," said Mr. Herbert, " like that famous Duke, of Devonshire who dreamed that he was making a speech in the House of Lords and woke up to find that he was really doing so." The Deputy-Chancellor had spoken of the youth of: the university and though its traditions and trousers had not - grown with the centuries it was not the less wonderful.

Mr. Herbert said that he belonged to the tragic generation of Oxford which took its schools in June, 1914, and its squaddrill in the following August. He would like to assure everyone that nothing he had learnt at Oxford had been of the smallest practical use to him. Ho had learnt socialism in his first term, and had grown out of- it in the second; he had learnt to smoke a pipe and to play cards, and had been diligently practising these exercises ever since. This was not his first contact with Australia, continued Mr, Herbert, for he had lived with an Australian in a dugout on Gallipoli for a long .time. They had spent nappy days in the mud there educating one another. All over the world, concluded Mr. Herbert, amid laughter, the press delegation had been , wandering, frightening Nature out of her courses in the most extraordinary way. Rain had fallen, as it had never fallen before in the Rocky Mountains, not one bear had appeared—but everywhere people had met them with a fervid. generosity. " In the beloved name of Oxford I thank you for this welcome." . ' > 1 i