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Observer, Volume 1, Issue 7, 30 October 1880, Page 49

What, in the name of all that is learned, is the meaning of that title, degree, or what-not, Associate of Arts, which invariably follows the name of a certain personage occasionally mentioued in the "Star?" I am able to give an answer to this question. It is not a degree, but is an inducement and incentive to study, held out by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to boys, and in England no youth over the age of 16 years would be so conceited as to put it after his name. Out here, however, where the meaning of the mysterious characters A.A. is not understood, it is possible that they may be mistaken for some new academical honour, worthy to rank with B. A., or even, perhaps, with M. A. But anyone who is competent to pass the Matriculation Examination of New Zealand University would not have much difficulty in gaining the puerile distinction, Associate of Arts. To be an A.A. is honourable in a boy of an upper class at school, but to be blazoned forth and displayed in full by one no longer a boy in years argues conceit, requiring to be taken down a peg.