STUDENT COUNCIL SIR,—Christopher Makins's view of the Student Council at
Oxford is at least novel: 'Such a collec- tive body runs clean against the idea of co-operation between the Senior and Junior Common Rooms and thus contradicts the old system.' With one stroke of the pen a relationship which is nine-tenths authori- tarian and one-tenth benevolently paternal becomes 'co-operation.' Big Brother himself would surely be proud of such an effortless piece of double-write! Before I'm dismissed with one of those labels ('ill- informed' or 'prejudiced' or 'guilt-ridden') which most Oxbridge men find so convenient, le•t me hasten to say that 1 spent three pleasant years in the fens be- fore the twentieth century caught up with me, and far from having a guilt complex Cambridge still evokes the usual sentimental nostalgia, much as a street crier in a city does, or a• corner of rural Eng- land.
Mr. Makins would have been on much stronger ground if he had defended the organisation of the Oxbridge college on almost any other score. From, the point of view of the undergraduate it has the great merit of efficiency, and given the generous in- • come available, he does not want for much. Relieved by a loving and far-sighted College Authority of the need to organise his own more mundane affairs (and, by the same token, all the responsibility ) he is free to spend his time tossing empty words around in a vacuum.
In other institutions where the student body man- ages bread, butter, money and other matters to a vastly greater extent, co-operation is very real (where is the divergence of interest?) but therefore not head- line material. Peculiarly enough, most of the academic staff at such places, who are not terribly interested in tables, potatoes, or the showers at the boathouse, and who would rapidly tire of games of the 'cupboard love' type, are content to leave well enough alone and to research or teach.
Since a generation passes through college in three years, this is not an efficient way of doing things. However, one of the heretical ideas I picked.up on the banks of the Cam was that efficiency isn't every- thing. Perhaps I should have stuck to physics.
H. D. D. WATSON
President Imperial College Union, South Kensington, SW7
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