The election of the Master of Clare as Vice-Chancellor of
Cam- bridge for a second year follows as a matter of ordinary routine, but it has the advantage, among others, of giving further oppor- tunities for the after-lunch oratory of which Mr. Thirkill regularly supplies such brilliant examples on Honorary Degree days. His speech last week, when the Prime Minister, the Speaker and the Archbishop of Canterbury and four other persons of eminence were honoured could not possibly have been better. The inclusion in the number of Sir Edward Appleton,. with his associations with atomic research, lent additional point to the description of another of the graduands, M. Spaak, President of the United Nations Assembly as " chief of the bomb-disposal squad." The Prime
Minister was as one who, after holding various political offices and bearing his full share of responsibility in the Coalition Govern- ment, had now reached—Cambridge, the home of won causes. Another, General Slim, was referred to as one who had to fight not only the enemy but the jungle. " It is asking a good deal of an officer and a gentleman to carry on were whenever you turn over a Japanese you find a snake, and whenever you turn over a snake you find a Japanese." Mr. Thirkill's successor, the Master of Christ's, should start now on the epigrams he will need a year hence * * *
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