OLD IRONSIDES

In adopting a new constitution the Student Council has done a double service; it has attempted to restate its aims and functions so that they will be in accordance with the needs of both the student body and the present Administration; and it has brought to light a document which it must be confessed is entirely new in form and substance to the majority of members of the University. Certain changes, making for greater efficiency, have been effected--including supervision of class elections, class funds, and a reorganization in council voting machinery. Otherwise the matter of most interest to undergraduates will be found in Section E, "Powers of the Council."

The sixth clause in the "Powers" reads as follows: "To prohibit any man who shows an indisposition to respect the recommendation of the Council, from becoming and remaining a member of any college activity subject to open competition." These words can be taken in only one sense--that the Council as a body assumes censorial rights in all undergraduate activities "open to competition." Consequently it would appear that in this clause the Council elevates its powers of jurisdiction over those of the Faculty, which long since ceased to perform as active judge in questions arising in undergraduate activities. Surely this sixth clause is a heritage from another era, one in which the liberal policies now practised in the University as regards undergraduate control were yet to be put in force. As such it is invalid and in revising the Constitution its obsoleteness should have been taken into consideration.

Fortunately the new powers of amendment which the Constitution introduces and the fact that the document will be posted for thirty days make possible a further revision of the Constitution. Whatever theoretical significance this sixth clause once may have possessed, it is now quite opposed to the spirit of the University and to that of the Council itself; and the possibility of a successful practical application of it, is weak.