EX MACHINA

Followers of the Crime column may be proue to see in the recent taking of a mid-year examination purely for the fun of the thing the machinations of some infernal machine or robot. Certainly there is ground for the suspicion that no average undergraduate has been responsible for the development in the ways of vagabonds announced in another column of this issue of the CRIMSON. But the fallacy latent in the assumption that a mere mechanism produced this battling departure from tradition finds ready exposure in a little reflection.

Robots exists for purposes utilitarian; they turn switches, open doors, and report accomplishment of necessary duties; but always because they are obliged to. The essence of the robot lies in its being compelled to do things. His very automatonism implies inevitability and consequent compulsion. How blind are they, therefore who would link a robot with the masterful beau geste which fills an entire blue book for the simple run of the thing. Only humanity in its most sparkling moments could produce so shining an example of the spirit "pour ie sport."

There has always been thought to be an element of chance in the taking of examination; the thrill of the unknown captivates those not too seriously impressed by the marvels of modern academic machinery, but the entire possibilities have-suffered from neglect. The laws of mechanics have governed too closely the college student and he has followed with particular regularity, the well known rule of a body once set in motion in a given direction.

No average undergraduate could have so surely plunged his rapier to the heart of a system long held the most invulnerable dragon of the American system; there remains only to consider which varies most from the norm, the robot on one side, or he whom the first news article immortalizes as the Vagabond King, on the other. But that is comparatively simple, even the first group man is slave to the academic machine; but he who puts his finger on a weak spot in the works may be forever free.