Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Saturday 16 May 1936, page 2


Girl Undergrade

Big Part in battle

for Procession

Gilbertian Situation Satirised

in Gilbert ian Parody

- ? _ - - _

\S hen a mau"» liberty is threatened he usually readies for a gun. A woman raises her voice.

This i.s precisely what the women undergraduates have done as a protest against the Senate of the Sydney I niiersity for banning the annual student procession. And they have also raised it in song-the song quoted heloir.

WE have it on the authority

of history that "Freedom sliriekec. when Koseiusko fell," but the undergraduates, being modern, have burst into song in defence of freedom.

The girls have discovered that satire is a more potent weapon than scbs. and that sarcasm is not lost on the Senate.

To the women undergraduates it has not been just a little matter of banning

the procession, but a direct challenge to the liberties of the student.

They have felt all along that because some exuberant students way back In '28 transgressed the canons of good taste it should not have been made a "woe unto ye" lesson to present-day students.

As one girl expressed it: "Of course it had to come to a deciding point sooner or laUr. We decided, however, not to treat the matter in the pon

öerous-like manner of the University Senate, but to apply a little wit to the battle with the 'grave and reverend seigneurs,' who are out to spoil a little fun.

"From time immemorial student festivities and processions have been a feature of University life both here and in other parts of the world. In fact,

! plays have been written about them;

but we felt that a song book would

meet the case."

I The girls made it obvious all along

that they were behind the men in their protest, and it was possibly their suggestion that there should be an absolute ban on alcohol on the day of the pro

cession.

They also helped to carry the motion urging all future undergraduates to eliminate everything of an obscene or questionable nature from every festival function, so that everyone might know that the type of humor which crept in

"YOU MUSTN'T.' You mustn't! You mustn't!" Three charming girl undergrads replied to the Sydney

University's ban on a students' procession with the Senate's own words.

advertently into previous activities did not represent the general level of intelli

gence of the students.

But while satirising the Senate has always been an old Varsity custom, an undercurrent of feeling has crept in this year, indicating that the undergraduates considered that the Senate had gone a little too far in suggesting by implication that a procersicn could not be held without the elements of hooliganism obtruding.

So it developed that the song book this year became a sort of

Magna Charta of the liberties of the student. That they have taken liberties with the Senate is only to be expected.

The situation was a truly Gilbertian one, and the students have appreciated its potentialities to the full. To paraphrase the poet they cared not who took the scholastic honors if they could write the Uni songs. For weeks past notes on lectures have carried marginal comments which read like the script from u Hollywood song factory.

The girls have written some gTeat stuff

which will blush forth in "Wow," the University song book for 1936.

But it wasn't till late in the day that a perspiring composer, inspired by tremendous feminine Interest, evolved the theme song, "You Mustn't." Sung to the tune of Gilbert's "Tit Willow," even the great librettist himself would appre

ciate It.

Hum it to yourself and imagine what a devastating effect it had on the University Senate. That, coupled with the wily wit of the women, might have been the main factor which caused the Senate to meet again to reconsider thrl" decision to ban the procession.