The Ivory Tower

A not altogether unreliable gauge of the level of maturity of an undergraduate body is the power ceded to the Student Government. Genuine sophistication—i.e., no Student Government at all—is very rare. Yale undergraduates attain it, beating back, from time to time, mobocratic attempts to impose Student Government, by quietly insisting that all that really needs to be done for students and to students is adequately done by humane and experienced professional administrators and ad hoc student committees. Moreover, the wiser students point out, there is in student governors an oh-so-ir- resistible yearning, a phenomenon not unobserved in adult governors, to aggrandize the office; and in the end, the young functionaries tend to become, in the felicitous phrase of an undergraduate who once expressed to me his horror at the suggestion that Student Government be initiated at Yale, “goddam shower-adjusters— they reach right in and tell you your water’s a little too warm, or a little too cold.”

Last month at Northeastern College, Boston, an appropriate location for revolutionary manifestations, a sophomore class of 639 students dealt a stinging rebuke to Student Government. With a couple of exceptions, no one offered himself up for any of the eight Student Council positions scheduled to be voted upon; no one, in a word, ran for office. Result: the Student Council had to call off the election, and Dismay rules at Northeastern. Council President Ron Wysocki, 1958, objurgated “If they don’t want a class government, we won’t give it to them. If they want to act like deadheads, let them be treated as such.” Secretary-Treasurer John Meadows, 1959, came through with an analogy equal to the horror of the deed, though rather more complex: “Comparing the percentage of those who showed interest in their class to the human body, no living organ could live with such a high portion dead.” Don Rubin, a freshman, analyzed the consequences of sophomore apathy with ruthless realism: “Doesn’t the class realize that without a Class Board it would have no functions, and without Student Council members it would have no voice in the student government? They could even vote to keep sophomores out of the parking lot!” Vive la Révolution.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

A not altogether unreliable gauge of the level of maturity of an undergraduate body is the power ceded to the Student Government. Genuine sophistication—i.e., no Student Government at all—is very rare. Yale undergraduates attain it, beating back, from time to time, mobocratic attempts to impose Student Government, by quietly insisting that all that really needs to be done for students and to students is adequately done by humane and experienced professional administrators and ad hoc student committees. Moreover, the wiser students point out, there is in student governors an oh-so-ir- resistible yearning, a phenomenon not unobserved in adult governors, to aggrandize the office; and in the end, the young functionaries tend to become, in the felicitous phrase of an undergraduate who once expressed to me his horror at the suggestion that Student Government be initiated at Yale, “goddam shower-adjusters— they reach right in and tell you your water’s a little too warm, or a little too cold.”

Last month at Northeastern College, Boston, an appropriate location for revolutionary manifestations, a sophomore class of 639 students dealt a stinging rebuke to Student Government. With a couple of exceptions, no one offered himself up for any of the eight Student Council positions scheduled to be voted upon; no one, in a word, ran for office. Result: the Student Council had to call off the election, and Dismay rules at Northeastern. Council President Ron Wysocki, 1958, objurgated “If they don’t want a class government, we won’t give it to them. If they want to act like deadheads, let them be treated as such.” Secretary-Treasurer John Meadows, 1959, came through with an analogy equal to the horror of the deed, though rather more complex: “Comparing the percentage of those who showed interest in their class to the human body, no living organ could live with such a high portion dead.” Don Rubin, a freshman, analyzed the consequences of sophomore apathy with ruthless realism: “Doesn’t the class realize that without a Class Board it would have no functions, and without Student Council members it would have no voice in the student government? They could even vote to keep sophomores out of the parking lot!” Vive la Révolution.