UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Undergraduate Magazines
By COLIN CROSS (Queens' College, Cambridge)
IT is a cliché to describe university life as subsisting in a / self-contained world of its own. The tiny undergraduate community has its own politics, its own theatre, its own social life and its own Press ; it tries at the same time to ape the world
ouside and to be superior to it. At worst the whole thing is an elaborate game ; at best a valuable dress-rehearsal. Its main dis- advantage is that it gives some of its leaders an inflated sense of their own importance ; its main advantage is that mistakes and unsuccessful experiments made in it do slight harm to anybody.
The cliché is particularry true in its application to undergraduate writing, which at present exists in great profusion at the universities.
It can be calculated that at Cambridge about 10 per cent. of the undergraduate population engages at some time or another in literary work. At Oxford the proportion is probably about the same ; at the provincial universities it seems to be slightly smaller, but is still substantial. Varsity, the Cambridge undergraduate news- paper, recently organised a short-story competition ; over a hundred entries were received, and this was at the beginning of Tripos term. There are at the moment in Cambridge at least eight undergraduate magazines published for general consumption and about thirty college, faculty and society magazines. These exist to Serve a popu- lation of some seven thousand, all of whom are already well supplied with national magazines.
How does this compare with conditions in the pre-war years ? This is a difficult question to answer except with generalisations. In quantity the output is certainly greater ; the increase is certainly not to be explained in terms of increased numbers of students ; proportionately it is more than this. Partly it may be accounted for by the difficulties still facing the young writer who wants to publish his work nationally. The newspaper market is virtually closed to him ; competition for places in magazines like Lilliput and Men Only is very heavy. The Spectator Undergraduate Page is invaluable as an encouragement to make a start, but as a " market " in the usual sense it is irrelevant. The undergraduate writer, therefore, tends to turn his energies inwards, and he either contributes to established university journals or founds new ones.
The quality of undergraduate writing today compared with the pre-war years is probably, except in the sphere of humour, rather higher. This is to be explained quite simply by the fact that under- graduates are older, and tend to be more mature than their pre-war counterparts. A perusal of the magazines of the 'thirties gives the impression that the amount of really brilliant work published is about the same, but the amount of the moderately competent is greater. Humorous writing alone is generally of a poor quality, but this does not seem to be confined to the universities. It is in technique that the most striking change has taken place in university magazines. No publication is now considered com- plete unless it has a slickly-designed format, based on national models. Undergraduate editors tend to attach as much importance to the appearance of their papers as to their contents. Isis at Oxford and Varsity at Cambridge have carried this to a high pitch. This is probably not a bad thing, so long as the editors remember that lay-out is a means, not an end.
What is the financial basis of undergraduate magazines, and who owns them ? To answer this it is convenient to divide them into two groups. There are the large-circulation papers, regarded by outsiders as the semi-official organ of a university's undergraduate body, and there are the smaller ones, appearing irregularly and usually owned by one or two individuals. The first class is best typified *in the Union newspaper of the provincial universities, owned and run by the Student Union. Since their prestige value to advertisers is less than that of the magazines of the older univer- sities, they tend, as a rule, to run at a loss and to rely on subsidies for their support. Also in the first class are Isis at Oxford, which is run, presumably as a profit-making concern, by an Oxford printer, and Varsity at Cambridge, which is owned and managed by a small group of undergraduate journalists.
The second class is numerically the larger, and includes every- thing from the long-established Granta at Cambridge and Cherwell at Oxford to the latest brain-child of a group of poetical young gentlemen making their first and probably last appearance in print. The most surprising thing about these magazines is the way in which they overcome economic hazards. When a national magazine with a circulation of 100,000 is closed down on the plea that it is unprofitable, it is amusing to see the latest little Cambridge magazine appear on the bookstalls, the editor murmuring in the background: " If we sell 800 copies we shall cover our costs ; if not, the motor- bike will have to go." Behind all this, though, are vacations spent by editors and advertising managers tramping round the London advertising agencies trying to arouse interest. If only So-and-So's would advertise their hair-cream in our magazine, which really is (or will be) different from all the others, they would at the same time perform a valuable service to education and double their sales.
What are the contents of undergraduate magazines today ? They tend to be overwhelmingly factual. The editors and staffs of most of them hope to enter journalism as a career, and therefore try to train themselves in reporting and feature-writing. This is a great change from pre-war conditions, when the emphasis was on creative and humorous writing. The development of the characteristic university newspaper in the post-war years has been a symptom of this, but even the magazines like his seem to have a large pro- portion of space devoted to articles on factual topics.
Other typical post-war phenomena have been the lush university feature magazines, Panorama at Cambridge and Harlequin. at Oxford, produced in the best middle-brow tradition. Their habit of persuading well-known authors to contribute seems an unfor- tunate one, particularly as it fails in its object of promoting sales ; but they are excellent imitations of the popular illustrated weeklies, and as such seem destined to play a permanent part in university journalism.
Finally, of what importance are undergraduate magazines to the world at large ? Clearly they are of no direct significance. Kick- ing and squabbling in what an illustrated weekly not long ago described as their " nursery," the undergraduate editors enjoy themselves, entertain their fellows and learn a few of the elements of journalism. What is important, however, is the fact that the increased numbers of university magazines represent a growing . interest in journalism as a profession among undergraduates. No British university has, at present, a faculty of journalism, and many would-be journalists regard their literary activities as being as im- portant part of their university work as their academic studies. No doubt undergraduates have a number of illusions about what professional journalism is like, and it is often difficult to disentangle youthful dreams from hard ambition. Nevertheless, there are at the universities today a number of young men who believe that they are as well qualified for Fleet Street as their contemporaries who have spent several years reporting in the provinces. Most editors do not agree. They are not, as a rule, willing to train men in certain fundamentals of journalism, which can only be learned by working on a newspaper.
Nevertheless,- it does seem that more graduates are succeeding in getting jobs on the popular Press than in former times. For the conclusion to be a happy one there will have to be a subtle_ compromise. In time the influx of graduates, if it continues, will imperceptibly raise the standard of the penny papers. This should be in tune with what it is hoped will be the improved educational standards of the population as a whole. On the other hand, the graduate will have to adapt himself to his environment. Any sudden attempt to raise the Daily Excess to the intellectual level of the Observer would be fatal either for the graduate or for the Excess. In any event, there are at this time of the year to be seen wistful young men wandering along Fleet Street, clutching faded copies of university magazines (and perhaps a cutting from the Spectator). They are young graduates looking for a job. Was it all just a game or was it really the dress-rehearsal ?
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