There is some indefinable element in the atmosphere of Oxford which has always excited an itch for writing. The sister university can, of course, point to many sons whose names stand high in the literary firmament, but they do not amount to a tithe of the number of great writers who have passed through Oxford. Oxford may be the home of lost causes, but she is also the cradle for infant pens. Generations of pens splutter their first incoherencies behind the comparative shelter of the city walls through which the harsh criticism of maturer writers cannot penetrate. In stilted phraseology and doubtful grammar they cover numberless sheets with emotional outpourings. There may be future literary geniuses hidden among them, but from those early imitative strivings it is difficult to single out even one. They are novices who humbly apprentice themselves to the profession of letters. From time to time some quite brilliant piece of work throws up more vividly the amateurishness of the rest. Such meteoric flashes are, however, rare, and thus the general standard does not rise above mediocrity. It is because all Undergraduate pens are very young and inexperienced that the present-day ’varsity papers can make no claim to literary distinction. To their credit be it said that they do not. They are content to remain just ’varsity papers--which is synonymous with saying that they are either tediously over-academic or peculiarly inane; that their light articles are excellent imitations of the halfpenny comic papers, that their serious efforts are most praiseworthy for their capacity for inflicting boredom, and that their editorials border upon the inept.