Senior class

“ By indulging in actions which have given them wide notoriety, they have shown their opinion that a Sophomore is as good as a Senior. It is with pleasure that I have seen their classmates showing disapproval of such actions, but the State feels that only by proper punishment visited by the Senior Class can they be brought to their senses. ”

“ The society is divided into two classes, called the one junior, and the other senior. The juniors are the newer and less skilful members: these are required to take lessons of a competent teacher, and are not allowed to play with the senior class until they attain to a certain degree of proficiency. ”

“ Class day was ushered in with sunshine and entire relief from lessons. Betty was not even in the pretty Maypole dance or any of the stunts, but with some regrets she formed a part of the senior parade and carried her part of the long, long rope of living green and twining flowers that marked the senior class. As she followed the rest along the track of the athletic field before the big stadium she tried not to let herself think that “all these good times” were over, but she winked more than once, to keep a tear from forming. ”

“ To-morrow lessons would begin and he wondered how he was going to fare. He had entered on a certificate from his grammar school and had been put into the Second Senior Class. If he could keep up with that he would be ready for college in two years. ”

“ I remember to have heard of the son of a somewhat conspicuous gentleman who had desired to give his children the benefit of an education such as Yale affords, who had spent four years there; but the entire four years were spent as a member of the Freshman class. [Laughter.] What a fortunate condition to be continually towering over more and more of those who are competing with him in scholarship and for distinction! I know of none greater unless some mode might be discovered by which one could be a Senior for four years. There is nothing in human affairs that could equal that happiness! ”

“ A further provision allows a student of the Senior class, who is considered by the faculty as a regular candidate for graduation, to participate in any contest even if he has taken less than three full studies at the school, provided, however, he has completed extra work which shall entitle him to a credit in each of the three full studies of the regular curriculum of Senior year. ”

“ Work of senior classes.The work of senior classes, i.e., girls of seventeen or over, depends so much upon circumstances, such as their previous training, their mathematical knowledge, etc., that it is difficult to say much to the point about it, but a [303] word may be added on a very common fault of such classes, a tendency to rely too much on their teacher and their notes of lectures, and to read and think too little for themselves. ”

“ There were Lucile and Polly and their friends in the sophomore class who would be proud to receive a legacy from the seniors they admired so much; and there was a junior crowd, who, as K. put it, were a “jolly good sort,” and would understand the “Merry Hearts’” policy and try to keep up its influence in the college. ”

“ A Freshman shall not play with any members of an upper class, without being asked; nor is he permitted to use any acts of familiarity with them, even in study time.
"'In case of personal insult, a Junior may call up a Freshman and reprehend him. A Sophomore, in like case, must obtain leave from a Senior, and then he may discipline a Freshman, not detaining him more than five minutes, after which the Freshman may retire, even without being dismissed, but must retire in a respectful manner. ”

“ The members of the junior class are not notified by any one that they are expected to appear on that spot by the fence at a certain time to be ready to be "slapped," if they have been lucky enough to be chosen for membership in the great senior societies. ”

“ I wonder if this freshman will ever really care about me that way. I do mean to try to make her. Oh, what a lot of things seniors have to think about!”
But the only thing to think about that evening was the arrival of the eight-fifteen train, which would bring Eleanor, the B’s, Nita Reese, Katherine Kittredge, Roberta Lewis, and Madeline Ayres, together with two-thirds of the rest of the senior class back to Harding. ”

“ We’ve drunk to the cast363 and the team, to our presidents, our engaged girls, our faculty. Now I ask you to drink to the very greatest pride and honor of this class,—to the way we’ve always stood together, to the way we stand together to-night, to the way we shall stand together in the future, no matter where we go or what we do. It’s not every class that can put this toast on its supper-card. Not every class knows what it means to be run, not in the interest of a clique or by a few leading spirits, but by the good-feeling of the whole big class. ”

“ With senior classes.The elder classes should read some large history, if possible some original authority, and thus learn to read for themselves, to examine the statements set before them, and to sift evidence. ”

“ Another senior privilege is the holding of the first class-meeting. Fresh indeed is the freshman class which neglects this order of precedence, and in deference to their childish27 impatience the seniors always hold their meeting as early in the term as possible. Of course 19—’s came on a lovely afternoon,—the first after an unusually long and violent “freshman rain.”
“Coming, Madeline?” asked Betty, passing Madeline’s single on her way out. ”

“ Much as to say, ‘Oh, those silly freshmen!’ They are all upper class girls. I don’t admire their manners. They were making fun of us, I’m sure. They have no time for mere freshmen.”
“Gus talks as if it were a positive crime to be a freshman in the eyes of the upper class students.” Calista Wilmot lifted her thin shoulders. “I’ve always heard they go by preference rather than class in taking up a freshman.”
“They do not.” Augusta seemed determined to oppose her companions. “The juniors and seniors at college are awfully high and mighty. ”

“ There every professor and every senior wears his uniform as if he were used to it; each one knows his place and his part and performs it impressively. The academic procession, headed by the regents in their gowns and followed by the members of the various faculties with their characteristic hoods and stripes, and by the senior classes of the college and the various professional schools, is perfect in its orderly procedure, and the commencement exercises themselves are carried through with a solemnity which is sometimes awesome. ”

“ In 1876 the regular course of study for the Senior classes was made to include four years, and in the catalogue of 1882 the complete course I of study shows four years for the Senior course, two years for the Middle, two for the Junior and one for the Pri- mary, making a total of nine years. The last year of the Senior course carried the student little beyond the work of the last year of the present-day high school. ”

“ If you were a freshman, it made you feel sleepy and happy and utterly regardless of the future terrors of the conditioned state in comparison with the present joys of tennis and canoeing271 or the languorous fascination of a hammock on the back campus,—where one goes to study and remains to dream. If you were a senior it made a lump come in your throat,—the fleeting loveliness of this last spring term, when all the trials of being a Harding girl are forgotten and all the joys grow dearer than ever, now that they are so nearly past. ”

“ Curiously enough he found in senior year that he had acquired a position in his class. He learned that he was looked upon as a rather romantic figure, a scholar, a recluse, a tower of erudition. This amused him but secretly pleased him—he began going out, at first a little and then a great deal. ”

“ What, on the whole, is the condition of the able-bodied and self-supporting labourer of the lowest class, as compared with the condition of the person subsisting on alms or public charity; is the condition of the latter, as to food and freedom from labour, more or less eligible?—Were I a Danish labourer, I would endeavour to live partly on my own labour, and partly on the parish, and I feel persuaded that a labourer so living in Denmark will be better off than one who gets no help from the parish ”

“ A Senior having a claim to the service of a Freshman prior to that of the classes below them, it had become a practice not uncommon, for a Freshman to obtain a Senior, to whom, as a patron and friend, he acknowledged and avowed a permanent service due, and whom he called his Senior by way of eminence, thus escaping the demands that might otherwise be made upon him for trivial or unpleasant errands. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the prospect of an asylum for the indigent creates amongst the working class a disposition to idleness and debauchery, whilst at the same time there are those who look down with disgust on their miserable brothers who are compelled to accept a public charitable support; and the shame which they consider attaches to a man who does it stimulates them to avoid the doors of an hospital by industry and sobriety. ”

“ The single fact of the existence among us of this class of fellow-beings, especially considered in connexion with the facts, that nearly all of them are State’s poor, and that, to a great extent, they have been made what they are by the State’s provision for them, brings the subject before us in a bearing, in which we scarcely know whether the call is loudest to the pity we should feel for them, or the self-reproach with which we should recur to the measures we have sanctioned, and which have alike enlarged their numbers and their misery. ”

“ Don't dispute any more about seniority, for none of you is worthy to be senior. For it is I, the foot, only who am senior."
And the Belly, when he heard all that, said, "How is it these fellows have a mouth that is never tired, and lips above and below, and are not torn to pieces like a rag?"
"This Ear, forsooth, making himself to be senior! The dog has ears just as much as you, and hears the abuse and evil words spoken by others; but its belly does not know rest, and is happy to bear the abuse of others." ”

“ The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above our heads, on life’s raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in their manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle class—serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and add a distinction to gray hairs. ”

“ THE SEA As I look back, boyhood with its griefs and cares vanishes into the proud stateliness of youth. The ambition and the rivalries of the college life—its first boastful importance as knowledge begins to dawn on the wakened mind, and the ripe, and enviable complacency of its senior dignity—all scud over my memory like this morning breeze along the meadows ”

“ So great and sudden a change in the social state of the country soon caused great embarrassment to the government, who being apprehensive of again altering a system which involved the interests of the landed proprietors, the only influential class in the country, for a long time eluded the consideration of the question, by augmenting the charitable institutions ”

“ If life holds any position more important, any business more soul satisfying than that of being a High School senior, few people are so fortunate as to have discerned it. Being a college senior is a highly edifying and imposing business, but the far greater advantages lie with the High School senior. ”

“ The seniors dress for luncheon in “little girl” fashion, skirts up and hair down, and the minute the meal is over they rush out into the sunshine to roll hoop, skip rope, swing in the long-suffering hammocks under the apple trees, and romp to their hearts’ content. Freshmen hurrying by to their Livy exam, turn green with envy, and sophomores and juniors “cramming” history and logic indoors lean out of their windows to laugh and applaud, finally come down to watch the fun for “just a minute,” and forget to go back at all. ”

“ As far as the younger students and the bachelors at colleges were concerned the extant regulations in regard to their exercises, amusements, incomings and outgoings, suggest that they were treated much like the junior and senior boys in a rather strict public school in the first half of the nineteenth century; and perhaps the senior graduate members were treated somewhat like residents in colleges at the same period. ”

“ It will be a good plan to go over these names with you girls. The students from other campus houses are no 24 doubt acquaintances, perhaps friends, of yours. As seniors, you will wish to know the names of the freshmen who are to be here. I depend on you to help them to feel at home. ”

“ A very limited number, comparatively, enter further work of senior college courses, and these have either enthusiasm or ability and often both. Of course, a cold neglect or bored indifference in the attitude of the teacher will be resented. It will kill enthusiasm and send ability seeking inspiration elsewhere. But any one who is fond of his subject, and of moderate ability and industry, should have no difficulty in developing senior college work. ”

“ The seniors moved through all the excitement quietly, keeping close to their relatives and friends. Graduation wasn't so thrilling as they had expected it to be; it was more sad. The alumni seemed to be having a good time; they were ridiculously boyish: only the seniors were grave, strangely and unnaturally dignified.
Most of the alumni left the night before the graduation exercises. The parents and fiancées remained. They stood in the middle of the campus and watched the seniors, clad in caps and gowns, line up before the Union at the orders of the class marshal. ”

“ Maybe the senior girls wouldn’t come to a party given by little me, though.”
“They’d be delighted to be asked to the professor’s house, even with you out of the question, which I should not admit. Moreover, my dear Shirley, how do you know that by that time a senior girl would be interesting? Now the reverend seniors are often known to have the most serious cases of their college career with sophomores, or even freshmen girls.”
“That is so. Good. I’ll know all the freshmen girls, perhaps, and I know some of the sophomore girls as it is. ”