Senior (student)

“ 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. ”

“ To provide every student who leaves the senior high school with a good working tool for business or college. No possible excuse should be offered in place of a good handwriting by a senior high school graduate who has had the opportunity to qualify. ”

“ You see, there's the preparatory class, the junior class, the middle class and the senior class. Then if a fellow wants to fit for college, he does another year in the senior class and in order to distinguish him from the fourth-year fellows they call him an advanced senior. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, each of them must beat it around and beg the pardon of each member of the class, and not repeat themselves, either. Also, each Senior shall say something real cute and witty to ’em. But first, there’s a Senior Class school edict, to be read by the school idiot—school crier, I mean. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ He's from a large prep. school near by, and has learned a great many things about college life, a course which is not taught by the masters or laid down in the curriculum. He is an athlete and a promising career for him is already outlined, in theory, but look out! A little prominence is a dangerous thing. In Freshman year a man's position is given to him by his reputation; in Senior year he takes his proper place with his character. What a man seems to be cuts lots of ice at first; but what he really is wins out at the finish.
Ah, here is an upper-classman—of a certain sort. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In conclusion, he advised me to enter the Senior class the following fall, thus taking a partial course of study. How many men are living to-day who owe much of the best in their lives to that divinely inspired guide and teacher of youth! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have heard of a man who had one foot in the grave, but here was a man who had one foot in heaven. Dear friend, and my father's friend, friend of my youth, and all my later years, teacher, counselor, encourager, model of my student life, to whom my heart was knit in all the ardor of the first enthusiasm over the idea of going to college, to whom my obligations are beyond computation, Thou hast thyself gone to sit at the feet of the Great Teacher. ”

“ Once upon a time a certain old graduate found himself in the midst of a beautiful college campus. On all sides he beheld old beloved scenes and well-remembered landmarks; but also he discovered new haunts, new places, unfamiliar and somehow unwelcome to him. And about him, as he stood there gazing, came and went many of the same recognizable types of lovable undergraduate humanity; and yet here in the crowd strolled one sort and over there across the way stood another sort that seemed strange and unexpected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now the only fear is that the freshmen will find out that the change has been made, but Madge is going to watch her chance to go in there again Friday afternoon and see if it is all right. I don't think the freshmen have a suspicion that we have an inkling of what is going on. How I should like to be in the thick of it when the time comes, but I suppose I don't dare; that's the trouble of being a senior. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mostly polers that do the writing."
"I see," said the old graduate, "then how did you earn the honor of club election? I perceive that I have much to learn."
"Well, naturally, the first thing I did was to identify myself with the right crowd early in my college course."
"The right crowd? You were from a large prep, school; your friends naturally would be your old classmates." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fascinating fields of knowledge are waiting to be explored; possibilities of doing, as well as of knowing, are on every side; new and dear friendships enlarge and sweeten dreams of future study and work, and the young student cannot afford quivering nerves or small lungs or an aching head any more than bad taste, rough manners, or a weak will. Handicapped by inheritance or bad training, she finds the plan of college life itself her supporter and friend. ”

“ What the old man has to say to the young man, the teacher to the pupil, the father to the son, at the moment when the gates of the great world are flung open to the college graduate, has undergone but little modification in a thousand years, and has become very well known to all collegians long before they take their degree. ”

“ In any senior high school we may have pupils who have not had the advantages of a good foundation in the grades or in junior high. Again, there are those who acquire manual dexterity with great difficulty. ”

“ Senior had a social position which gave him admission into the best literary and political circles of Paris. He was a cultivated and sensible man, who knew how to take full advantage of such an opening. ”

“ We decided that no ceremony of graduation should mark the promotion to senior high school. Our pupils will make the transition not in a body, but a few at a time at the end of each term. Some informal social event may take place, but no ceremony of graduation as such. ”

“ We hear of a senior who took for his electives Spanish, French, and lectures in music and art, not because they were strong courses in the line of his tastes and tendencies, but because they were the lines of least resistance. There appears to be a reactionary tendency toward a more careful guarding of college electives, together with a shortening of the college course, in order that genuine university work may begin sooner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For I have heard it said by those who have to do with college discipline that their alumni are no longer invariably distinguished by 'a gentle nature and studious habits'--qualities for which, as the Warden of Merton says, colleges were originally intended to provide a welcome haven of rest, and which are now the especial and gratifying characteristics of that whilom roisterer and boon companion, the Unattached Student. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed, the mark of the undergraduate almost covers them, especially of the undergraduate as he fondly imagines himself in his callow days and as he is foolishly instructed to regard himself by the more vinous and more hilarious of the old graduates who annually come back to a college to offer themselves—though this is not their conscious purpose—as an object lesson in the loud triviality peculiar and traditional to such hours of reunion. ”

“ But if there is so much left for age, how beautiful, how inspiring is the hope of youth! I see among those whom I count as listeners one by whose side I have sat as a fellow-teacher, and by whose instructions I have felt myself not too old to profit. As we borrowed him from your city, I must take this opportunity of telling you that his zeal, intelligence, and admirable faculty as an instructor were heartily and universally recognized among us. ”