Sophomore

“ Not a sound is heard, until the college song-leader hums a pitch. Then the Alma Mater hymn goes up with all the thrilling reverence in it of a song of love sung to the college mother. If one were near the singers, it would be possible to see, how, when the song deepens in theme, the sophomore unconsciously throws his arm over the shoulder of the freshman, and the senior throws his over the shoulder of the junior: all brothers as the melody unfolds itself. ”

“ THE OBVIOUSNESS OF DICKENS
In the college world it is a point of honor for the successive classes to treat each other with contumely. The feud between freshman and sophomore goes on automatically. Only when one has become a senior may he, without losing caste, recognize a freshman as a youth of promise, and admit that a sophomore is not half bad. Such disinterested criticism is tolerated because it is evidently the result of the mellowing influence of time. ”

“ In a pause between the verses of a song Young heard, far off in the distance, the quick eager: "Ray! Ray! Ray! Tiger, siss, boom, ah!" of the short cheer. It was much more sharply and crisply given than the cheers he had joined in, and on the end of it came the numerals of the Sophomore class.
Now, he had understood vaguely that there was to be some sort of contest between his class and the Sophomores, but this blatant, confident cheer away off somewhere in the distant, indefinite darkness, gave him a start ”

“ In those days we had a youth of talent in the family,—a sort of sophomorical boil, that the soap and sugar of indiscriminate adulation had drawn to a head of conceit. This youth bestowed a great deal of attention on a certain young woman of a classical turn of mind, who once had a longing to attend a fancy-ball as a sibyl. About the same time Sophomore missed the first volume of his Potter's "Antiquities of Greece" ”

“ Never before in the memory of students had Prexy attended a sophomore-freshman ball.
"They have certainly made the place attractive," said the President, looking down between the interstices of garlands of Japanese lanterns [77] on the scene of whirling dancers below. "The banners are really beautiful. I feel quite proud of my sophomores this evening."
The sophomores were proud of themselves and worked hard to make the freshmen have a good time and feel at home. Molly, remembering her own timidity of the year before, took care that there were no wall flowers this gala evening. ”

“ 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. ”

“ ON HAZING So the Sophomores have been making it interesting for you, have they? I'm glad of it; that's one of the things you came to college for. You will agree with me after you get out, if not sooner. ”

“ The sophomores, you know, will get even for the hazing we gave them, by taking it out of the freshies, and so it becomes our duty, in a way, to take care of the freshmen and see that they get fair treatment. ”

“ Because he was small, and ugly, and mischievous, and witty, and generous to excess, and quick to think and act, and everything else that red-headed Freshmen are expected to be, he was well known and liked in the class, from the first night of the term, when he turned his trustful blue eyes toward the Sophomore standing over him in the corner, and said in sweet, sad, Southern tones: "I declare, I'm mighty sorry I can't sing. But that big fellow over there can." ”

“ How intimately some of the fundamentals of training are associated with everyday lives in the home, and yet not recognized, is shown in the college life of the country. "Sophomore" is a class term in schools which needs interpreting. ”

“ I can't describe the difference, but you'll notice it by the time you're a sophomore. The Clio girls—oh, they have more executive ability. They're the kind that know how to run things—all-around, capable, splendid girls. ”

“ The seniors give one for the sophomores, and the sophomores applaud it.
Then the seniors give a heartier one for the freshmen, and those boys almost split the heavens with their yellings.
Next the juniors make the rounds of the classes, with the same response of applause, save that their cheer for the seniors gets but scant and dignified applause, for the seniors must not be too boyish!
Then the sophomores and the freshmen have their turn and the cheering is over.
Silence. The night is deepening, and one hardly stirs. Four huge masses of shadow move in the direction of the campus centre. ”

“ The freshmen and sophomores, delegated to the care of the junior professors and tutors, indulged in many of the escapades of juvenility for which university life in most countries is distinguished, and were continually brought under the inflictions of college discipline, and now and then some one was expelled. ”

“ To be at the head, or 'to head the roll,' is an object of ambition, while 'to foot the roll' is anything but desirable."
MIDDLE BACHELOR. One who is in his second year after taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
A Senior Sophister has authority to take a Freshman from a
Sophomore, a Middle Bachelor from a Junior Sophister.—Quincy's
Hist. Harv. Univ., Vol. II. p. 540.
MIGRATE. In the English universities, to remove from one college to another.
One of the unsuccessful candidates migrated.—Bristed's Five
Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 100. ”

“ Freshmen were looking forward eagerly now to the time when they would be Sophomores. Seniors were looking forward with mingled joy and regret to the day when they would receive their diplomas.
One evening in May was always devoted to the sororities and clubs. ”

“ School and academy and university graduates, who after years of active and it may be eminent professional life look over the examination-papers of alma mater and the catechisms of their childhood, find invariably that outside of the special lines of their lives they are unable to answer correctly and with certainty the simplest questions, and must conclude that all the wisdom of the world is with sophomores and school-children. ”

“ Juniors do everything they can to encourage freshmen in their struggle against the sophomores, even going so far as to marshal them for their rushes and give them points to be observed in their struggles with the sophomores.
It is true that there seldom seems to be any further bond of sympathy between freshmen and juniors than the dislike of both for sophomores. The discomfiture and downfall of the freshmen arouses nothing like pity on the part of the juniors ”

“ At seven o’clock the students gather by classes at four different parts of the campus: the seniors to sit on their double fence, the juniors to sit on the steps of the recitation hall, the sophomores to occupy the commodious steps of the Assembly Hall, and the freshmen to stand near the library. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That's what love does to a college boy in spring. It's a kind of rose-colored brainstorm, but it very seldom has complications. By the next fall, the ozone is out of the air; and after a couple has gone strolling about twice, football and the sorority rushes butt in—and it's all over. Freshman girls are a help, too. Beats all how much assistance a Freshman girl can be in forgetting a Senior girl who isn't on the premises! ”

“ Staid old universities blaze out with the gala colours of commencement week, when the month of roses is ushered in, and on every college campus the social life of the student year comes to flower in the crowning exercises of class-day. ”

“ Jerry and Ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind Uncle Johnny. The shadow dispelled—in youth the sun is always so happily close behind all the little clouds—the girls' spirits went forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, the class gift, the class song, Isobel's graduating dress, the Senior bouquets—the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school life—graduates. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ To-day is the festival of our fraternity, sacred to learning, to friendship, and to truth. From many places, remote and near, we have come together beneath the benediction of Alma Mater. We have walked in the grateful shelter of her rich embowering trees. Friend has met friend, classmate has pressed the hand of classmate, while the ruddy memories of youth and early study have risen upon the soul. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ingenuous student, having completed his term of years—a classical Olympiad—amidst the restraints of the academy, in the daily pursuits of the lecture-room, observant of forms, obsequious to the college curfew, at length renounces these restraints, heeds no longer the summoning bell, throws off the youthful gown, and now, under the auspices of Alma Mater, assumes the robe of manhood. ”

“ Such hearts divide their joys and their sorrows, with the fortunate and afflicted, with the same emotional sincerity with which they lift their prayers to Heaven.
The school-room is an epitome of the world. There the same passions influence the conduct of the child, which will prompt it in riper years, and the natural buddings of the heart spring forth, and grow on to maturity with the mind and the person. College life is but another phase of this great truth, when these natural proclivities are more manifest, because more matured. ”

“ I want to prove to father that, college fits a girl for anything,—even practical life, and if I keep the house in order, discipline the children, and have some excellent meals, I think he’ll be convinced. ”

“ Leaders in the stirring world of to-day return at each commencement to share the fresh life of the new class. Books, pictures, music, collections, appliances in every field, learned teachers, mirthful friends, athletics for holidays, the best words of the best men for holy days,—all are here. No wonder that men look back upon their college life as upon halcyon days, the romantic period of youth. ”

“ Provide, if you can, means to send your boy to college, to educate your daughter, to shelter your old age; yet, remember, before those means can be used, the boy, the girl, the man, may lie each in his silent grave; but though there may never be a college student, a ripening maiden, a gray-haired man, there is now a little boy, a little girl, who stand in need of their father; and a father is of more worth to his son than a college, of more worth to his daughter than many tutors. ”

“ Every one was gay and happy and filled with the college spirit and was young at heart if not in years. Fathers and mothers and even grandparents mingled with young girls and men and seemed to be as much a part of it all as their sons and daughters. Where is there another place in the world so productive of good-fellowship and joy as a college class day? ”

“ Then the Supper and then home to the dormitory again—with a pain of happiness filling him, the rest and the unrest of consecration.
Many other scenes he lived through in memory this morning—once lived in reality amid that brotherhood of souls. His tenderest thoughts perhaps dwelt on the young men's prayer-meetings of Sunday afternoons at the college. There they drew nearest to the Eternal Strength which was behind their weakness, and closest to each other as student after student lifted a faltering, stumbling petition for a common blessing on their work. ”