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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (June 8, 1893)
Ml THE HESPERIAN boing performs that will rouse the emotions and then sit down mid figure out tho amount of poetry in his nature. It will be found to run very low. His acts will correspond to comic pootry in literature. Only when he rises from tho abyss, up tho sides of which he is climbing, will ho bo able to porform dctds whose per cent of emotion will equal that in Dante's "Inforno." Tho evolution of tho senior from this per sonage is interesting to notice. Tho begin ning, though unpromising, does not preclude the possibility of a betterment. Though, in his freshmen year, he is gawky, and slightly inclined to imbecility, in his sophomore year he begins to show signs of wisdom, such as it is, permeated with remnants of ignorance. The "wise fool", however, often passes for a much wiser one than ho really is. It is the sophomore, who talks of principle in all his acts, who has qualms of conscience about doing this and that, and who, drawing from the shallow well of his experience, pours forth on the surface all of the little ho knows, exhausting the supply so quickly that he soon has to obtain sonso on credit. This lattor, principle never prevents him from doing. A happy combination of wis dom and "brass" alwnys is for him a ready substitute for common sense. When this wiseacre becomes a junior, then beware. Possibilities merge into prob abilities and these often into actualities. Jt is during this period that permanence is sometimes reached. One sees either the snob budding out or the llower of genius un folding. Juniority is the happy time of life, just "betwixt and between." Jf visions of the future disturb, they arc put down, for there is another year yet and who can tell what fate may have in store. The junior is a vertible Micawber. Is it not best so ? But he is wiser than his predecessor, tho sophomore. He learns to do everything gracefully, even though it be to pass backwards in an examination. Ho knows that there lies that within his con voluted cerebrum which passeth show, and is proud of tho fact. Ho does not go spreading his fame around on every wall. Ho is too politic for that. Ho will start a conversation and make tho listoner draw out his store of facts. Ho would reform the world by request, but in no other manner. But in his nature a seed has been planted. It is the small but comprehensive Latin pro noun "ego." Liko tho tiny mustard seed, this gorininatcs within tho junior's mind, and, growing, becomes so great that the fowls of tho air may porch upon it and build their nests among its branches after tho siago of seniority has been attained. This characteristic increases in tho senior. He is to a degree, tho sum total of all the good qualities and defects of the other three classes. Ilo has "bong homay," sauvity, and a superabundance of that knowledge which knows it knows. lie is never so ignorant on any subject that he is obliged to confess it. Ono thing which tho senior possesses is the ability to conjure up knowl edge from his inner inmostness, manufac ture it, so to speak. Put a senior through an examination that ho knows naught of and ho will pass with crodit on account of this very faculty. Thero is nothing hypnotic about it. It is the result of pure and una dulterated geniusimii8. "Genius is a talent for hard work," but the senior is such an exception to the gon eral run of humanity, that ho has, or makes ono suppose ho has genius without over do ing a stroke of work. When ho has a thesis to write, ho will loaf around and never men tion it except with a jest. Ho will make believe that ho writes it out in one sitting, and those who are unacquainted with tho intricacies of his mental action, will be in clined to believo it. O, tho senior is a rare specimen ! Ho is nothing if not deceptive. Thero are ditfercnt classes of seniors, just as there aro different clussos of animals. First thero is tho hard shell senior, who takes to tho classics. Ho needs an iron bound anatomy to prevent tho corpse-like verbs from oozing out in the shape of pers piration. Then there is the soft shell sonoir whoso exterior resembles a pin-cushion on 4 H