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
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