Hobart College - Echo of the Seneca Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

Page 12 text:

10 ECHO Of THU SRN'ECA. T editorial for the Echo! ’ and the Junior class assemble “ ( Iemu conclave to appoint some one to -write it. A nomination is made and seconded. In vain the Presi- dent waits for the name of another aspirant to the high honor. , The vote is east, the tellers make their report, and, lo! a miracle! j; The class is unanimous, with one exception, the nominee himself 1 j i We would, not for a single moment be understood as implying that | •’ the class is not always unanimous; the wonder is that the unity of jthought, purpose and. action is not manifested by each man’s voting j.’ for himself! Surely the editor e.lcot must be a man of immense intellect and |influence! If we may believe what he says a« ho rises to his feet, j t he is incapable of framing a single line. He is very greatly grieved 1 that he .must decline, so high an honor, but his loyalty toward his class imperatively demands that he resign, in favor of Mr.---------. Brave, modest, magnanimous youth! nominations are now made with rapidity and are with charming modesty as ra.pidly declined. Matters arc growing desperate; all the nantes lathe class have been proposed and withdrawn excepting one, when some individual who is destined to become a brilliant success as a crafty, treacherous, pettifogging member of the Bar, proposes that the class shall accept no more resignations; the motion is eagerly seconded, en- thusiastically carried; for the only negative vote comes in a sten- torian tone from the member whose name has not yet been proposed. Alas, his doom, is sealed! like tiger crouching for his prey, the “artful dodger ” makes a nomination; but who could suspect from the courteous tones of the nominating voice that the owner is gratifying a personal antipathy? Alas for the duplicity of class elections!

Page 11 text:

ECHO OF THE SIWTKCA, 9 «COLLEGE life is a drama in four acts. The “Echo” is a theater upon whose stage wo play once a year. The cur tain rises this time, for the fourth and last act, and when it falls, ?80 will have hid its last farewell. As wo gaze back through the vista of onr college days, feelings alike of joy. anrl sadness steal o’er us. AVc remember distinctly the drudgery of our Freshman and Sophomore years, and the i i otium cum- diy ” of our first entrance into upper-class life. W c had our cane- rushes, wore our heavers, buried our Calculos, published our “Echo;” and now we look around us and see how others are taking part; in the same- duties we once performed. The four successive years of a college course may fitly be com- pared to the four seasons of nature’s year. Spring brings with it t-hc newness and verdure so applicable to a Freshman. Bummer, with Us bright days and busy industry, may be likened to the jolly and hustling life of a Sophomore. Autumn, with its congenial atmosphere and plentiful harvest, to the dignity and refinement of a cultured Junior. And Winter, the hard work of the season finished, the barns filled with plenty, and a mantle of purity thrown over all, to the Senior year, with the drudgery done, the mind stored with useful learning and follies thrown aside, peace upon, its brow. We have sown our Freshman oats, cultivated our Sophomore tares, gathered our Jun- ior harvest, and are now enjoying the Senior fruits of our college labors. Fain would we linger before the scenes longer, yet time waits for no man but remorselessly urges us on to make our parting bow. The curtain is falling, the lights are burning low, and '80 bids her professional adieux to college life.

Page 13 text:

And so the unfortunate victim retires to his study and sits down at his desk to write an editorial which shall ill! a page and a half of the Ectto arid, if possible, do justice to the class. But- however that may be, the apace must be filled. What can lie write? Shall he speak of the satisfaction, the dignity and gravity that come with the Junior year? Of the zeal with which the class is follow- ing out the labarinthine arguments of the “Do Corona?” Of the enthusiasm with which they delve among the treasures of the mother-tongue? Shall ho describe the awe. and reverence inspired in the timid Freab. by heating from Junior lips the “ Mnemonic Lines75 quoted and. discussed in preference to the idle, bootless chatter of less highly favored mortals? The unquenchable thirst of knowledge w'hich prompts a thorough investigation of the Nat- ural Laws as laid down by Ganot? Or, belter still, shall he assume a vivacious tone and tell of the conquests made by the Junior, gal- lant and gay, and then grow pensive as he mentions the sorrowful fact that for the Class of ’81 the course is more than half completed and the end draw's on apace? It cannot be that he write of these, for when the book comes from the press some college antiquary, well read in many preceding u Echoes, •5 will exclaim, “ The Junior editor has smoag- ed ’GO’S Sophomore editorial;” or “He has mixed ’75’s Junior cd. and ’75-s Senior effusion.” And old files will be produced and the hapless writer condemned, because, forsooth, the experience of one class is much like that- of another [ Bo the present- Junior searches in the house of his intellect for some item of class interest that is not an echo, and, finding none, heaps imprecations both loud and deep upon the mover of his election, and yows that, so far as he i.s concerned, the. Class of ’81. will have to do without its editorial. NZXZhl i