Repository: UIHistories Project: Sophograph - 1890 [PAGE 40]

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THE SOPHOGRAPH.

steady application to his books, but must break forth sometimes as the necessary reaction of hard study. This merrymaking is often carried to extremes, but it is only through thoughtlessness and not through willfulness. Knowledge, to increase, must be used. The intellect is like a muscle, which, if never employed, becomes weak and powerless. Some things, it is true, can only be learned from authors, but in the sciences and arts one can work for himself. In any pursuit one becomes perfect only through practice. The true student knows that his education is not completed with his college course; but that if he wishes to become a scholar, he must still pursue his studies. There are battles (though they be not sanguinary) to be fought in school. Many a dark page must be pored over until it becomes clear. But in spite of all, school-days are among the happiest of a life-time. When it becomes time to leave the college halls, the student looks back with pleasure upon the many happy hours that he has spent there and regrets that they are to be enjoyed no more. Many of his classmates and friends he parts from, never to meet again. He parts too from much of his free and boyish life, seeming to grow older the moment he steps out into the world. And if, in after years, he revisits his Alma Mater, it is with the keenest interest and the most pleasant memories.

CLASSIFICATIONS.

HESE are the days of specialists. Scientist con trating their labor upon some one field of ini itigation, spend their entire time within its limits. Hence their knowledge is not wide but deep. This method is worthy of imitation. A hitherto unworked field is the classification of collegians. Long ago animals and plants were divided into families genera and species. Why not so classify students, beginning with the boys of our own University? First lei us look to their division into classes. I t can not be disputed that although the moustache of a prep may be as luxuriant as that of a senior, each class has a certain individuality thai distinguishes it from another. The stars are the connecting links between classes partaking somewhat of the qualities of each. The most prominent figures in college life, of course, are the seniors. Thev are the veterans who hav survived physics and demerits and can look forward with calmness to chapel orations. In our college the black silk plug is their distinctive badge, but even that can searceb add t o their calm and sphinx-like demeanor. Who n i > so charming as this same senior, when tor a moment for; ting his dignity, he discourses on pleasant sobj - with a girl. Many boys ^o through college utterly regardless - th feminine element until the last year, when a sudden veaj ing for some fair one breaks down their timid in and th enter the mad whirl of Champaign or I'rhana -

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