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Brunoniana | ||||
From Martha Mitchell’s Encyclopedia Brunoniana: Junior and Senior Exhibitions Junior and Senior Exhibitions were a tradition which began in the days of President Maxcy, when oratory was of great importance and the College shared this public display of talent of its students with the community. The sophomore-junior exhibitions were held twice a year, in April and August. The sophomores recited selected pieces, while the juniors delivered original orations and poems, debated and acted scenes from plays. The sophomores were no longer included after the spring of 1820 in what now became the “Junior Exhibition.” The seniors had their exhibition in December. Originally held in the chapel, after 1806 these presentations often took place in the Town House, which stood at the southwest corner of Benefit and College Streets. It was built for the First Congregational Church in 1723 and served as the Town House from 1795 to 1860, when it was torn down. The end of the senior exhibitions was noted in an obituary of the Senior Exhibition which appeared in the first Brown Paper in November 1857, with these lines: We watched his breathing through the week, The junior exhibitions continued to be an attraction for the public. Robert P. Brown 1871 recalled these events in Memories of Brown: “The most graceful and enjoyed event of the year was junior exhibition, which took place in April. It was religiously observed by all young and pretty maidens as the function where they should appear in their spring adornments, and this gave an audience of bewildering charms and beauty adorned to its utmost. At this exhibition the best original speeches of the junior year work were delivered by their authors, and it was a higher honor to speak at junior exhibition than was the perfunctory appointment for commencement, which was strictly according to marks. The junior exhibition speaker, however, had no halo about his head, for while he was trying to prove the greatness of his soul or his proficiency in oratory very likely the audience was reading comments about him, full of sarcasm, ridicule, and abuse scurrilous even beyond the bounds of decency; for the wicked sophomores had been busy for weeks preparing mock programmes.In 1870 the Brunonian called for an end to the “obsolete custom,” by which the exhibition speakers were obliged to appear in a gown in which “the speaker can make no gesture with grace, nor even stand at ease.” The last junior exhibition was held in 1882. The next year the appointed members of the Class of 1884, protesting the current practice of appointing the speakers, which, according to the Brunonian, was based “almost entirely according to the marks obtained in all the studies during the entire previous course, slightly modified by particular excellence in speaking and writing,” asked to be excused from speaking. The above entry appears in Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell, copyright 1993 by the Brown University Library. It is used here by permission of the author and the University and may not be copied or further distributed without permission. Return to Encyclopedia Index | University Home Page
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