Class Day
The day before Commencement, the seniors walk in procession to the Bema, a natural amphitheater in College Park. After a humorous history of the class and other speeches, the class walks up the hill to the stump of the Old Pine, where they hold a farewell ceremony. Students began conducting such ceremonies at the Old Pine in the 1830s, according to alumni of that period. For more than 140 years, the ceremony included the smoking of what were designated "peace pipes"; the offensiveness of the practice of smashing the pipes on the pine, introduced in the 1880s, caused the seniors to omit the smoking element in the early 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Dartmouth College Traditions
Famous quotes containing the words class and/or day:
“All this class of pleasures inspires me with the same nausea as I feel at the sight of rich plum-cake or sweetmeats; I prefer the driest bread of common life.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“Never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow just as well.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)