A school or college “crib.”

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1832.  Their lexicons, ponies, and text-books, were strewed round their lamps on the table.—‘A Tour through College,’ p. 30 (Farmer).

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1850.  The tutors with ponies their lessons were learning.—Yale Banger, Nov., cited by B. H. Hall, ‘College Words,’ p. 358 (1856).

3

1853.  

        Ye plodders dull in all the classes,
  Your sad condition we deplore;
In knowledge’s road ye are but asses,
  While we on ponies ride before.
‘Yale Songs,’ p. 7 (the same).    

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1854.  

        I am a college pony,
  Coming from a Junior’s room;
The ungrateful wretch has cast me
  Forth to wander in the gloom.
I bore him safe through Horace,
  Saved him from the flunkey’s doom.
Yale Lit. Mag., xx. 76 (Nov.).    

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1855.  

        Flashed all their weapons bare,
Flashed all their pens in air,
Wasting the paper there,
Skinning from ponies, while
  All the Profs. wondered.
Id., xx. 188 (March).    

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1858.  It is certain that “ponies” have too much of a tendency to bring our translations to a dead uniformity, and to prevent recitations from being beguiled by peculiar renderings of the ancient authors, so common in former times.—Id., xxiii. 281 (June).

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