A Collection of College Words and Customs

by Benjamin Homer Hall

"After the literary exercises of the day were closed, the officers in the different branches of the College government and instruction, Masters of Arts, and invited guests, repaired to the College dining-hall without the ceremony of a procession formed according to dignity or priority of right. This the elements forbade. Each one ran the short race as he best could. But as the Alumni arrived, they naturally avoided taking possession of the seats usually occupied by the government of the College. The Governor, Increase Sumner, I suppose, was present, and no doubt all possible respect was paid to the Overseers as well as to the Corporation. I was not present, but dined at my father's house with a few friends, of whom the late Hon. Moses Brown of Beverly was one. We went together to the College hall after dinner; but the honorable and reverend Corporation and Overseers had retired, and I do not remember whether there was any person presiding. If there were, a statue would have been as well. The age of wine and wassail, those potent aids to patriotism, mirth, and song, had not wholly passed away. The merry glee was at that time outrivalled by Adams and Liberty, the national patriotic song, so often and on so many occasions sung, and everywhere so familiarly known that all could join in grand chorus."—Memories of Youth and Manhood, Vol. II. pp. 4, 5.

The irregularities of Commencement week seem at a very early period to have attracted the attention of the College government; for we find that in 1728, to prevent disorder, a formal request was made by the President, at the suggestion of the immediate government, to Lieutenant-Governor Dummer, praying him to direct the sheriff of Middlesex to prohibit the setting up of booths and tents on those public days. Some years after, in 1732, "an interview took place between the Corporation and three justices of the peace in Cambridge, to concert measures to keep order at Commencement, and under their warrant to establish a constable with six men, who, by watching and walking towards the evening on these days, and also the night following, and in and about the entry at the College Hall at dinner-time, should prevent disorders." At the beginning of the present century, it was customary for two special justices to give their attendance at this period, in order to try offences, and a guard of twenty constables was usually present to preserve order and attend on the justices. Among the writings of one, who for fifty years was a constant attendant on these occasions, are the following memoranda, which are in themselves an explanation of the customs of early years. "Commencement, 1828; no tents on the Common for the first time." "Commencement, 1836; no persons intoxicated in the hall or out of it; the first time."

The following extract from the works of a French traveller will be read with interest by some, as an instance of the manner in which our institutions are sometimes regarded by foreigners. "In a free country, everything ought to bear the stamp of patriotism. This patriotism appears every year in a solemn feast celebrated at Cambridge in honor of the sciences. This feast, which takes place once a year in all the colleges of America, is called Commencement. It resembles the exercises and distribution of prizes in our colleges. It is a day of joy for Boston; almost all its inhabitants assemble in Cambridge. The most distinguished of the students display their talents in the presence of the public; and these exercises, which are generally on patriotic subjects, are terminated by a feast, where reign the freest gayety and the most cordial fraternity."—Brissot's Travels in U.S., 1788. London, 1794, Vol. I. pp. 85, 86.

For an account of the chair from which the President delivers diplomas on Commencement Day, see PRESIDENT'S CHAIR.

At Yale College, the first Commencement was held September 13th, 1702, while that institution was located at Saybrook, at which four young men who had before graduated at Harvard College, and one whose education had been private, received the degree of Master of Arts. This and several Commencements following were held privately, according to an act which had been passed by the Trustees, in order to avoid unnecessary expense and other inconveniences. In 1718, the year in which the first College edifice was completed, was held at New Haven the first public Commencement. The following account of the exercises on this occasion was written at the time by one of the College officers, and is cited by President Woolsey in his Discourse before the Graduates of Yale College, August 14th, 1850. "[We were] favored and honored with the presence of his Honor, Governor Saltonstall, and his lady, and the Hon. Col. Taylor of Boston, and the Lieutenant-Governor, and the whole Superior Court, at our Commencement, September 10th, 1718, where the Trustees present,—those gentlemen being present,—in the hall of our new College, first most solemnly named our College by the name of Yale College, to perpetuate the memory of the honorable Gov. Elihu Yale, Esq., of London, who had granted so liberal and bountiful a donation for the perfecting and adorning of it. Upon which the honorable Colonel Taylor represented Governor Yale in a speech expressing his great satisfaction; which ended, we passed to the church, and there the Commencement was carried on. In which affair, in the first place, after prayer an oration was had by the saluting orator, James Pierpont, and then the disputations as usual; which concluded, the Rev. Mr. Davenport [one of the Trustees and minister of Stamford] offered an excellent oration in Latin, expressing their thanks to Almighty God, and Mr. Yale under him, for so public a favor and so great regard to our languishing school. After which were graduated ten young men, whereupon the Hon. Gov. Saltonstall, in a Latin speech, congratulated the Trustees in their success and in the comfortable appearance of things with relation to their school. All which ended, the gentlemen returned to the College Hall, where they were entertained with a splendid dinner, and the ladies, at the same time, were also entertained in the Library; after which they sung the four first verses in the 65th Psalm, and so the day ended."—p. 24.

The following excellent and interesting account of the exercises and customs of Commencement at Yale College, in former times, is taken from the entertaining address referred to above:—"Commencements were not to be public, according to the wishes of the first Trustees, through fear of the attendant expense; but another practice soon prevailed, and continued with three or four exceptions until the breaking out of the war in 1775. They were then private for five years, on account of the times. The early exercises of the candidates for the first degree were a 'saluting' oration in Latin, succeeded by syllogistic disputations in the same language; and the day was closed by the Masters' exercises,—disputations and a valedictory. According to an ancient academical practice, theses were printed and distributed upon this occasion, indicating what the candidates for a degree had studied, and were prepared to defend; yet, contrary to the usage still prevailing at universities which have adhered to the old method of testing proficiency, it does not appear that these theses were ever defended in public. They related to a variety of subjects in Technology, Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric, Mathematics, Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, and afterwards Theology. The candidates for a Master's degree also published theses at this time, which were called Quæstiones magistrales. The syllogistic disputes were held between an affirmant and respondent, who stood in the side galleries of the church opposite to one another, and shot the weapons of their logic over the heads of the audience. The saluting Bachelor and the Master who delivered the valedictory stood in the front gallery, and the audience huddled around below them to catch their Latin eloquence as it fell. It seems also to have been usual for the President to pronounce an oration in some foreign tongue upon the same occasion.[11]

"At the first public Commencement under President Stiles, in 1781, we find from a particular description which has been handed down, that the original plan, as above described, was subjected for the time to considerable modifications. The scheme, in brief, was as follows. The salutatory oration was delivered by a member of the graduating class, who is now our aged and honored townsman, Judge Baldwin. This was succeeded by the syllogistic disputations, and these by a Greek oration, next to which came an English colloquy. Then followed a forensic disputation, in which James Kent was one of the speakers. Then President Stiles delivered an oration in Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic,—it being an extraordinary occasion. After which the morning was closed with an English oration by one of the graduating class. In the afternoon, the candidates for the second degree had the time, as usual, to themselves, after a Latin discourse by President Stiles. The exhibiters appeared in syllogistic disputes, a dissertation, a poem, and an English oration. Among these performers we find the names of Noah Webster, Joel Barlow, and Oliver Wolcott. Besides the Commencements there were exhibitions upon quarter-days, as they were called, in December and March, as well as at the end of the third term, when the younger classes performed; and an exhibition of the Seniors in July, at the time of their examination for degrees, when the valedictory orator was one of their own choice. This oration was transferred to the Commencement about the year 1798, when the Masters' valedictories had fallen into disuse; and being in English, gave a new interest to the exercises of the day.

"Commencements were long occasions of noisy mirth, and even of riot. The older records are full of attempts, on the part of the Corporation, to put a stop to disorder and extravagance at this anniversary. From a document of 1731, it appears that cannons had been fired in honor of the day, and students were now forbidden to have a share in this on pain of degradation. The same prohibition was found necessary again in 1755, at which time the practice had grown up of illuminating the College buildings upon Commencement eve. But the habit of drinking spirituous liquor, and of furnishing it to friends, on this public occasion, grew up into more serious evils. In the year 1737, the Trustees, having found that there was a great expense in spirituous distilled liquors upon Commencement occasions, ordered that for the future no candidate for a degree, or other student, should provide or allow any such liquors to be drunk in his chamber during Commencement week. And again, it was ordered in 1746, with the view of preventing several extravagant and expensive customs, that there should be 'no kind of public treat but on Commencement, quarter-days, and the day on which the valedictory oration was pronounced; and on that day the Seniors may provide and give away a barrel of metheglin, and nothing more.' But the evil continued a long time. In 1760, it appears that it was usual for the graduating class to provide a pipe of wine, in the payment of which each one was forced to join. The Corporation now attempted by very stringent law to break up this practice; but the Senior Class having united in bringing large quantities of rum into College, the Commencement exercises were suspended, and degrees were withheld until after a public confession of the class. In the two next years degrees were given at the July examination, with a view to prevent such disorders, and no public Commencement was celebrated. Similar scenes are not known to have occurred afterwards, although for a long time that anniversary wore as much the aspect of a training-day as of a literary festival.

"The Commencement Day in the modern sense of the term—that is, a gathering of graduated members and of others drawn together by a common interest in the College, and in its young members who are leaving its walls—has no counterpart that I know of in the older institutions of Europe. It arose by degrees out of the former exercises upon this occasion, with the addition of such as had been usual before upon quarter-days, or at the presentation in July. For a time several of the commencing Masters appeared on the stage to pronounce orations, as they had done before. In process of time, when they had nearly ceased to exhibit, this anniversary began to assume a somewhat new feature; the peculiarity of which consists in this, that the graduates have a literary festival more peculiarly their own, in the shape of discourses delivered before their assembled body, or before some literary society."—Woolsey's Historical Discourse, pp. 65-68.

Further remarks concerning the observance of Commencement at Yale College may be found in Ebenezer Baldwin's "Annals" of that institution, pp. 189-197.