A Collection of College Words and Customs, page 109 by Benjamin Homer Hall
<< Return to Title Details & Download110
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