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.