Similar to this is the account given by the Hon. Paine Wingate, a graduate of the class of 1759, of the exercises of Commencement as conducted while he was in College.  “I do not recollect now,” he says, “any part of the public exercises on Commencement Day to be in English, excepting the President’s prayers at opening and closing the services.  Next after the prayer followed the Salutatory Oration in Latin, by one of the candidates for the first degree.  This office was assigned by the President, and was supposed to be given to him who was the best orator in the class.  Then followed a Syllogistic Disputation in Latin, in which four or five or more of those who were distinguished as good scholars in the class were appointed by the President as Respondents, to whom were assigned certain questions, which the Respondents maintained, and the rest of the class severally opposed, and endeavored to invalidate.  This was conducted wholly in Latin, and in the form of Syllogisms and Theses.  At the close of the Disputation, the President usually added some remarks in Latin.  After these exercises the President conferred the degrees.  This, I think, may be considered as the summary of the public performances on a Commencement Day.  I do not recollect any Forensic Disputation, or a Poem or Oration spoken in English, whilst I was in College.”—­Peirce’s Hist.  Harv.  Univ., pp. 307, 308.

As far back as the year 1685, it was customary for the President to deliver an address near the close of the exercises.  Under this date, in the MS. Diary of Judge Sewall, are these words:  “Mr. President after giving ye Degrees made an Oration in Praise of Academical Studies and Degrees, Hebrew tongue.”  In 1688, at the Commencement, according to the same gentleman, Mr. William Hubbard, then acting as President under the appointment of Sir Edmund Andros, “made an oration.”

The disputations were always in Latin, and continued to be a part of the exercises of Commencement until the year 1820.  The orations were in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and sometimes French; in 1818 a Spanish oration was delivered at the Commencement for that year by Mr. George Osborne.  The first English oration was made by Mr. Jedidiah Huntington, in the year 1763, and the first English poem by Mr. John Davis, in 1781.  The last Latin syllogisms were in 1792, on the subjects, “Materia cogitare non potest,” and “Nil nisi ignis natura est fluidum.”  The first year in which the performers spoke without a prompter was 1837.  There were no Master’s exercises for the first time in 1844.  To prevent improprieties, in the year 1760, “the duty of inspecting the performances on the day,” says Quincy, “and expunging all exceptionable parts, was assigned to the President; on whom it was particularly enjoined ’to put an end to the practice of addressing the female sex.’” At a later period, in 1792, by referring to the “Order of the Exercises of Commencement,” we find that in the concluding oration “honorable notice is taken, from year to year, of those who have been the principal Benefactors of the University.”  The practice is now discontinued.