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 Quaestiones 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]