“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.’