But the evil continued a long time.  In 1760, it appears that it was usual for the graduating class to provide a pipe of wine, in the payment of which each one was forced to join.  The Corporation now attempted by very stringent law to break up this practice; but the Senior Class having united in bringing large quantities of rum into College, the Commencement exercises were suspended, and degrees were withheld until after a public confession of the class.  In the two next years degrees were given at the July examination, with a view to prevent such disorders, and no public Commencement was celebrated.  Similar scenes are not known to have occurred afterwards, although for a long time that anniversary wore as much the aspect of a training-day as of a literary festival.

“The Commencement Day in the modern sense of the term—­that is, a gathering of graduated members and of others drawn together by a common interest in the College, and in its young members who are leaving its walls—­has no counterpart that I know of in the older institutions of Europe.  It arose by degrees out of the former exercises upon this occasion, with the addition of such as had been usual before upon quarter-days, or at the presentation in July.  For a time several of the commencing Masters appeared on the stage to pronounce orations, as they had done before.  In process of time, when they had nearly ceased to exhibit, this anniversary began to assume a somewhat new feature; the peculiarity of which consists in this, that the graduates have a literary festival more peculiarly their own, in the shape of discourses delivered before their assembled body, or before some literary society.”—­Woolsey’s Historical Discourse, pp. 65-68.

Further remarks concerning the observance of Commencement at Yale College may be found in Ebenezer Baldwin’s “Annals” of that institution, pp. 189-197.

An article “On the Date of the First Public Commencement at Yale College, in New Haven,” will be read with pleasure by those who are interested in the deductions of antiquarian research.  It is contained in the “Yale Literary Magazine,” Vol.  XX. pp. 199, 200.

The following account of Commencement at Dartmouth College, on Wednesday, August 24th, 1774, written by Dr. Belknap, may not prove uninteresting.

“About eleven o’clock, the Commencement began in a large tent erected on the east side of the College, and covered with boards; scaffolds and seats being prepared.

“The President began with a prayer in the usual strain.  Then an English oration was spoken by one of the Bachelors, complimenting the Trustees, &c.  A syllogistic disputation on this question:  Amicitia vera non est absque amore divina.  Then a cliosophic oration.  Then an anthem, ‘The voice of my beloved sounds,’ &c.  Then a forensic dispute, Whether Christ died for all men? which was well supported on both sides.  Then an anthem, ’Lift up your heads, O ye gates,’ &c.