Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/525

 THE DEVELOPING UNIVERSITY 459 and Science upon those who completed the work of the Junior Col- leges. The title of Associate was first conferred at the April, 1900, Convocation, and continued thereafter to be a regular and not uninteresting part of the Convocation exercises. The Convocations were a unique feature of the University's life. Held quarterly, and sometimes oftener, as when honorary degrees were conferred on President McKinley and President Roosevelt, it might be thought that they must have become formal, perfunc- tory, and uninteresting. For ten years the University had no hall in which to hold them. Sometimes they were held in halls in the business center of Chicago, sometimes in the old gymnasium, and later in the new one, sometimes in tents, and sometimes in the open air within the quadrangles. As late as March, 1903, the University journeyed six miles to Studebaker Hall for its Convocation. The next two were held within the quadrangles in the open air, and in October, 1903, they found refuge from their wanderings in the newly erected Mandel Assembly Hall. Though held so often, the Con- vocation did not grow stale. Many distinguished men and women of this and other countries, scholars, statesmen, philanthropists, diplomats, preachers, men of business, authors, editors brought their messages to the University as Convocation orators. The President's Convocation statement on the condition of the Univer- sity with its announcement of new gifts, of new appointments and promotions in the faculty, perhaps of new plans and policies, was listened to with great attention, and the conferring of the degrees lost none of its interest from quarter to quarter and from year to year. There were ninety-nine Convocations during the first quarter-century, but the interest in them continued undiminished through the years. The March Convocation was made a family affair, a member of the University always being called upon to make the address. To assist in the orderly and dignified conduct of the Convocation, the President, as a special honor, appointed eleven young men as Marshals, one of them being Head Marshal, and ten young women as Aides. By them the candidates for titles and degrees were conducted to the platform and led before the President. The Convocation procession was led by the Marshal of the Univer- sity, who was a member of the faculty.