Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/291

287 usual Foundation of critical Learning and Languages discovered an aptness worthy of Encouragement in Mathematics and some Branches of Philosophy, to the honorary Degree of Bachelor of Arts.

The programme for the Commencement was announced in the Gazette on 12 May, 1757, and was as follows:

A PLAN of the COMMENCEMENT to be held here on Tuesday next, in the College and Academy Hall.

Prayers by the Rev. Mr. Peters.

A Sermon adapted to the Occasion by the Provost.

A Salutatory Oration by Mr. JACKSON. And

A Thesis to be defended. This closes the forenoon.

In the afternoon.

Three other Theses to be defended.

Then the Degrees are to be conferred.

Some Orations are to be spoken by some of the Students who have been admitted to Degrees; and a Valedictory Oration to be spoken by Mr. JACOB DUCHE.

N. B. To avoid Confusion, the Gallery Door will be opened at Half an Hour past Nine, and the Business of the Day will begin precisely at Ten in the forenoon, and at Three in the afternoon.

We can imagine the interest of the occasion to all who were concerned in it, and which enabled the friends of the institution to attend what was practically an All-day Commencement. Such however was the custom of the period, and it lived in some of the American Colleges into the times of the present generation. The Trustees saw the crowning of their eight years' effort in the public graduation of their first class; the Provost and the Faculty the successful issue of their Liberal plan of Education in fitting their young men for the "Commencement " of their matured lives; and the young men themselves were impressed with the dignity and responsibility of being the first to earn the honors of their Alma Mater, and they were men who each of them in his life of usefulness attained such eminence and displayed such worth, as to have united in making their class not only the first in the history of the institution but unexcelled in point of average distinction and renown by any of its successors.

The Minutes afford us no record of this day's festivities, nor does the Gazette make any reference to the proceedings, as