Commencements

The college year ended, differing hardly at all from other years, for customs change but slowly in the educational world,* yet marked at individual institutions by episodes that distinguished the 1925 commencement exercises from all others.

At Knox College (Galesburg, Ill.) Melville E. Stone, onetime General Manager of the Associated Press, was made a Doctor of Laws (as was Abraham Lincoln before him) on the scene where, 80 years ago, his father and mother met for the first time as students.

At Union College (Schenectady, N. Y.) an LL.D. was conferred upon Sir Esme Howard, British ambassador to the U. S.; a D.Sc. upon Michael Idvorsky Pupin, Professor of Electromechanics at Columbia University.

Marietta College (Marietta .Ohio) was visited by Vice President Charles G. Dawes, '84, and by Byron Bancroft Johnson, President of the American Baseball League. Crowds cheered as Mr. Johnson received an honorary A.B. degree, allegedly so flustering the proud recipient that he had difficulty in readjusting the unfamiliar academic cap as he retreated to his chair.

At Rutgers University (New Brunswick, N. J.) the alumni paraded behind George S. Silzer, LL.D., '23, Governor of New Jersey. The trustees announced the election of Dr. John Martin Thomas, President of Pennsylvania State College, to succeed Dr. William H. S. Demarest (resigned 1924) as President of Rutgers. The University exchanged distinctions with Tsuneo Matsudaira, Japanese Ambassador to the U. S., by making that gentleman an honorary Doctor of Laws.

Bradley Polytechnic Institute (Peoria, Ill.), announced Dr. F. R. Hamilton, onetime President of Marshall College (Huntington, W. Va.), as successor to the chair of her late President, Dr. Theodore C. Burgess.

Smith College (for women, at Northampton, Mass.) prolonged her commencement exercises into ceremonies observing the college's 50th anniversary. Said President William Allen Neilson: "I look forward to the time when some enlightened man will leave his money to a college which will offer young men opportunities equal to those offered in the best colleges for young women." A series of lantern slides entitled The Circling Years, accompanied by rhymed comment, showed the "meteoric" growth of Smith from 14 to 2,000 students, showed the evolution of female habiliments from trailing black cambric skirts to bloomers, showed a now dignified class dean riding the first bicycle ever seen on the Smith campus, showed geographical changes: --Where our stately buildings tower now

Once pastured free the presidential cow.

Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, N. Y.) listened, at her 60th exercises, to President Henry Noble MacCracken on Leisure: "Whither has it gone? Can we find it again? . . . The word is, of course, Latin and means 'it is permitted.' It implies a positive, constructive, creative life."

The University of South Carolina (Columbia) made Bernard M. Baruch, Carolina-born Manhattan financier, a Doctor of Laws. Said Dr. Baruch: "Laws should not be made to shackle personal initiative or to be catspaws to serve envy directed toward those who are willing to subdue their emotions and appetites and use their time and activities rigorously to achieve success."

Lafayette College (Easton, Pa.) also gave Ambassador Matsudaira an LL.D., heard him speak, heard also Cyrus Woods, onetime (March, 1923-June, 1924) U. S. Ambassador to Japan.

Yale University (New Haven), Conn.) distributed honorary degrees to Edward S. Harkness, '97, a wealthy benefactor; the Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, "one of the foremost pulpit orators of the world"; Robert Andrews Milliken, President of the California-Institute of Technology; Ernest Martin Hopkins, President of Dartmouth College; Alumnus John Hays Hammond, mining engineer; Alumnus Gifford Pinchot, Governor of Pennsylvania; Owen D. Young, Chairman of the Board of the Radio Corporation of America; Alumnus James Rockwell Sheffield, U. S. Ambassador to Mexico.

At Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.), the outstanding reunion was held by the Class of 1900, which includes among its members Walter Hampden, actor; U. S. Brigadier General Marlborough Churchill; Authors Walter Pritchard Eaton, W. C. Arensberg and Reginald Wright Kauffman; Publisher Ralph Pulitzer of The New York World; Newspaper Correspondents Frank H. Simonds and Mark Sullivan.

Princeton University (Princeton, N. J.) dedicated a new infirmary, laid the cornerstone of a $3,000,000 chapel, the latter with the confident words of Edward Dickinson Duffield, '92, President of the Prudential Insurance Co. of America, that it would "always, serve to safeguard Princeton's sons spiritually and to send them out into the world with the proper spiritual concepts."

The Agricultural College of Utah (Logan, Utah) conferred its LL.D. upon U. S. Secretary of Agriculture William M. Jardine.

The University of Toronto (Toronto, Ont.) conferred its D.Sc. upon Dr. Charles E. Saunders, originator of Marquis wheat, the standard hardy spring crop of most wheat-growers today.

The University of Kentucky (Lexington) made honorary doctors of Louis Wiley, Business Manager of The New York Times since 1895; Miss Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, Dean of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. William Allen White, jovial editor of the Emporia (Kan.) Gazette, delivered the commencement address.

Tufts College (Medford, Mass.) honored itself and Lieutenant Leigh Wade, U. S. Army, with a master's degree in Science for his circummundane airplane flight last year; honored Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay with a Litt.D.

At Haverford College (Haverford, Pa.), Charles C. Sellers, senior, was awarded his diploma in absentia. Sellers was, however, present at the exercises, completely disguised as a girl. He heard himself lauded, awarded three prizes, heard the class poem written by him read by another. Explained his mother, Mrs. Sellers: "Charles is exceedingly shy. Also, he has a sense of humor."

Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vt.), 25th U. S. college to receive its charter, celebrated its 125th anniversary. Principal orator: U. S. Attorney General John Garibaldi Sargent.

The University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) celebrated its 130th anniversary, was informed by Glenn Frank, President-elect of the University of Wisconsin: "The educational world is caught in the sweep of a Safety first' movement. . . . It may be that the most serious need of the human race just now is comic relief."

At Salem College (Salem, W. Va.), the oldest senior graduated was John Franklin Brown, 75, who took his A.B., made plans for post-graduate work and a faculty position at his alma mater.

Olden Days. An historically-minded writer in The Christian Science Monitor unearthed a report of Yale's commencement exercises in 1820: "'The day was very fine and an unusual number of visitants from abroad was present. . . . The exercises of the day were received with universal approbation and reflected the highest honor upon the institution and the Young Gentlemen who graduated'."

Larded only with an interval for luncheon, there were two lengthy prayers, five musical selections, the conferring of degrees, and 16 speeches by the Young Gentlemen on such subjects as De Fructu ex Auctorum Gracorum et Latinorum Lectione Assidua, Percipiendo; On the Distinct Province of Poetry and Eloquence; On Sensibility to Public Opinion; The Pleasures and Effects of Early Friendship; On the Maxim that Virtue Is Essential to the Character of an Orator; a "dispute" On the Comparative Pleasure Derived from the Works of Art and Nature; a "colloquy" On Alison's Theory of Taste.

* Swifter to change than the customs is the scope of U. S. Education. In 1900, about 14,000 bachelor's degrees were conferred. In 1910, 22,687 degrees. In 1920, 38,552. In 1922, 47,854. In 1924, about 76,000. In 1900, the colleges graduated one person for every 5,400 of the country's population. In 1910. the ration was 1 to 4,000; in 1920, 1 to 3,000.