History and traditions of Harvard commencements
[9] A number of unusual traditions have attached to them over the centuries, including the arrival of certain dignitaries on horseback, occupancy by Harvard's president of the Holyoke Chair (a "bizarre" sixteenth-century contraption prone to tipping over) and the welcoming of newly minted bachelors to "the fellowship of educated men and women."
[12][13] Morning Exercises are held in the central green of Harvard Yard (known as Tercentenary Theatre);[citation needed] the dais is before the steps of Memorial Church, facing Widener Library.
[note 2] Some 32,000 people attend the event, including university officials, civic dignitaries, faculty, honorees, alumni, family and guests.
Called "bizarre ... with a complex frame and top-heavy superstructure", its "square framework set on the single rear post makes [it] tip over easily to either side."
[32] Said the Harvard Gazette in 2007: When the chair holds its robed occupant, onlookers cannot detect the odd geometry by which its triangular seat points toward a square back rippling with knobby dowels and finials.
Finally, all rise to sing "The Harvard Hymn",[34][35] expressing the hope (Integri sint curatores, Eruditi professores, Largiantur donatores—printed lyrics are supplied)[36] that the trustees, faculty and benefactors will manifest (respectively) integrity, wisdom, and generosity.
[note 7] After the Morning Exercises, each graduate or professional school, and each upperclass House, holds a smaller ceremony (with luncheon) at which its member-graduates are called forward by name to receive their diplomas in hand.
[39] "Our fathers ... closely associated the thirst for learning and that for beer", a 1924 Harvard history observed,[5] so that (a modern survey continued) the sheriffs' presence at Commencements "has a practical origin.
[8] Such goings-on were sufficiently common knowledge that in 1749, Bostonian William Douglass explained to a general readership that the siege and capture of Louisbourg had been "carried on in a tumultuary random Manner, and resembled a Cambridge Commencement."
To curb unseemly sartorial displays of wealth and social status[clarification needed] the 1807 Laws of Harvard College provided that, on Commencement day,[E]very Candidate for a first degree shall be clothed in a black gown, or in a coat of blue grey, a dark blue, or a black color; and no one shall wear any silk nightgown, on said day, nor any gold or silver lace, cord, or edging upon his hat, waistcoat, or any other part of his clothing, in the College, or town of Cambridge.
According to the Harvard undergraduate newspaper, The Crimson, the walkout had been "something of a foregone conclusion ... so widely expected by students and administrators alike that it could just as well have been added to the official Commencement program.
If Harvard would celebrate its three hundredth anniversary by burning itself to the ground and sowing its site with salt, the ceremony would give me the greatest satisfaction as an example to all the other famous old corrupters of youth, including Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, etc.
to the chagrin of Harvard officials and alumni, shunned the prescribed morning coat for a regular tuxedo and straw hat, and Governor James Michael Curley[when?]
)[25][26][27] Even after its first recorded ceremonial use (at the 1770 installation of President Samuel Locke) the President's Chair "used to stand in the Harvard library [Gore Hall], where, according to tradition, it gave a student the right to kiss any young woman whom he was showing through the college and who thoughtlessly sat down on it.
[29] In 1722, the Corporation "took more stringent action still": "Whereas the Countrey in general and the College in Particular have bin under Such Circumstances, as call aloud for Humiliation, and all due manifestations of it; and that a Suitable retrenchmt of every thing that has the face of Exorbitance or [extravegence] in Expences, especially at Commencmt out to be endeavrd.
