Members of the Class of 2008 will receive graduation gifts ranging from cash to computers, but an inscribed silver punch bowl was the prize for College founder Eleazar Wheelock at Dartmouth College's first Commencement ceremony in August 1771.
The punch bowl, which is still passed down to incoming College presidents, was originally a gift courtesy of New Hampshire Governor John Wentworth, who also donated a large ox to be roasted and several barrels of rum. The inebriated cooks' subsequent failure to roast the ox would not be the last ignominious event in the College's history of Commencements.
Daniel Webster, member of the Class of 1801 and among Dartmouth's most distinguished alumni, also had a less than dignified Commencement. The student body traditionally selected the valedictory speaker, but that year the College bestowed the honor on the faculty following an intense feud between two fraternities about who the speaker should be. After the faculty chose another student in lieu of Webster, he skipped the ceremonies and reportedly tore up his diploma on the lawn east of Dartmouth Hall. Many College historians discredit the story, however, claiming that it was fabricated by Webster's political enemies.
Throughout the 19th century, Dartmouth's Commencement ceremonies, which seemed to progressively increase in length, featured numerous speeches in Latin, English, Greek, Chaldaic and Hebrew. The 1817 Commencement, for example, included "one Latin oration, six English orations, one forensic disposition, one philosophical oration, two conferences, one Greek oration and two dialogues," according to the Dartmouth College Fund web site. The Class of 1835 suffered through a particularly long ceremony, as each of the 48 graduating seniors gave a 10-minute speech at the behest of then College President Nathan Lord.
The ceremonies had shortened considerably by 1869, when Dartmouth hosted guests such as Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Salmon P. Chase, Class of 1826. Commencement has featured many distinguished people since then, including Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Nelson Rockefeller '30 and Meryl Streep. Keynote speeches by United States presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 and Bill Clinton in 1995 drew upwards of 10,000 visitors each.
Potential Commencement speakers have also generated controversy throughout the College's history. President Abraham Lincoln was slated to receive an honorary degree in the 1860s, but Lord, who held that Lincoln's views regarding slavery were biblically incorrect, rescinded the offer. Rockefeller's arrival in 1969 was met with public outcry against the Vietnam War. Approximately one third of the graduating class wore white armbands to protest his presence, while several students staged a walkout during his speech. Eisenhower's speech was plagued by the appearance of a fake bomb under the graduation stage, which the Secret Service did not discover until after the president had spoken.
Over the past 237 years, Dartmouth's Commencement ceremonies have grown with the College. While Dartmouth's first Commencement graduated only four students--all of whom had spent three years at Yale University--today's ceremony features approximately 1,086.
To former College President John Sloan Dickey, Commencement signified the end of people's time as students, but not their relationship with the College.
"The word [Commencement] is 'so long,' because in the Dartmouth fellowship, there is no parting," he said.
