of Inquiry, each maintained an existence independent of it. In addition to these groups there grew up on the campus the ephemeral Gamma Phi and Lyceum Societies and the relatively permanent Musical Society; little is known of the first two; the third, which existed as early as 1832, fostered vocal music and sang at commencements.
Commencement week included not only the graduation ceremony but also oral public examinations of the various classes. Immediately following the examinations came the “exercises” or “exhibitions” at which juniors and seniors delivered orations. The part of the program given over to the seniors, however, was technically the commencement. The week’s activities gave the officers an opportunity to show something of the work of the Institution and at the same time provided students who were graduating a chance to make useful contacts with denominational leaders who might attend. Even though no class had completed the course in June 1821, “public exercises” were held so that friends of the school could see and hear its students at the end of the first year’s work. The program consisted of fifteen orations, all on religious subjects, including one in Latin and one in Greek.
Arrangements for the commencement of 1822 set precedents which were followed rather generally until students were to be graduated from the collegiate department in the middle 1830’s. The newspapers of the vicinity were notified of the week’s program, a public dinner planned, parchment diplomas printed, a procession provided for, and Jonathan Olmstead appointed marshall. Probably this commencement and all those before 1827 were held in the Baptist meeting house. Concluding the 1822 program was an “Address to the Class-By the Professor,” identified as Kendrick since he usually delivered a kind of baccalaureate sermon to subsequent graduating classes. Alumni remembered long afterward the sound advice and fatherly admonition packed into them. Nor did they forget tearful farewells as they went their separate ways once the ceremony was over.
Of the 110 men who had finished the course in the Seminary by June 1833 nearly all had entered the ministry. Nine became foreign missionaries and probably most of the others at some time in their careers preached in the sparsely settled parts of the United States. In any survey of these alumni Jonathan Wade stands out. His fame as a missionary rested not only on his preaching but on his scholarly efforts. He reduced several Burmese dialects to written languages, wrote
