History of Commencement Exercises

Emory College was chartered in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia, and the first Emory commencement was held here in 1840.

The 2010 commencement exercises will be Emory's 165th such observance. At the first Emory commencement ceremony in 1840, then, as now, sermons and addresses had a central focus on the exercises. In 1849, all fifteen members of the graduating class were assigned speaking roles and spoke for as long as half an hour each.

Early commencement audiences would sit for up to four hours in the midsummer heat to listen to the numerous student and faculty orations. These early addresses were in English, contrary to the practice at many other institutions. President A. B. Longstreet argued in 1842 that speeches in Latin and Greek were "worthy of the name pedantry, and nothing more." In spite of this advice, several later generations of students instructed their audiences in the ancient tongues.

One observer at an early commencement in Oxford noted the absence of "pomp and parades, and tinsel, and glare exhibited at most commencements." An Emory commencement to him was "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." Later generations hired brass bands for the commencement season to accompany parades of elaborate banners and insignia, though academic caps and gowns continued to be unknown at Emory throughout the nineteenth century. In 1858 trustees appointed faculty marshals to quell the boisterousness of pioneer audiences so that speakers could be heard, and they also required men and women to sit apart, according to Methodist ways.

These occasions attracted throngs of people from all over Georgia to hear sermons and speeches by prominent persons of the time, and to participate in the numerous banquets, parties, and exercises sponsored by competing literary societies. Commencement exercises at Emory College contributed both an intellectual and religious influence in the making of Georgia.

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