Werner's Readings and Recitations, No 54 Commencement Week Classic Reprint

Excerpt from Werner's Readings and Recitations, No. 54: Commencement Week

Commencement exercises should be made formal and dignified. If the school has a service or some order of exercises which it uses frequently and to which pupils are accustomed, it is good to use this on Commencement program with necessary additions. No service or order of exercises could be more suitable to a school Commencement than the service pupils have used throughout the year. There are some beautiful school hymns every pupil should know. There are prayers, too, fitting to school celebrations.

A most fitting Commencement program is one in which the chief feature is an address by a noted speaker on a topic of importance to the graduates, their parents and their friends. Graduating essays have little interest for any but those who write them; but a speech from one who is in the active life that the graduates are to enter is of interest to all who hear it. The impression made by a speech of this kind is frequently spoiled, however, by unwise and ill-chosen words of school officials, who use the presentation of diplomas for the display of mean wit and the utterance of platitudes. Diplomas should be presented in simple and dignified manner by the principal of the school. At college such presentations are made with formal Latin phrases.

Commencement takes place usually at a season when there is a peculiar appropriateness in having many celebrations outdoors. Scenes from Shakespeare, or a pastoral play, with possibly chorus singing, all on a lawn in the late afternoon, is charming. Afterward the players, their friends and teachers may meet and chat with the freedom and pleasure that one feels only outdoors.

Few occasions are more enjoyed than a school-breakfast served outdoors at long tables, or on the grass, with toasts responded to by members of the school. Such occasions train boys and girls to speak with ease, if not brilliantly.

One of the pleasantest times of Commencement Week is a final party for the graduates alone - after graduation is over. There is a spread, or a picnic or luncheon at a country-club or farmhouse, and an afternoon outdoors, spent in reminiscing, singing school-songs, talking of plans, etc.

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