Other governmental dignitaries, including high-ranking Federal and State officials; the Governor, Cabinet Members, and others.
The clergy, especially representatives of the six original parishes of Cambridge, Watertown, Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, and Roxbury, whose ministers made up, with the magistrates, the College's original Board of Overseers.
The recipients of Honorary Degrees: sixty-six scholars who, as participants in the Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences, will have been sharing the results of their recent investigations with other members of the learned world between August 31 and September 12.
Delegates from other universities, colleges, and learned societies, to the number of nearly 600, representing over 450 institutions.
Professors and Associate Professors of the University.
At about 10.10 there will be a fanfare of four trumpets, the doors of Widener will open, and the Academic Procession will emerge: a colorful sight with its many-hued academic gowns, including the scarlet of Oxford and Cambridge, worn by a number of the Harvard faculty as well as by many of the guests. The various groups will march in the inverse order of rank, the professors first and President Conant and President Lowell marching last. The procession will be headed by the Sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk: a time-honored custom dating from the period when the boisterousness of Commencement made advisable the presence of representatives of the law.
Marching up the main aisle to the platform, the various groups in the procession will be seated by the Marshals and ushers according to their rank, with the Corporation occupying seats in front.
The Programme of the Meeting
After all are seated (which, it is hoped, will be achieved by 10.30), the Chief Marshal, advancing to the center of the platform, will make the traditional request, "Mr. Sheriff, pray give us order"; and the Sheriff of Middlesex, rapping thrice on the platform with the scabbard of his sword, will say, "The meeting will be in order."
The Marshal will then call for the invocation, which will be delivered by Dean Sperry, Chairman of the Board of Preachers. Professor Edward Kennard Rand will next be called upon for a Latin Oration of welcome. Professor Samuel Eliot Morison, official Historian of the University, will make a brief recital of the events constitution the founding of Harvard College, beginning with the vote of the General Court, and ending with the Charter of 1650.
After a chorale by the Tercentenary Chorus, His Excellency the Governor of Massachusetts will present the greetings of the Commonwealth.
President Conant will then deliver the Oration.
After another chorale will come the bestowal of Tercentenary honors, in the form of honorary degrees to sixty-six distinguished scholars, chosen for their eminance in scholarship, and not as delegates or in any representative capacity.
Finally, the whole gathering, nearly 15,000 people, will join the Chorus in singing, "Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past," and the benediction will be pronounced by the Rt. Rev. William Lawrence. The Academic Procession will then leave the platform in the order of rank, the audience remaining until the procession has left the Theatre. The morning exercises will be over, it is anticipated, between 12.30 and 12.45.
At two o'clock, the alumni and dignitaries will reassemble in the Old Yard. This time the Academic Procession, minus those professors of the University who are to join their alumni classes, will also from in the Yard, in front of Holworthy and Thayer Halls. The march into the Theatre will commence soon after two o'clock, and should be finished by 2.30.
The students will assemble in the Sever Quadrangle.
The Afternoon Exercises
This afternoon meeting is under the auspices of the Harvard Alumni Association, and is conducted not by the University but by the Association, which has elected former President Abbott Lawrence Lowell as "President of the Day"--to use the terminology of 1836. He will be accompanied by the President of the Alumni Association, Hon. Learned Hand.
Mr. Lowell will call the meeting to order, and will introduce several distinguished guests as speakers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, '04. There will be four musical items on the programme, which will begin with the 72nd Psalm (always sung at Commencement), and end with "Fair Harvard."
And, even as President Quincy moved "that this assembly of the Alumni be adjourned to meet at this place on the 8th of September, 1936," so President Conant, the final speaker, will conclude his remarks by making a formal motion of adjournment to the year 2036.