"We, and I mean everyone connected with the organization of the Commencement, are always thinking about better ways of changing the rituals. But we don't engage very often in making changes because most of us are happy with the tried and true and pleasing," Hunt says.

Commencement Debauchery

Still, the Commencement program has strayed from its classical origins over the years.

Happily for today's graduates, disputations in Latin on theses philologicae et philosophicae, including propositions by Aristotle and Duns Scotus, is no longer a requirement at Commencement.

As Harvard moved away from its beginnings as a Christian seminary, Greek and Hebrew, which with Latin were necessary to study scripture, lost their importance. The Greek and Hebrew orations disappeared somewhere along the way.

The debauchery of Commencement is something long-gone, too. Sure, today's seniors have the Last Chance Dance and the Moonlight (Booze) Cruise, but those events don't include the prostitution and fortune-tellers that colonial Commencement celebrations promised.

Puritan New England offered few outlets for fun; throughout the region, Harvard Commencement was known as a bacchanalian celebration, the great holiday of the Commonwealth.

Medicine men and acrobats raised tents on the fringes of Harvard's campus; gypsies and beggars crowded the streets.