YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY
THE COMMENCEMENT,
The Special Degrees, the President’s
Report and Other Features.
A feature of the Commencement of
1900 was the combined address and re-
port of President Hadley, with its plain,
frank and informing treatment of the
many present questions before Yale.
Full extracts of this report are given
elsewhere, and also a report of the
speeches of the Commencement Dinner,
at which the thick and sultry air again
appealed eloquently to Yale purses for a
Yale Hall
A number of important M.A. degrees
were given in addition to those described
at length elsewhere and announced from
the platform. One was to Mr. John F.
Dryden, of Newark, N. J. Mr. Dryden
made an early study of the problems of
industrial insurance and in 1875 founded
the Prudential Insurance Company of
American, whose unusual development he
has since that time directed as President.
Mr. Dryden took part of the course with
the Class of Sixty-Five. With the M.A.
degree, the Corporation also enrolled
him as a regular member of Sixty-Five.
The same honor was given to Mr.
Charles W. Heald, President of the
Pierre Marquette Railroad. He was an
ex-member of the Class of Seventy.
He also was enrolled with his class.
As in the case of Mr. Dryden his class
especially approved and appreciated the
honor. |
A third degree of M.A. and enrollment
with his class as a Ph.B. was given to
Mr: Joseph Porter of New Haven, in
recognition of his character and services
as a public spirited citizen. This honor
was particularly appreciated by all New
Haven people.
In addition to these and to the others
announced elsewhere, the degree of M.A.
was also given to Professor Emery, who
has been newly appointed a member of
the Economic staff at Yale; Professor
Torrey, who has recently been appointed
to the Semitic Department and to the
Rev. A. P. Stokes, Jr., Secretary of the
Corporation.
THE MUSIC,
For the past few years Yale has made
a feature of the Commencement day
music in Battell Chapel, some serious
work being prepared for the occasion.
In 1895-96 Prof. Parker’s musical setting
of Edmund Clarence Stedman’s (Yale
53) “Commencement Ode” was sung,
and in 1897 George W. Chadwick’s
“Ecce jam noctis,” written for chorus
and orchestra.
This year both words and music of
the commencement ode were written by
two members of the graduating class,
the words being by James Whitney
Barney of New York and the music by
‘David Stanley Smith of Toledo, O. Mr.
Smith has the distinction of being the
first undergraduate to write a work of
such size. It is scored for chorus and
full orchestra, including bass-clarinet
and harp, and occupies 12 minutes in its
presentation. The spirit of the work is
heroic, and in every particular the com-
position shows a stirprising absence of
youthful crudity. It is written in the
style of the American school represented
by George W. Chadwick, H. W. Parker
and J; K. Paine and has received favor-
able notice from musicians on account
of the beauty of its main themes and
the dignity and originality of the har-
monies employed. The work was
splendidly sung by a chorus of 50 voices
accompanied by the New Haven Sym-
phony Orchestra, Prof. Parker conduct-
ing. Mr. Ericsson F. Bushnell sang
the incidental baritone solo magnifi-
cently. Mr. Smith has been studying
ia the Department of Music at Yale
since 1896, under Prof. Parker.
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HONORARY DEGREES.
Text of Presentation Addresses by
Rev. Dr. George P. Fisher.
a>
Honorary degrees were conferred at
Battell Chapel, Wednesday, June 27, on
the following:
oat LL.D.
Lewis Atterbury Stimson, M.D., Yale
1863, New York City.
Hon. Elihu Root, Secretary of War
of the United States.
Cue
389
HARVARD UNIVERSITY CREW. _
Ladd.
Harding.
Shuebruk.
Sheafe. —
Bancroft.
Higginson.
Biddle.
Wadleigh.
Wood.
D.D.
Rev. Edward Dwight Eaton, Yale
1875 T.S., President of Beloit College.
Rev. William Newton Clarke, Profes-
sor of Christian Theology in Colgate
University.
M.A.
Samuel Train Dutton, Yale 1873, Su-
perintendent of Education,
Mass.
Robert E. Speer, Secretary Presby-
terian Board of Foreign Missions.
Julian Kennedy, Yale: 1875 S., Pitts-
burg, Pa.
Poultney Bigelow, Yale 1879, London,
England.
Calvin Noyes Kendall, Superintendent
of Schools in New Haven.
Rey. Dr. George P. Fisher made the
presentation addresses as follows:
PRESENTING MR. KENNEDY.
“T have the honor to present to you,
for the degree of Master of Arts, Mr.
Julian Kennedy, a graduate of the Shef-
field Scientific School, in the Class
of Seventy-Five. Mr. Kennedy is a
mechanical engineer of great distinction.
As an authority. in the work of blast
furnace construction he is thought to
have no equal in this country, and prob-
ably has no superior elsewhere. When
a student in Yale, at the same time that
he mastered the studies of the course,
he was able, partly by working overtime,
to pursue other branches, and while he
was still a pupil in the graduate class
to take upon him the work of an assist-
ant instructor. Without abating in the
least his diligence in study, he belonged
to the University Crew from 1873 to
1876, and with it or by himself, besides
being a winner in fourteen out of eighteen
important races, was stroke of the Yale
Brookline,
Crew in the Centennial regatta of 1876,
when it won the intercollegiate cham-
pionship. In his chosen vocation, Mr.
Kennedy has been the superintendent, in
charge, in their construction and opera-
tion, of a series of blast. furnaces in
Ohio and Pennsylvania, each of them
more- important than the preceding.
For the last ten years he has been con-
nected as consulting engineer in almost
every important establishment of steel
works in the United States, besides do-
ing a great deal of engineering work in
England; Germany, Austria, and Russia.
Mr. Kennedy has taken out a large num-
ber of patents, most of them in‘success-
wul use, and nearly all of them pertain-
ing to the manufacture of iron and steel.
He is a member of the British Iron and
Steel Institute and other societies of the
same character in this country.”
PRESENTING MR. DUTTON.
“T have the honor to present to you
for the degree of Master of Arts, Mr.
Samuel Train Dutton, who was gradu-
ated at Yale in 1873. Mr. Dutton, after
holding the post of Superintendent of
Public Schools in New Haven, and sub-
sequently at Brookline, Massachusetts,
has now been called to a professorship
of School Administration in Columbia
University. He has. served as lecturer
on School Supervision at Harvard, and
has given at other colleges, courses on
the same theme. In a number of: the
larger cities and before educational 'so-
cieties he has been called upon to speak
on particular topics connected with edu-
cation. These topics he has. likewise
discussed in a volume of essays on
‘Social Phases of Education,’ and in
other publications. In Brookline he has
organized a large and influential society
to work for the realization of the highest
ideals in the school and in the com-
munity, and he has established courses
of weekly lectures of the same general
character in Boston. By other move-
ments of the same nature he has kindled
in various other communities a new zeal
in behalf of the cause to which he has
long been devoted. In the direct exer-
cise of his official function he has initi-
ated reforms, introducing, for example,
at New Haven, the kindergarten, man-
ual training, and the domestic arts. Mr.
Dutton has made special endeavors to
unite the family, the church, and the
different classes of citizens, as auxiliaries
in the work of raising the standard of
the secondary schools and of enlarging
their province as means of culture.”
PRESENTING MR, BIGELOW.
“T have the honor to present to you,
for the degree of Master of Arts, Mr.
Poultney Bigelow, who was graduated
at Yale in 1879. Before his graduation,
Mr. Bigelow had begun his experiences
as a traveler. He had journeyed on
foot through the greater part of Europe,
had been wrecked on the. shores of
Japan, visited the islands of -Polynesia,
and crossed the American continent.
His journeys since in foreign lands have
been mostly connected with literary
purposes. From the list of his printed
works I select for special mention the
‘History of the German Struggle for
Liberty’ from 1806 to 1815. This work
was the product of eight years of strenu-
ous study under favorable conditions,
the archives of Prussia being opened to
him by the German Emperor, and every
place connected with the events narrated
being personally visited. Mr. Bigelow
has shown himself a disciple of the
Father of History, by seeing with his
own eyes the countries which he has
