The following extract from the works of a French traveller will be read with interest by some, as an instance of the manner in which our institutions are sometimes regarded by foreigners. "In a free country, everything ought to bear the stamp of patriotism. This patriotism appears every year in a solemn feast celebrated at Cambridge in honor of the sciences. This feast, which takes place once a year in all the colleges of America, is called _Commencement_. It resembles the exercises and distribution of prizes in our colleges. It is a day of joy for Boston; almost all its inhabitants assemble in Cambridge. The most distinguished of the students display their talents in the presence of the public; and these exercises, which are generally on patriotic subjects, are terminated by a feast, where reign the freest gayety and the most cordial fraternity."--_Brissot's Travels in U.S._, 1788. London, 1794, Vol. I. pp. 85, 86. For an account of the _chair_ from which the President delivers diplomas on Commencement Day, see PRESIDENT'S CHAIR. At Yale College, the first Commencement was held September 13th, 1702, while that institution was located at Saybrook, at which four young men who had before graduated at Harvard College, and one whose education had been private, received the degree of Master of Arts. This and several Commencements following were held privately, according to an act which had been passed by the Trustees, in order to avoid unnecessary expense and other inconveniences. In 1718, the year in which the first College edifice was completed, was held at New Haven the first public Commencement. The following account of the exercises on this occasion was written at the time by one of the College officers, and is cited by President Woolsey in his Discourse before the Graduates of Yale College, August 14th, 1850. "[We were] favored and honored with the presence of his Honor, Governor Saltonstall, and his lady, and the Hon. Col. Taylor of Boston, and the Lieutenant-Governor, and the whole Superior Court, at our Commencement, September 10th, 1718, where the Trustees present,--those gentlemen being present,--in the hall of our new College, first most solemnly named our College by the name of Yale College, to perpetuate the memory of the honorable Gov. Elihu Yale, Esq., of London, who had granted so liberal and bountiful a donation for the perfecting and adorning of it. Upon which the honorable Colonel Taylor represented Governor Yale in a speech expressing his great satisfaction; which ended, we passed to the church, and there the Commencement was carried on. In which affair, in the first place, after prayer an oration was had by the saluting orator, James Pierpont, and then the disputations as usual; which concluded, the Rev. Mr. Davenport [one of the Trustees and minister of Stamford] offered an excellent oration in Latin, expressing their thanks to Almighty God, and Mr. Yale under