The great Commencement event of the Summer was Wendell Phillips's oration at the centennial anniversary of the venerable Phi Beta Kappa at Cambridge. It was also the semi-centenary of the orator's graduation at Harvard, and there was great anticipation, not only because Mr. Phillips is now in many ways the first orator of his time, but because his _alma mater_ has not sympathized with his career. On the day before, which was Commencement-day, there was general wonder among the Harvard men of all years whether the orator would regard the amenities of the occasion, and pour out his music and his wit upon some purely literary theme, or seize his venerable mother by the hair, and gracefully twist it out with a smile. "I hope," uneasily said a distinguished alumnus of Harvard to the Easy Chair, "I hope he will not forget that he is a gentleman." "He has never yet forgotten it," replied the Easy Chair. The morning was beautiful--a sweet, fresh, brilliant June morning--and there was a great assembly in the grounds of the university. The usual Phi Beta Kappa attendance is not large. The celebration occurs on the last day of prolonged college festivities, and the number of members of the society is limited; nor, in fact, has it a real existence except on the day of its oration and poem and dinner. This year, however, the centenary of Harvard, from which all the other chapters, except the parent chapter at William and Mary, have proceeded, had drawn delegations from seventeen other colleges. The pink and blue ribbon, which has replaced the square gold watch-key of other days, fluttered at every button-hole, and with pealing music leading the way, the long, long procession--a Phi Beta Kappa procession such as perhaps Harvard never saw before--wound under the imposing buildings towards the beautiful college hall, the Sanders Theatre.