You have finished the appointed and accepted course of reading; you have been admitted to this sacred Grove; you have passed the arches dedicated to Faith, Science, Literature, and Art; you have entered in due form this Hall, the center of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. And now as Superintendent of Instruction,[1] with these my associates, the counsellors of our Fraternity, I greet you; and hereby announce that you, and your brethren and sisters absent from us to-day, who have completed with you the prescribed course of reading, are accepted and approved graduates of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and that you are entitled to membership in the Society of the Hall in the Grove. "The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace." After another song, the Marshal of the procession took charge, and the order of march was renewed, the newly graduated class in the rear, followed by the Superintendent, Counsellors, and officers. The company marched to the Amphitheater, on the way the procession dividing and forming on both sides of the street, while the officers and the graduating class passed through the open files, thus bringing the graduating class at the head of the line into the Amphitheater. Here more songs were sung and other responsive readings were rendered before an audience that thronged the building. The oration on the first graduation service was given by Dr. Henry W. Warren, who had been elevated to the episcopate two years before. After the oration a recess was taken, and in the afternoon the concluding service was held and the diplomas were conferred upon the eight hundred graduates present by the hand of Dr. Vincent. In most college commencements that I have attended, the President takes the diplomas at random from a table and hands them to the class as they come, not giving to each graduate his own diploma, and afterward there is a general looking up one another and sorting out the diplomas until at last each one obtains his own. But Miss Kimball, the Secretary, devised a plan by which all the diplomas were numbered and each graduate was furnished with a card showing his number. These numbers were called out ten at a time, and each graduate was able to receive his own (mostly _her_ own) diploma, while the audience heard the name upon it and the number of seals it bore for special reading and study.