COMMENCEMENT

Those who are called upon to address counsel to young men during the graduating ceremonies at our colleges are in danger of losing one of their most convenient symbols for a moral application. No longer can the word "Commencement" be held to signify the "beginning of life, that real, serious life—in such contrast with frivolous, undergraduate existence." In fact, in . its academic use, the word cannot denote "beginning" in any sense whatever, that is if we accept the very plausible conclusions of Mr. Wilmowsky in The Modern Language Review for July, 1911.

Mr. Wilmowsky first reminds us that the French word commencement is a noun based on the verb commencer, which in turn is a regular development of the mediæval Latin comintiare (cum [intensive] + initiare). In France, and in England as well, for these words had become current in England, the spelling before 1600 was usually commencement, etc., that is, with one m in the stem. In its academic use the word was usually written commensement in England.

In a study of the different forms of these words in all the Romance languages, and the variations found in each single language,—a study too long and detailed for the non-philological layman,—Mr. Wilmowsky has satisfied himself that we have to do with two distinct stems or groups of words, which were blended together probably before the thirteenth century. In such' cases the original meaning of the words in one group frequently is lost or absorbed in that of the second group.

What Mr. Wilmowsky now aims to prove is that the set of words which in the blending process lost their original meaning in the Romance languages, still maintained that primitive signification in the English tongue. The source word which lost its meaning in France and Southern Europe, is conimensare, to banquet, a mediaeval Latin word formed from cum + mensa (table). Commensare and comintiare, give practically identical results according to the fixed laws of sound change.

An examination of some interesting documents will aid in the clarification of this intricate study. In Harrison's "England" (1587) we are informed that in Oxford this "Solemnitie" is called "an Act, but in Cambridge they use the French word Commensement." "Acts" we learn were kept both at Cambridge and Oxford, and denoted the conventional graduation ceremony of the time, that is, the public disputation, the receiving of the Bible and the biretta (doctor's cap), and the kiss of fellowship. "We see then," says the writer at this point, "that in 1587 the term Commensement, as the name of a ceremony was unknown at Oxford, and at Cambridge it denoted, like the word act, the ceremonial graduation."

The earliest authority for the academic use of the word "Commencement" is Trevisa, Higden (Rolls) III 259, of 1387: "By a Statute of the universite of Oxenford whan eny man is i-congyed (licensed) there to commence in any faculte, he schal not spende at his. comencement passynge three thousand groates turonens" (3000 Touraine groats, equal to about $250). Now we have in 1387, two hundred years before the Harrison, "England" quotation, the word "Commencement" designating an event connected with graduation at Oxford, where the word was later lost, though it surived at Cambridge, and this word indicating something different from the "Act." Further it is significant that the "commencement" should be made the object of a special sumptuary law, and be regarded as an occasion when one must not spend money too lavishly.

The above quotations with a number of others even more convincing make it appear with some certainty that the "Commencement," or "Commensement" was nothing less. than the ceremonial banquet at graduation, that bugbear of the impecunious student of the Middle Ages.

A development of the word to its present meaning, is made clear by further citations. At Cambridge the individual banquets of the doctorandus were, to save expense, merged into the general magisterial banquet given by all the graduates, and at that banquet were distributed the diplomas. After a while the banquet was given up, and the delivery of the degrees became the principal and sole event of the ceremony. Accordingly, during the early 16th century "Act" denoted in England the ceremonial of graduation, and "Commencement" the delivery of the diplomas. A final fusion of the terms is not difficult to understand, but Mr. Wilmowsky might have added that the traditional ceremonial banquet still survives at several American institutions, notably at Dartmouth College.