![\"20160518-1867](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/05\/20160518-1867-program-103.jpg\")
<\/a>A detail of the cover of first Bates Commencement program, in 1867. The words “Tenth Anniversary” at upper right allude to the September 1857 opening of the Maine State Seminary, which became Bates. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/p><\/div>\n
Eight students received bachelor’s degrees at the first Bates Commencement, which was held at a Baptist church on Main Street in Lewiston.<\/p>\n
Frank Sleeper, a senior from Lewiston, was the first speaker, delivering the Latin Salutatory, a graduation tradition of the day that Bates adopted for its ceremony.<\/p>\n
The program titles his address Disquisitio Salutatoria<\/em>, which “we could translate very<\/em> loosely as ‘Opening Remarks,'” rather than ‘Address of Greeting,'” says Tom Hayward, lecturer emeritus in classical and medieval studies.<\/p>\n “You have labored to found a college which shall be an ornament to our state.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Delivering his salutatory in the required Latin, Sleeper praised Bates president and founder Oren Cheney.<\/p>\n “Joyful indeed to you must be the day which brings to you the fruits of years of patient toil and sacrifice,” Sleeper said. “The faithfulness with which you have labored to found a college which shall be an ornament to our state is known to all, and as long as this institution shall exist so long will your name be remembered with blessings and honor.”<\/p>\n Before World War II, the featured speakers at Commencement were students. The 1936 slate features talks on “The Juvenile Court,” “The Novelist Sits in Judgment,” “Creative Thought,” and “Stability in China.”<\/p>\n During the war, Bates was on an accelerated academic calendar so would confer some degrees at special convocations in fall and winter. Featured guests spoke at those gatherings, including Joseph Drew, the diplomat who had been interned by the Japanese at the start of the war, in January 1943.<\/p>\n The custom of having a featured speaker then took hold<\/a> and has been a staple of Commencements in 1944.<\/p>\n In her 1971 address, Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated three years before, delivered a blistering attack on violence, racism, and more in America.<\/p>\n She took on one of the most controversial issues of that year, the arrest and pending trial of activist Angela Davis on weapons charges.<\/p>\n Coretta Scott King marches in the 1971 academic procession at Commencement. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/p><\/div>\n “While I sharply disagree with the politics of Miss Davis, I must say that if her blackness, her politics, and her womanhood are being judged, and not the crime, then all Americans will lose some of their liberties along with her.”<\/p>\n She also paid tribute to Benjamin Mays, Class of 1920.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the earliest days of the Struggle, until my husband\u2019s last rites on the campus of Martin\u2019s beloved Morehouse, Dr. Mays was at our side. The friendship, which he and my husband formed when Martin was a Morehouse student, grew, deepened, and ripened with the years\u2026.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I am happy this morning to be present at the alma mater of my friend and colleague. My happiness is doubled when I realize that in 1917, a period rife with the inherent inferiority of the black man and the inherent superiority of the white man, Bates College accepted a young black man from South Carolina and allowed that young man to emancipate himself and accept with dignity his own worth as a free man.<\/p>\n \u201cI make bold to state that Dr. Mays is without a contemporary peer in the inspiration and motivation that he has given to thousands of young blacks, men in particular, in their quest for emancipation from the myths of racism.\u201d<\/p>\n Bates graduated its first woman, Mary Wheelwright Mitchell, at its third Commencement, in 1869. She was a determined student. Offered a scholarship, Mitchell turned it down: \u201cI can take care of myself<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n While six women started as members of Bates’ first college class, none graduated until Mitchell, a fact that reflects how difficult it was for Bates founder Oren Cheney to turn radical theory into sustainable practice<\/a>, as Tim Larson ’05 wrote in his honors thesis, “Faith by Their Works.”<\/p>\n Larson notes that Cheney “obviously saw Bates as a pioneer in breaking gender barriers in the field of higher education.”<\/p>\n Cheney also “accurately foresaw the future of American higher education in predicting that ‘all the colleges of our country will welcome women.’ This was a bold assertion to make when Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Williams, Tufts, and all the other New England colleges were still closed to women.”<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Larson writes, the first female students “obviously faced prejudices, from their male counterparts and society in general,” that may have contributed to their leaving the college before graduation.<\/p>\n In the end, “despite hostility and some well-meaning paternalism by certain individuals, Bates was among the more progressive institutions in admitting women alongside men, when many other colleges refused to do so for another century.”<\/p>\n Years later, Bates granted degrees to two of the women, Francena Stanton Morrell and Sybil Chase Ballard: Morrell in 1931 and Ballard in 1932. Here’s a clip of Ballard, age 87, at Commencement 1934:<\/p>\n
\nA featured Commencement speaker is a post-World War II phenomenon<\/h3>\n
\nThe first African American speaker at Commencement was Coretta Scott King<\/h3>\n
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\nThe first female graduate was Mary Wheelwright Mitchell, in 1869<\/h3>\n