The text is about the origin of the graduation speeches. It explains how people such as politicians, comedians and sometimes even actors have made their ways to the graduations to hold their speeches. No one is really sure how the evolution from funny students or university officials changed to these high standard people, or which university started it all. At one point though, the speeches were put into the commencement exercises to fill the gaps there were.

The first graduation speech from Harvard is from 1642 but there is Speeches that are older then this. At that time the speeches where on Latin, which is not the fact today, some  universities still holds on to this tradition, of having speeches in latin, but most have continued to use the origin language of the nation, in which the university is located.

 

Commencement speech 

According to Merrill Fabry the commencements speeches were held by people who had an association with the college, but today it is very different. Before the speech were held by the school’s officials, however today it is also held by people like businessmen, actors, writers and influential people. The idea of a politician speaking to a graduation has existed for many centuries where the first speech was in 1642. Over time the status of the speaker has grow from politicians to movie stars. Whereas the reason for it is that our perspective of what is important has changed, and we prefer to hear a speech from a person who we most admire. 

 The text stars out telling what Commencement speeches is about and contains. The commencement speech has become its own advice-filled genre. There is no clear indication of which university stared the trend, but Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop attended Harvard’s first Commencement in 1642. The commencement needs to encompass an academic and formal language. The text includes different important speakers like Albert Matthews, Thornton Wilder etc.