June 12, 1895
President Taylor opened the college’s 27th Commencement with an invocation, and several senior addresses followed. Laura Brownell ’95 spoke on “Mars,” Grace Alden Beard ’95 inspected “One Factor of the Labor Problem,” Elizabeth Boyd ’95 revealed “A Few Items to the Credit of Bacteria” and Anna Adele Monsch ’95 discussed “Degeneration.” Elizabeth Updegraff ’95 balanced “Individualism and Societism,” and Katherine Campbell Reilly ’95 explored “The Foundations of a Free Press.”
The “youngest member of the senior class and the finest musician,” according to The New York Times, Rose Gruening ’95 graciously offered an encore after playing Frédéric Chopin’s Berceuse, Opus 57, and President Taylor conferred the bachelor’s degree on 100 members of the Class of 1895. The program noted that the second degree in arts, the master’s, had been conferred on Sophia D. Storke ’70 the previous November.
In his closing remarks, President Taylor again made the case for a new recitation hall. He said that of the 250 applications for admission in the fall, room for no more than 75 new students could be found and that, if the $100,000 needed for a new recitation hall were secured, the trustees would construct another residence hall of equal value.
The New York Times