June 11, 1922

The Rev. Henry Evertson Cobb, pastor of the West End Collegiate Church in New York City and chair of the Vassar board of trustees, gave the baccalaureate address for the Class of 1922. Drawing on the text, “I am come that ye may have life, and have it more abundantly,” he said, according to The Miscellany News, the promised abundance “does not suggest the prim asceticism that Christianity has meant to some people—it suggests, rather, vision and enthusiasm for the young, the glory of going on for the old, the whole tide of energy and passion of power that cannot be denied.”

The service, “characterized by dignity and solemn loveliness,” featured processional music by César Franck, a solo, Franck’s “O Lord Most Holy,” sung by Inez Barbour ’22 in memory of Harriet Kelly ’22, who died from influenza in her freshman year, and an “impressively simple and well-rendered” baccalaureate hymn written by Irene Mott ’22 and Gladys Neff ’22.

The Miscellany News