COMMEMORATION (Lat. commentoratio, from eommemorare, to commemorate, from coin-, together + mcmorare, to mention, from memor, mindful; connected with Gk. ,u1p,aepos, mermeros, anxious, 51st. suer, to remember), or ENC-ENIA ( Lat.. Gk. l-pcatvta, engkainia, feast of renova tion or consecration, a name for Easter, from ?v, en. in + Katv6e, kainos, new). The great festival of the Oxford academie year, corre sponding in sonic respects to the commence ment of American colleges. It usually takes place on the third Wednesday after Trinity Sunday, in the Sheldonian Theatre—which, like the San ders Theatre, Harvard, and the Kent Theatre. Chicago, is a university building. From time immemorial. public exercises have been held to mark the 'act' or period when degrees were con ferred on the members of the university. At the present day, the proceedings consist of a Latin oration in honor of founders and benefactors from which the name of the whole ceremony is derived) ; the conferring of degrees. not only in course, but also honoris cause, on distinguished strangers, who are introduced to the vice-chan cellor in a short Latin speech; and the recita tion, at least in part. of the Newdigate or Eng lish prize poem. and the Latin and English prize essays, the three prizes being the gift of the chancellor. The large area or floor is occupied
during the proceedings by masters of arts and their male friends: in raised stalls in a semi circle around one end of this area sit the vice chancellor. doctors. and proctors: while the gal leries are filled by the undergraduates and women. The midergraduates. until recent years, used to occupy a separate upper gallery: but the license claimed by them of making unofficial and often very witty comments on the proceedings—a sur vival of the privileges of the Terra' Filins, or licensed jester of meditoval times—finally reached a point where it was thought better to discour age it to some extent by breaking up the com pact body of students and distributing them among the women present. Commemoration Day itself is only the culminating point. of a week of gayety. marked by concerts, balls. theatrical representations. etc., which make Oxford a very attractive place to the visitor; but of late years the glories of this season have tended more and inure to be eclipsed by those of the 'Eights Week,' when the college eight-oared races are rowed, early in May. See OXFORD UNIVERSITY.