Sophomore Cremation Exercise
A Penn Student Tradition
1883 Program
These
four panels are from one 1883 cremation program showing the order of the ceremony's
events. Foreign language books were frequently elected for cremation. The books
chosen this year were Arnold's Greek Prose Composition and the German
instruction book, Ahn's Method, Fischer's Edition. As shown in the bottom
left panel, the students gave tribute to the books in the IV. Laudatio Arnoldi
and the VIII. Laudatio Ahni. The German poem reflects the common tradition of
writing part of the program in the language of the burned books.
