Man lives by ritual. Today's Commencement ceremonies, their form almost unchanged for generations, purport to transform a group of unfledged recruits into full scholars, and miraculously they succeed in some indefinable sense.

The Tercentenary Theatre has been set up in Harvard Yard in front of Widener Library as always. Equally inevitably, 15,000 people, the University's traditional estimate, will attend the proceedings and there is only a 20 per cent chance of the record that there is never any rain on Commencement Day being tarnished.

Commencement Day will open with a chapel service for the Senior Class in Memorial Church at 8:45 a.m. At the same time the Board of Overseers will be holding its final meeting of the academic year in University Hall, to vote degrees.

The Academic procession will begin at about 9:15 a.m. when Governor John A. Volpe arrives with his scarlet-coated escort at Massachusetts Hall Gate. The procession will pass through lines of neatly drawn up Seniors outside University Hall, led by William G. Anderson '39, University Marshall, the Sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk Counties, President Pusey, and the Fellows and the Overseers.

Finally when all the seniors, their expectant families, old grads, and dignitaries have assembled in Tercentenary Theatre, President Pusey rising from his traditional Tudor chair will announce the award of Harvard College degrees to 1,134 men.

Of these, 768, or 68 per cent will receive honors: 215 cum laude in general studies, 302 cum laude in a special field, 198 magna cum laude, 11 magna cum laude with highest honors and 42 summa cum laude. These proportions are as usual and last year's drastic drop in summas awarded (there were only 25 then) has not been repeated.

There will be one Bachelor of Science and 45 Bachelor of Arts in Extension Studies degrees awarded. In the other departments of the University, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will award 681 graduate degrees, the School of Education 226, (a sharp decrease from last year's 351 awards), the School of Design 104, the School of Business Administration 694, the School of Public Administration 45, the School of Medicine 139, the School of Dental Medicine 11, the School of Public Health 92, the Law School 596 and the Divinity School 53.

Following the awards formal addresses will be made by three newly graduated seniors, Steven B. Burbank, '68, L. Michael Henry '68, who will give his Oration in Latin, and Richard C. Trufara '68.

Then, near the end of the ceremony, Pusey will announce the recipients of honorary degrees.