Noted: American high schools, also small for much of their history, have probably been reading names at graduation since they were founded, too. “The reason why it was perfectly reasonable to imagine you could read everyone’s name is that so few students actually graduated,” says William Reese, a professor of educational-policy studies and history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. According to Reese, only 6 percent of American adolescents in 1890 are estimated to have attended high school, and only a quarter of attendees actually graduated. Given how rare it was get a high-school diploma, the least schools could do was read people’s names.
Office of Strategic Communication