Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered an address, “Social Aims,” to the Literary Societies and, after spending the night at Harvey House, attended commencement the following day on July 1, 1875. The 1874-75 Catalogue for New Hampton Institution notes:
“The anniversary exercises were made especially interesting and memorable by the presence of one of America’s ripest and ablest scholars, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who listened with manifest interest to the exercises, and expressed his satisfaction to the students in a few simple and beautiful words, at its close.”
