than military purposes.

COMMANDER, in the British navy, the title of the second grade of
captains. He commands a small vessel, or is second in command of a large
one. A staff commander is entrusted with the navigation of a large ship,
and ranks above a navigating lieutenant. Since 1838 the officer next in
rank to a captain in the U.S. navy has been called commander.

COMMANDERY (through the Fr. _commanderie_, from med. Lat. _commendaria_,
a trust or charge), a division of the landed property in Europe of the
Knights Hospitallers (see St John of Jerusalem). The property of the
order was divided into "priorates," subdivided into "bailiwicks," which
in turn were divided into "commanderies"; these were placed in charge of
a "commendator" or commander. The word is also applied to the emoluments
granted to a commander of a military order of knights.

COMMANDO, a Portuguese word meaning "command," adopted by the Boers in
South Africa through whom it has come into English use, for military and
semi-military expeditions against the natives. More particularly a
"commando" was the administrative and tactical unit of the forces of the
former Boer republics, "commandeered" under the law of the constitutions
which made military service obligatory on all males between the ages of
sixteen and sixty. Each "commando" was formed from the burghers of
military age of an electoral district.

COMMEMORATION, a general term for celebrating some past event. It is
also the name for the annual act, or _Encaenia_, the ceremonial closing
of the academic year at Oxford University. It consists of a Latin
oration in commemoration of benefactors and founders; of the recitation
of prize compositions in prose and verse, and the conferring of honorary
degrees upon English or foreign celebrities. The ceremony, which is
usually on the third Wednesday after Trinity Sunday, is held in the
Sheldonian Theatre, in Broad St., Oxford. "Commencement" is the term for
the equivalent ceremony at Cambridge, and this is also used in the case
of American universities.

COMMENDATION (from the Lat. _commendare_, to entrust to the charge of,
or to procure a favour for), approval, especially when expressed to one
person on behalf of another, a recommendation. The word is used in a
liturgical sense for an office commending the souls of the dying and
dead to the mercies of God. In feudal law the term is applied to the
practice of a freeman pla