gether
at this building.

'I rejoice to see here the Superior of St. Mary's College, and the
goodly array of those under his charge, and I do so for many
reasons.

'I rejoice, because being not as yet affiliated or in any way
officially connected with the Royal College, their presence is a
spontaneous evidence of their goodwill and kindly feeling, and of
the spirit in which they have been disposed to meet the efforts made
to consult their feelings in the arrangements of this institution; a
spirit yet further evinced by the fact that the Superior has
informed me that he is about voluntarily to alter the course of
study pursued in St. Mary's College, so as more nearly to assimilate
it to that pursued here.

'I rejoice, because in their presence I hail a sign that the
affiliation which is, I believe, desired by the great body of the
Roman Catholic community in this island, and to which it has been
shown no insuperable religious obstacle exists, will take place at
no more distant day than is necessary to secure the approval, the
naturally requisite approval, of ecclesiastical authority elsewhere.

'I rejoice at their presence, because it enables me before this
company to express my high sense of the courage and liberality which
have maintained their College for years past without any aid
whatever from the State, and, in spite of manifold obstacles and
discouragements, have caused it to increase in numbers and
efficiency.

'I rejoice at their presence, because I desire to see the youth of
Trinidad of every race, without indifference to their respective
creeds, brought together on all possible occasions, whether for
recreation or for work; because I wish to see them engaged in
friendly rivalry in their studies now, as they will hereafter be in
the world, which I desire to see them enter, not as strangers to
each other, but as friends and fellow-citizens.

'I rejoice, because their presence enables me to take a personal
farewell of so many of those who will in the next generation be the
planters, the merchants, the official and professional men of
Trinidad. By the time that you are men all the petty jealousies,
all the mean resentments of this our day, will have faded into the
oblivion which is their proper bourn. But the work now accomplished
will not, I trust, so fade. They will melt and perish as the snow
of the north would before our tropical sun: but the College will, I
tru