ife since I
have been master of this school. Two-and-twenty years of
school-mastering gives a good deal of exercise for the tongue from time
to time; but never in my life have I stood up to make any speech which I
feel so little capable of making as I do to-night; not from want of
practice, but because the feelings you have aroused in us are such--and
our sojourn here has been such a boon to us (cheers)--that it is
impossible for me to tell you the value we set on living here, and the
welcome we have received. (Applause.) I never heard anything sweeter to
my ear than your singing to-night. The time it must have taken, the
goodwill manifested in the songs, and altogether the circumstances under
which they were delivered, and we on our last day here, made them go down
into my heart, and into all our hearts with peculiar power. (Cheers.)
Never in my life have I had such testimony to the school which I cared so
much for, as the testimony you have given to-night. We get our
reputation in the English world, but what is that compared to the inner
life to which you have borne witness. What signifies it whether we know
much or little in comparison with the fact that we have a character of
life which you like. It is life answering unto life across all those
ties, both of nationality--for I grieve I cannot speak in your native
tongue--and also of distance which set gulfs between man and man, but
cannot separate life when it is true. (Hear, hear.) If your life is
true, and our lives are true, then it flows across and we meet as
to-night one united body of living men. (Cheers.) And this is what
gives a peculiar value to our being here. You know as none can know what
this school is. We came among you as strangers, and you looked upon us
with the eyes of strangers; we stayed among you as friends, and we part
from you as friends. (Cheers.) Everybody knows that the one thing on
earth which makes life pleasant is the friendly atmosphere in which men
live--the one thing that makes it hateful is to be surrounded by
thoroughly bitter hearts. There is an old saying that "stone walls do
not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." No, the life within can make
any place enjoyable--nay, happy. Yet, I think it is better to be in
happy surroundings too. Of this, however, you may be sure: those
glorious hills of yours, this sea, and all the happy hours we have spent
wandering about, will not easily pass out of our minds. The jewel