cceeded. We trust also that these results will reflect credit upon
you as our Instructors even more than upon us as the recipients of
your teaching. We do realize that many members of our class will never
meet with us again, and to you we say farewell, with the wish that in
your diverse paths through life you may attain great success in your
chosen profession and always remember that you are still members of
the Class of '88.

Address of President Wm. C. Smith

_In awarding the Diplomas to the Class of '88._

I came here this evening in a particularly happy frame of mind, for
me, because I had been asked to award the diplomas to this class, and
I am always happy when I think I am able to do something to make some
one else happy; but my equanimity was quite disturbed, on arriving, to
be shown a programme in which I was set down as having to make the
closing address, and a little later I broke out into a perspiration on
seeing written in shorthand on the blackboard, that "you should never
speak unless you have something to say." Those words have been burning
before my eyes ever since, and though I have not taken any lessons in
shorthand, I am almost sure I could set that sentence down.

The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen is made up of men
who owe what they possess, not to chance, not to gifts of their
forefathers, but to the fruit of honest toil. The Society which they
have fostered for a hundred years owes its standing to the steady
accumulations of these years, not to any sudden speculation or easily
acquired prosperity, and it is with pleasure, therefore, that the
Society devotes its time and means in helping others to help
themselves. We believe in the aristocracy of labor, and we are glad
that we are able to do anything whereby we can help any one to help
himself.

I shall not make a lengthy address because it is late; it is warm;
there are diplomas to be given out, and I believe that the young
ladies are anxious to get down stairs where the attraction is greater
than anything I can offer them. Yet there is one thought I would like
to give out, if you will excuse me.

Yesterday I met a gentleman whom I have known for many years, and whom
I never really knew until yesterday. He said to me, "Billy" (he knew
me when I was a boy), "have you half an hour to spare?" First I said,
"No;" but I thought better of it and said, "Yes." "I would like you to
come round and look at my house." As he opened