ADDRESS. 



J[ay it please Your Excellkxcy, 



Mr. President and Gentlemin of the Senate. 



JJd^dies and Gentlemen : 



"iYou are, I presume, already famiKar with the general purpose of our 

 meeting to day, as well as \dth the origin and nature of the Enccenial 

 l^tival, whose annual recurrence thus summons to her side not only 

 Wh authorities and graduates of our University, but all who are inte- 

 rested in her welfare and progress, and in that of the great cause of 

 education which she represents. 



You are too, no doubt, also aware of the nature of the task which 

 tj^e custom if not the ordinances of the University prescribe for him 

 Whose duty it is to address you on this occasion. With to-day another 

 academic year will have passed away; to-day the University hands 

 bacli to those by \Ahom tliey Mere entrusted to her care another band 

 of v.'orl-crs — a band provided at least with the instruments for good 

 and, let us trust, not indisposed to employ them aright : to-day it is 

 my part to express, however inadequately, the tribute of respect and 

 gratitude which \Ae must all feel for those through whose wise fore- 

 thought and generous liberality the means of equipping such laborers 

 in the great fields of Truth and Progi-ess have been placed within our 

 reach. 



I cannot, liowever, even enter upon the performance of my task with- 

 out being reminded thereby of the painful circumstances through which 

 this otherwise pleasant office lias again fallen to my lot, circuiii stances 

 which, as 1 need scarcely remind you, ha^e depri\ed this institution as 

 well as the community in general of two of itn best known and most 

 valued members. The two most familiar of all the Himiliar faces which 

 we have been wont to see upon these occasions are no longer with us. 

 Death has been amongst us witli a heavy hand, and in the hearts of 

 some of us at least has left a blank not to be again supplied on this 

 gide of the grave. 



He whose place, had he been spared to us, it would have been to 

 occupy this ])latform to-day, had already been removed at the time of 



1 1 9i">l)8 



