follow us. But it was worth while to run any risk--to face any danger--to
keep together the life of this place, and that its name should not go out
in England. (Loud cheers.) We did not know who would follow us, and it
was a day to be remembered--a day of much cheer, though full of labour
and trial and fear also, when on that 4th of April three hundred came in.
(Loud applause.) Not above two or three that night were wanting of those
who were going to remain at the school. (Cheers.) Well have you taken
in your address that staunch adherence of parent and boy as the proudest
honour that a school can boast of (cheers), and well have you noted that
at Borth also the entries kept level with the leavings, and that we have
brought back this year--this day--almost a hundred boys who had never
seen Uppingham. (Renewed cheering.) This was worth fighting for; this
is worth rejoicing. The school was saved, and we and you to-night once
more meet together as one body. (Loud applause.) We are united now as
we never have been before methinks (cheers); for never before, to my
knowledge, in England, have town and school been so completely welded
together as your welcome to us home and our presence here together to-
night shows us to be now. (Loud and long-continued applause.) There
have been many blessings in this great trial, but certainly not least do
I set that, that we and you are once more met as one. Your work and ours
is so mixed up--our work so mixed with yours, and yours with ours--that
it is not possible that anything should go out of this place, any life
come forth from it, which does not to a great degree bring honour or
discredit to both; and I do think (what was said to-night) that we are
here together to work in the highest way, not as a matter of pecuniary
advantage only in a place like this, but simply that we, one with
another, should push forward life and make it crown that living edifice
of truth, which, as it seems to me, is town and school working together.
And what a type that town is. "A city set upon a hill cannot be hid;"
and surely as a school and a home, a home of learning and light, this