The value of such an association as this as a spur to honorable exertion is also, as it seems to me, no small part of its benefit. Leigh Hunt, says, somewhere, that when he was writing an essay he always thought of certain persons and said to himself, "A will like this, B will rub his hands at that"; and it is safe to say that any graduate of this college would prefer the suffrages of his brethren here to those of any other public. And when any of the sons of Harvard who has done her honor and his country upright service, meets us here on this day, it is not only a fitting recognition, but a powerful incentive, that he receives in the "Well done" of our plaudits. I had hoped that we should have heard to-day the voice of one graduate of Harvard who sits almost immediately upon my right. [Charles Francis Adams.] I will not press upon his modesty, but I will ask you to bear witness once more that Peace hath her victories, and more renowned than war [long continued applause]; and honor with me those truly durable years of service and that of victory, which if it hath not so loud an echo as that of the battle-field, will be seen to have a longer one. [Renewed and loud applause.] It appears to me that there is nothing more grateful to the human heart than this appreciation of cultivated men. If it be not the echo of posterity, it was something more solid and well-pleasing. But better and more wholesome than even this must it be, I should think, for men spending their lives in the dusty glare of public life, to come back once a year to our quiet shades and be, as Dr. Holmes has so delightfully sung, plain Bill and Joe again. It must renew and revive in them the early sweetness of their nature, the frank delight in simple things which makes so large a part of the better happiness of life.