While I was in England I had occasion once to address them on the subject of Democracy, and I could not help thinking when I came up here that I was coming to one of its original sources, for certain it is that in the village community of New England, in its "plain living and high thinking," began that social equality which afterwards developed on the political side into what we call Democracy. And Democracy--while surely we cannot claim for it that it is perfect--yet Democracy, it seems to me, is the best expedient hitherto invented by mankind, not for annihilating distinctions and equalities, for that is impossible, but, so far as it is humanly possible, for compensating them. Here in our little towns in the last century, people met without thinking of it on a high table-land of common manhood. There was no sense of presumption from below, there was no possibility of condescension from above, because there was no above and below in the community. Learning was always respected in the clergyman, in the doctor, in the squire, the justice of the peace, and the rest of the community. This made no artificial distinction. I observe, also, that our people are getting over their very bad habit with regard to politics, for Democracy, you must remember, lays a heavier burden on the individual conscience than any other form of government; and I have been glad to observe that we have been getting over that habit of thinking that our institutions will go of themselves. Now it seems to me that there is no machine of human construction, or into which the wit of man has entered, that can go of itself without supervision, without oiling; that there are no wheels which will revolve without our help, except the great wheel of the constellations or that great circle of the sun's which has its hand upon the dial plate, and which was made by a hand much less fallible than ours. It also pleases me very much to see a friend whose constancy, whose faith, and whose courage have done so much more than any other man's to bring about that reform [great applause], though when I speak of civil service reform the friend who stands at our elbow on all these occasions will suggest to me a certain parallel, that is, that as Mr. Curtis is here to-day and I am here to-day, it reminds one of the temperance lecturer who used to go about carrying with him an unhappy person as the awful example [great laughter], and it may have flickered before some of your minds that I was the "awful example" of the very reform I had preached. However, I say that it is to me a very refreshing thing to find that this old happy-go-lucky feeling about our institutions has a very good chance of passing away.