of twenty years ago.  Abbots, Bigelows, Lawrences, Masons, Russells,—­they come with every Commencement-season.  Some families have had for every generation in a hundred and fifty years a representative in her halls.  There is a patent of nobility in this, such peerage as a republic can rightly confer, the coronet which marks the union of birth and worth.  We cannot, we, the Alumni, suffer these our brothers to sleep unhonored.  Those who shall come after us, who shall fill our places in dear Old Harvard, shall occupy our ancient rooms in Hollis and Massachusetts and Stoughton and Holworthy, have a right not only to count the academic wreaths which have been won in past days by their namesakes, but also to be taught the inspiring lesson of holy love of country, of highest courage and truth and soldierly virtue.

And how shall this be done?  Let these few remaining lines suggest at least one plan.  Harvard’s chief want is a hall for her Alumni, one worthy, in architecture and convenience, of her children’s fame, which Harvard Hall is not.  That long, awkward room, very hot and cramped to dine in at midsummer, hotter and more cramped still for the Class-day dances, is just fit for one purpose,—­the declamation-exercises of the Sophomore year.  Let us have a hall fit for Commencements, for Alumni and Phi-Beta orations, for our annual dinners, worthy of the “Doctor’s” poems and the “General’s” speeches, with a wainscot, not of vulgar plaster, but of noble oak, against which Copley’s pictures and Story’s busts may properly be placed.

Then let its windows be filled, as in the glorious halls and chapels of England, with memorial glass.  Let one of these, if no more, be formed, of the costliest and most perfect workmanship our art can compass, to the memory of the Heroes of Harvard.  It shall be the gift of every class which counts among its members one of these.  There, amid the gorgeous emblazonry, shall be read their names, their academic year, their battles.

Or, if this may not be, because our Alma Mater is still too poor or too humble to offer to her returning children such banqueting-place,—­if there is no Wykcham or Waynflete or Wolsey to arch for us the high-embowed roof, let us place our memorial in the Library, along its shaded alcoves and above its broad portals.  There the bright shadows shall sleep and pass with the sliding day, where the young scholars mused and studied.  There the future student, as he walks, shall read as noble a lesson as he can glean from any of the groaning shelves and dusty tomes.  There shall be for Harvard her Libro d’Oro wherein she has written the names of her best-beloved.