they understood what was meant, and they were ready enough to second it. (Cheers.) We were very thankful, also, that you recognise in that address—­that able address and pleasing to receive—­how hard it was to go, how great a risk had to be faced to save the school; for that was what was at stake.  I do not say that in years to come there should not again have been a school as great as this, or greater; but this I am sure of, that we were in the very last week of the life of this present school; that at the beginning of the week, when it was decided to go, there was news from different quarters that made it absolutely certain that another Monday would have seen no school here.  For a school is not a mere machine which can be set going to order, and which anybody who happens at the time to have the mastery of can deal with like a machine.  “I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” says Shakespeare in one of his plays; and the rejoinder comes, “Why, so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?” (Laughter and cheers.) Now that is just what they won’t do; and we simply had no choice; we lay absolutely helpless before the fact that ruin stared us in the face, and we could not stir hand or foot to stop it unless we had been able then to find a door of escape.  This present school was at an end, and neither I nor some others amongst us could have set foot again in Uppingham as our home.  Now I do assure you ruin is a hard thing to look on after a life-work of many years of labour—­not a less hard thing because the sun rose as usual, and it was all peace, and the buildings looked as of old, and the fields were just as they had always been; but an invisible barrier had risen up, and we had no place here any more.  To see the four-and-twenty years of life go at a touch—­indeed it was hard to think of.  “For my part, I have built my heart in the courses of the wall”—­(cheers)—­and nothing short of this impelled us to that dire necessity of leaping in the dark, to go we did not know where, and when we found the where, not knowing who would 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