With this prefatory apology I send you, each and all, my earnest wishes that this fourth gathering may be as delightful as was each of its predecessors. My next-door neighbor for more than twenty years, Xenophon H. Shaw, now eighty-four years of age — in 1809 my playmate and schoolmate of the Mayhew School, and ever since then my intimate acquaintance and friend - sends you his greeting and his love. What feats in swimming and what exploits on the skate did not we two, and perhaps some of you, achieve on the neighboring old " mill pond," now the lively site of the northern railroad depots, but then, when frozen, the battle ground of "North-ender and South-ender," from which most perilous arena, both he and I, believing absence of body to be better than presence of mind, always kept clear. To his hearty greeting I add mine, with intensest earnestness. But now to close. Shakspeare says in one of his songs "Crabbed age and youth Very likely. But mark! he says, "crabbed age." "An age that melts in unperceived decay, Let Most truly, your comrade and friend, The Rev. E. E. Hale spoke of the time when the boys had to assess themselves to buy a water-bucket, which they divided among themselves at the end of the term by kicking it to pieces. The boys wore gowns, which would be scarcely permitted now. The speaker gave some interesting reminiscences of coast ing on the Boston streets in Revolutionary days, and told how little Harrison Gray Otis, going to school on the 19th of April, 1775, was arrested by a line of troops and had to go around Cornhill and up School Street making him late at school. The teacher said, "The War's begun, and School is done; Deponite libros, take away your books." They had a vacation of a year and a half. The way to teach boys is to treat them as though they were older, rather than though they were younger than they are. The boys of the present day thirteen years old do not know so much as the boys of the same age fifty years ago. They know a little more of drawing and of history, but they cannot write as well, they are not so good at arithmetic and they cannot read as well. 66 MEMORIES," contributed by the Rev. S. F. Smith, D. D., was then sung: Live for one hour our youth again! Give back our childhood's toys! For auld lang syne my dear, For auld lang syne; We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Give back the bright and sunny brow For auld lang syne my dear, etc. Give back the smooth, fair faces gone, For auld lang syne my dear, etc. But dear the days, the scenes, we shared, For auld lang syne my dear, etc. And though our early ranks grow dim, The boys will ne'er forget. For auld lang syne my dear, etc. Dr. Smith being introduced said, Wherever he had been around the world the Boston schools had a reputation. To be a graduate of them was a passport to the most cultivated society. The speaker gave some interesting and touching reminiscences of old Master Tileston, who taught at the North End. Of the old system of education the speaker was content to say, in the words of Daniel Webster regarding Massachusetts "There she stands her." look at The Rev. W. R. Alger, D. D., gave some interesting incidents of his school days, and said the difference between a company of school children and this company is that they looked forward, and we are in clined to look back. It is this which makes us grow old. Time flies because we grow less conscious of its passage. We must keep the soul young, no matter how old the body gets. Our life ought to grow sweeter and richer and deeper with each added year. Mr. George W. Bond, who called himself the youngest member of the Association, having joined it only two days before, was the next speaker, and was followed by Mr. Wm. Parkman, who pointed out that in the commercial world the Old School Boys of Boston had attained as much distinction as some of those who had learned so many sciences since. Mr. Peter T. Homer, Mr. Wm. H. Baldwin, and other gentlemen also spoke, and the meeting was then adjourned. FIFTH REUNION. THE annual meeting, Dec. 4, 1884, was held at the Hotel Vendome, President John C. Pratt in the chair. The Committee on Nominations submitted a list of officers for the year of 1884-1885. JOHN M. S. WILLIAMS, President. THOMAS J. ALLEN, Vice-President. WILLIAM C. LAWRENCE, Sec'y and Treas. Directors: — George O. Carpenter, Samuel W. Clifford, George W. Robbins, William Noble, William H. Dennet, James M. Burgess, Jarvis D. Braman, William H. Leatherbee, Albert Betteley: and they were elected. The business meeting then adjourned. At the close of the social hour the company, numbering 110 members besides the invited guests, gathered at the tables. President Pratt sat at the head with Mayor Martin at his right, and Rev. J. Buckingham, Chaplain, at his left, who invoked the divine blessing. At the conclusion of the dinner the exercises were opened by singing "Memories," composed by Rev. S. F. Smith, D. D., after which the President said: "Schoolmates: Another year has rolled around, and we meet to revive the pleasant reminiscences of |