SIXTH REUNION.

ON NOV. 17, 1885, the annual meeting was held at the Hotel Vendome, and was called to order by the President, John M. S. Williams. The Committee to nominate officers for 1885-1886, reported the following, who were elected :

THOMAS J. ALLEN, President.

GEORGE O. CARPENTER, Vice-President.

WILLIAM C. LAWRENCE, Sec'y and Treas.

Directors: - - James M. Burgess, Jarvis D. Braman, William Noble, William H. Leatherbee, Ezekiel R. Jones, Albert Betteley, John M. Clark, John Souther, James M. Shute.

When the company were seated at the tables, the President, John M. S. Williams, called upon the Rev. S. F. Smith, D. D., to ask the divine blessing. "Memories was then sung. After an hour passed in partaking of the excellent menu, the President called the company to order and said:

During the year Providence has dealt kindly with us. Although we miss some, they are comparatively few; seven in all have died. As I look over this audience, and think of our past lives, so many of us gray-headed, almost through with life, I do not look upon it with sadness. We have had a great deal of

joy out of life, a great deal to be thankful and grateful for; although as we look back we may at times feel a little sad when we think of those who have passed on, yet we may think of our lives, as much like the life of one walking up a high mountain. Some of you have noticed that from the top of Mt. Washington, looking down upon the elevations and depressions that you met in going up, it all seems like a level plain. And so, my friends, we are getting through all this of life. We sometimes look back and we see the trials and troubles we have had, but by and by as we look over the battlements of heaven down on the way we have passed, the ills of life, the hardships of life, we shall see God's mercies all along. We shall view them, and they will give us joy. Let us then take courage, feeling that life is full of opportunities for enjoyment, and the enjoyment comes in proportion as we seek to make our lives useful to others.

We are glad to-night in having so many of our friends with us who in a few moments will have an

opportunity to address us. The first speaker I will call on to-night is his Honor Mayor O'Brien.

The Mayor said in part:

Mr. President and Old School Boys: - This is the first time I have had an opportunity of joining with the Old School Boys of fifty years ago. Sitting in this elevated position I have admired the way in which you have gone through the Bill of Fare, from oysters on the shell to canvas-back duck. I have been somewhat surprised, while looking at this reserved and dignified body of bald heads and gray

beards, with the course that this evening's entertainment has taken. I supposed that on this occasion you put aside all restraint, and instead of calling yourselves Mr. Williams, Mr. Pratt, and Mr. Barbour, you sung out "How are Jack? How are you Bill? How are you Joe?" You have not got into that yet, I suppose you will, before you get through the evening.

Some fifty years ago ing Fort Hill School.

I had the pleasure of attendThe schools of that day were not what they are now. There were no fancy studies then; it was plain arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, reading and spelling. I do not know but. what we were just about as well off as we are now. (Voices: "Better.") We will take a vote on that question. All who believe that the schools were better in those days than they are now, will say Aye. It is a unanimous vote.

There were no gymnastics at that day, but I remember the boys used to take as much exercise then as they do now. The North-Enders and the Fort Hillers used to have their regular fights. I always thought the Fort Hillers came out best. You remember that old school house up on the hill, with a gun house on one side, and that big flag staff alongside of it? It was a great feat of gymnastic exercise, in those days, to climb to the top of that flag staff but many a boy in the Fort Hill School accomplished it. We were all swimmers in Fort Hill School; there was no restraint then, we could go into the water, and nobody found fault with us. I remember the first time I went into the water was at the end of Russia Wharf, when I first went to the

Fort Hill

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School. The older boys formed a circle and they stumped me (I was then about seven years of age) I could not take a stump

to jump in among them. then, and I cannot take not a single boy touched me. I was a swimmer from that day to this.

one now. In I went, and

I do not intend to detain you, gentlemen, with any of these reminiscences, because I see so many of my old friends around me. Here is a young man of only eighty years; his companion claims to be a few years younger, and I remember the President on this occasion, when he was a middle-aged man engaged in the California trade, about forty years ago. It is remarkable to see so much life and vigor in these old boys. I can say that the City of Boston is proud in having so many gray beards and bald heads, with a display of such vigor as I have seen among them to-night.

The President: The next gentleman whom I shall introduce is the only one here who is not a member of our Association, but he represents a society having kindred objects with ours. He is quite an antiquarian, and the President of the Bostonian Society, Mr. Curtis Guild.

Mr. Guild spoke as follows: Mr. President and Gentlemen :

I do feel something like an interloper here, not being a member of the Old School Boys' Association. This recalls my first association with the old School Boys. I once came up through West Street to the Mall, when a game of football was about to begin on Boston Common. There was quite a large

assemblage of boys from the Mason Street [Adams] School and the Franklin School. I stood around there, anxious to take part in the game, and finally was asked if I would not like to play. I said "Yes," and was immediately chosen on one side, and I heard a boy on the other side say to his friend, "Who is that fellow over there in the blue jacket?" "I don't know," said the other; “I suppose he is one of those stuck-up private school fellows." But I went in with them and played. A few years after that I became a public school boy myself, under the tuition of Cornelius Walker, sometimes known as 66 Tiptoe Walker."

I am here, Mr. President, without any preparation to speak, because I supposed that gentlemen were to come and talk as boys: in fact that we might look back through the telescope of time, and forgetting the lapse of years, say "Once more I am a boy again;" then we played football on the Common, and kicked it instead of running with it in our hands. Then we played baseball and hockey, right on the mall, and Boston Common was the playground of the Boston school boys. Then we drove hoops all the way from Winter Street to Boylston Street, and rarely met anybody to incommode us in our progress. Then we ran with all the engines, "Old Melville," "Dispatch, No. 9," which was always manned by boys of the Adams School, "Cataract, 14," and others which many of you can remember. Then we played marbles in spring-time on Park Street mall, and swapped a blood alley for eight marbles. Then "Old Barrett,” - Deacon Barrett, was the principal of the Adams School, and flogged the boys