"Let me, if I am not trenching on the prerogatives of the President, offer a toast myself, and ask a gentleman, one of the professors of this University, a fair illustration of the word that the office should seek the man and not the man the office, and in this case I may say, if reports speak truly, the office had to knock several times at the door before it was bidden to come in, - a gentleman whose selection for a post abroad, where he will have to tread in the footsteps of Washington Irving, has done honor to Harvard University, honor to him, and honor to the administration which made it, and will do honor to the country. I mean Professor Lowell of Harvard University. Him I call upon to respond to the toast: 'The highest use of learning is one of the most potent of the agencies to produce the highest order of public life.'"

Mr. Lowell, in responding, incidentally remarked of Professor Sibley that he [Mr. Sibley] had given more to the cause of education, in accordance with his means, than anybody else ever gave in his lifetime, and closed by saying that

"He would not detain the alumni longer, and certainly would not detain the government of his country longer. He felt, too, that they cared little to hear him often, as they had approved of his appointment to a foreign mission which would necessarily keep him away for a long time. He was reminded, too, of something which he had read in his diplomatic instructions, and it was fortunate that he had not thought of it a moment sooner, and that was, that all persons in a diplomatic capacity are strictly prohibited from speech-making. They are allowed, indeed, to make a speech on a festive occasion, but it must be a festive occasion in the country to which they are accredited, and no other; and therefore, under the circumstances, he would be pardoned in closing his speech right at that point."

General Devens then called upon Senator Bayard, of Delaware, to respond to the toast proposed by Mr. Schurz, "The scholar in politics": -

"Senator Bayard said that the man who made the phrase 'Pleasures that come unlooked for are twice welcome,' was never called upon suddenly to make an after-dinner speech. His steps had been bent thither by invitation of one of the societies, before whom on the morrow he might perhaps say something in response to the heavy idea of the toast. If pleasures unexpected were twice welcome, so indeed were distinctions and honors, and of them he had just tasted. Coming there, an interested and sympathetic auditor of their exercises, he did not know that an honored degree of the University was to be bestowed upon so unworthy a person as himself. But the less his merit the greater their bounty, and thus could they measure what was due to them by their generosity to him. The name and fame of fair Harvard were not theirs alone, and he had always had his share, as an American citizen, in its honorable name and fame. He felt the honor that had been conferred upon him, and with it a responsibility, for in the title was a new claim for upright and honorable action. If not a son of Harvard, he was her adopted son, and he felt the sense of brotherhood He should not forget the honor, and he should strive in the future to show that they had not bestowed it upon a man insensible to all that it justly needed."

After a few remarks by Bishop Lee, of Delaware, of the class of '20, Mr. Choate of New York made, as usual, a witty speech in regard to his class and the recent changes in the College.

"The class of '52, to which he belonged," he said, "had come up to celebrate its quarter-century, and one thing had come to their knowledge they were proud of, and that was, that however little else they had done, they had produced one grandfather. In this department of usefulness they would report progress, and ask leave to sit again. Two or three points in the affairs of the College had attracted his attention. He had observed with increased solicitude the difficulty which presented itself to their juniors and sons for finding admission to the University, and especially the difficulty of getting out. What was to be done if after a man got into college he could not get out? He was afraid if the present tests were applied to the alumni, many would long remain within the classic shades. The emerald green of the College Yard, from the old President's house to the remotest corner of the delta, would soon be whitened with the bones of the alumni who died in ineffectual struggles to effect their escape from the college."