The Two Towers: Main

concentrate it. "We should write a motto over our gates, Pauca fideliter, a few things faithfully."

James Blake, the new Mayor of Worcester and therefore a member of the board, invited the guests to the collation. Afterwards the whole assembly reconvened for the afternoon session. Again there were speeches, this time by Alexander H. Bullock, Governor of the State and citizen of Worcester, Thomas A. Thacher, professor of Latin at Yale, the Reverend Seth Sweetser, the Honorable Emory Washburn from Harvard, who had been so instrumental in founding the school, George F. Hoar, who in this year became a member of the United States Congress, Judge Henry Chapin, and William P. Atkinson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Judge Chapin moved an adjournment but became so interested in his own speech that he talked on and on, ignoring his own motion. It was he who told the only joke of the day; even that was feeble fare. His story referred to the old superstition that when a new child is born, it becomes the possessor of a soul of someone who dies at that same moment. Judge Chapin went on to say that he knew one man so stingy that when he was born, nobody died.

It was not much to lighten a whole day of ponderous eloquence, but it helped. Shortly afterwards, George Hoar finished the speechmaking and Judge Chapin stood up again, this time to thank the people for bringing so much good food.

It was already dusk as the carriages grumbled down the muddy driveway. The two buildings stood stark and still on the bare hill now stripped of all its trees. Charles Thompson, fortified by only one young teacher, a part-time artist, and his sister-in-law, must have felt he had fallen heir to a strange legacy.

The fathers and godfathers and advisers had had their say and now had gone away, leaving what they hoped were adequate provisions and instruction to last the winter.

Now the test would come.

There was nothing to do but pick up after the company, then get on with the homework for tomorrow's classes.

This school comes to us at the right time.
      --Alexander Bullock, 1868

We expect to send out boys who will not be ashamed to go back to the shop to work.
      --George F. Hoar, 1869