THE ADDRESS.
On Tuesday of the next week, May 8, an address was presented by a deputation of the townspeople to the Headmaster and assistant masters. The ceremony took place in the school-room, the body of which was almost
filled by those who had assembled to support their deputation, while the masters, their families, and the Sixth Form were seated on the tiers of the orchestra. The deputation coming forward, Mr. Bell said that Mr. Hawthorn and himself had been requested by their fellow townsmen to undertake the presentation of an address, in explanation of which he would make a few remarks. In an appreciative speech he reviewed the circumstances which had given rise to the present occasion, gave some explanation of the form and terms of the address, and took occasion to add that although the ladies were not mentioned in the address, the townspeople were not unmindful of the energetic way in which they had seconded the efforts of the masters.
Mr. Hawthorn said he had been asked to read the Address, but that he was unwilling to do so without some slight expression of the feelings with which he and others took part in the presentation of it. Though they were met to congratulate the school, they felt, he said, that there were good grounds to congratulate themselves as townsmen. The absence of the school had pressed with greater or less severity on many tradesmen, being felt more especially by a large number of the poorer inhabitants, and had made it evident to many how poor a place Uppingham would be without a school upon its present important scale. But they valued the School on other grounds too; they recognize the advantage of the presence among them of so many representatives of liberal education and its broader views on matters of public interest. To the Headmaster it must be a cause for rejoicing and thankfulness that the labour of his life had been saved from a sudden and unfortunate conclusion. To him and his assistant masters, the parents, and the
boys, by whose loyal adherence the time of trial had been happily passed through, their congratulations were offered. He proceeded to read the address, which was received with much applause by the townspeople. It is a handsomely illuminated document, to which between sixty and seventy names are attached; the terms of it are as follows:
“To the Rev. Edward Thring, M.A., Headmaster, and to the Assistant Masters of Uppingham School.
“Gentlemen,—We, the undersigned residents in Uppingham, have great pleasure in meeting you with a hearty welcome on the re-assembling of the school in full numbers in its native home, and gladly avail ourselves of this opportunity of conveying to you our congratulations that the period of anxiety and trial through which you have so successfully passed has clearly demonstrated the sound principles upon which the school has been conducted, and which have raised it to its present eminence as one of the great schools of the country, and have won for it the confidence of parents in all parts of the kingdom, many of whom have entrusted their sons to your care at Borth, and are continuing that trust now that you are returning to your homes.
“We desire also to express our sense of the courage and enterprise manifested in removing the school from Uppingham at the time of the anxious crisis in February, 1876.
“And we pray Almighty God that it may please Him to bless the school, and that under His guidance those who from time to time leave the school may as scholars and Christian gentlemen uphold its fame in whatever sphere they may be placed.
“Uppingham, May, 1877.”
The Headmaster then rose and said: “Mr. Bell, Mr. Hawthorn, and friends in Uppingham,—Home is home, and you may be quite sure that we, at all events, who went through exile felt it indeed to be home when we came back again. (Applause.) It does not signify what the circumstances may be, but it is not possible to live long in a place and to have your home there without taking root in it, and having fibres sent deep which cannot be torn up without pain. (Applause.) We are very grateful, therefore, for the hearty, the enthusiastic welcome you gave us on our return. (Cheers.) Assuredly as our eyes looked on this pleasant hill and the familiar fields, we felt a deep thankfulness for the great peril passed, the page of life turned, and a year such as never can come again closed with success. (Applause.) And it is a pleasant spot to look on when you come down the dip of the valley before you near Uppingham, and look up and see the ancient homes crowning the brow of the hill—it is a fair sight to any eye, even to a stranger’s eye, the pleasant homes of Uppingham, with the church and its spire in the midst, the spire of the school chapel beyond, each adding, methinks, to the beauty of the other, and both alike in their upward spring and their holy worship. It is a pleasant spot to look on, and you made your old picturesque street very beautiful with your decorations and that bright outbreak of welcome which greeted us as we came in. (Cheers.) The school hardly knew what we meant—they did not know when we asked them to cheer at the top of the hill; but as the stream of life wound round and came in sight of that avenue of arches and flags, then 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 to-night once more meet together as one body. (Loud applause.) We are united now as we never have been before methinks (cheers); for never before, to my knowledge, in England, have town and school been so completely welded together as your welcome to us home and our presence here together to-night shows us to be now. (Loud and long-continued applause.) There have been many blessings in this great trial, but certainly not least do I set that, that we and you are once more met as one. Your work and ours is so mixed up—our work so mixed with yours, and yours with ours—that it is not possible that anything should go out of this place, any life come forth from it, which does
not to a great degree bring honour or discredit to both; and I do think (what was said to-night) that we are here together to work in the highest way, not as a matter of pecuniary advantage only in a place like this, but simply that we, one with another, should push forward life and make it crown that living edifice of truth, which, as it seems to me, is town and school working together. And what a type that town is. “A city set upon a hill cannot be hid;” and surely as a school and a home, a home of learning and light, this place is both actually and figuratively set upon its hill. Everything of the past year has gone out into land after land, in letters and papers and narratives on all sides: the busy-boy mind and the busy-boy pen photographs most accurately all the minute incidents that interest their opening life, and it passes out everywhere. I know that in India, and China, and Australia, and Canada—and I might go on with half the countries in the world—there has been talk in many a distant home of what has happened here. It may very well be that at this moment your names are on many lips as letters of English news have come in lately from England, and your welcome of us will travel out to the ends of the earth, so great is the power of “a city set upon a hill.” And when you pray that we may be Christian gentlemen in the life that is coming, I say it lies a great deal in your own hands. Help us by so smoothing our path in all ways so that your honour may be our honour and your work our work, and that as we are grateful to you to-night so the world outside may be grateful to you also for work hereafter, and that none shall go out of Uppingham School and shall not carry wherever he goes a thankful memory of Uppingham town, and that whenever the name of Uppingham is
heard in any part of the world it shall be that of an honoured place, with no divided interest, but one place working wisely, so that the world may be grateful for good work done, as we to-night are grateful for the welcome given, grateful for the lightening of our burdens, grateful for the possibility of good work in the future, most grateful for the happy homes you have given us in welcoming us home so fervently. I thank you most heartily in the name of the school and the masters and myself for this address, which I trust will for ever remain not the least honoured relic of this school.”
The Headmaster sat down again amid much cheering from the audience of townspeople, to which the small party of boys present found voice to make no ineffective answer in three salutes ‘for Uppingham town.’
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charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press.