AAA Coming of Age Dinner

17 only one word more to say, and that is about the future of the Association. Gentlemen, atour meeting at Oxfordthere were, I think, twenty or thirty people who were there, and I am veprlyeased to think that there are four or five of them here this evening. There is MrJ.ACKSON, who will be with us, I hope, as long atshe A.A.A. goes on; there is Mr. ABRAHAwMh,o was one of the earliest ,—now our Vice-President ,—anId hope he will always be with us ; there wasMr. HERBERT, there was Mr. LEES KNOWLES,who has since soared to higher flights, and who always, I think, comes to Championship Meetings and is always to be seen at the University Sports; and I thinkI am the fifth of those who have followed the fortunes of this body from the commencement until nowB.ut , gentlemen,there mustcome a time when we must drop inthoe background and a younger generation will come up ; and dI o hope this younger generation may think it worth while to devote time and attention to this objeYcto. u know a great many of us hear remarks madwe hen we go on yearafter year paying attention to athletics. We areasked why we do not devote ourselves tolarger public duties. I say I do not consider there are any larger or better public duties than looking to theeducation of thehuman race, the future citizens in the way of athletes (hearh,ear). It is quite right and proper that many should give themselves up to politics, and many give themselves up to education ; but politics asI learnt many years ago, means thsecience of things which conduce to the good of the State. Education means educating not only people's brains, but their bodies, their characters. I would remind those, and there are many of them, who are getting no credit for devoting themselves to an object like this, instead of devoting themselves tothe better known Associations,—I would remind them of this, that if they do help to promote athletics and the good of the community in that way, they are doingood and deserving public work, and they need not be ashamed of doing it . A philosopher has told us that the best way to make a whole nation clean is not to pass a Sanitary Statute but to make every man wash himself; and the best way to make a nation healthy and manly is to teach every man, and give an opportunity to everyman to learn to teach himself to be manly. All of us who are taking part in athletics—cricket , football , rowing, boxinagnd gymnastics—are altlaking part in public matters, are altlaking part in politics, are all taking part in education and in doingour duty to oucrountry. I do hope in the interests of this Association that the younger men who are here and who are just beginning to come into our Councils will bear that in mind, and I can assure themthey will earn the gratitude of the older school of athletes, and I believe they will earn the gratitude otfhe community at large if they help our great Association to go on tihne future asit has done in the past . Gentlemen, I thank you very much for connecting my name with this Toast . As your Chairman said, there is a score in the room whaore as well qualified to have repliedto this Toast as I am. I believe I have been chosen because I am described as the father of this Association, bIuatm not , and because they have known me so long. I may say it hasbeen a great pleasure to me to have been one of the officials for the last wenty-