Your commissioners realized the importance of the work committed to them, and appreciated the confidence reposed in them, consequently they have given almost daily personal attention to this work. They have devoted the best part of their time for a period of two years to its supervision. They have used their best judgment to secure the best quality of material and finest workmanship, at the lowest price, both in the structure itself and in the heating, ventilation, ornamentation and furnishing. Their contracts have been made directly with manufacturers, thus obtaining everything at first cost.

Your commissioners have consulted the heads of the various departments as to what arrangements would best subserve the convenience and efficiency of their respective departments, and as far as practicable have utilized their knowledge and experience. If the commissioners have failed to give satisfaction on every point to all parties, their failure has not been intentional, but due to the necessities of the case. All those who have had any experience in erecting large buildings know that it is impossible to have in a great building of this kind every minute arrangement to suit everyone. Some little things must be sacrificed for the largest convenience and the greatest advantage of the whole.

It is not necessary for your commissioners to speak in terms of commendation and praise of the builders, whose name is a synonym for skillful workmanship, fidelity in the fulfillment of contract obligations, and business honor. They have won for themselves an enviable fame throughout the land. But in addition to the accustomed skill and fidelity with which they do their work, they took a personal pride in the erection of this building, which is to serve and adorn their own city. Your commissioners desire to express their thanks to their efficient superintendent, Mr. S. F. French, for his uniform courtesy and unfailing kindness. He has the rare faculty of directing his workmen so that his plans are executed with system and dispatch, and apparently without giving any orders.

It is peculiarly gratifying to be able to say that no one was killed or seriously injured in the work upon this building.

Your commissioners have worked together without friction or differences of opinion, and in perfect harmony.

Much has been said in recent times of municipal misrule and wasteful extravagance in the erection of public buildings, for which, too often, there have been good grounds. The experience of many cities has been that when their buildings have been completed, the cost has far exceeded the original estimates and expectations, and they have been loaded with heavy deficits. Your commissioners felicitate themselves in presenting an exception. They take honest and, they think, legitimate pride in finishing this massive and majestic structure, complete in all its appointments, rich in its ornamentation and elegant in its furnishing, with every necessity supplied, from the clock in its tower to the broom and dust-brush, for $23,031.23 less than the amount appropriated. (Applause.)

Mr. Mayor, this commission, which to-day ends its work and passes into history, was created under the administration of the Honorable Henry A.

Marsh. But its work has been done largely during the administration of your immediate predecessor, General Augustus B. R. Sprague, who, with characteristic courtesy, was ever ready to lay his experience, counsel and time at the service of the commissioners. We now, Mr. Mayor, place in your hands the keys of this hall where the official business of the city is to be transacted, with which act our responsibility ends.

Your commissioners, who have watched every stage of the work from the breaking of the first sod to the completion of the structure, in surrendering their trust, as citizens, express the hope that all the public business-legislative, executive and clerical-transacted here, may be transacted in that spirit which will always reflect honor upon this city, of whose growth, energy, enterprise and fair fame all are justly proud.

Mayor Dodge responded as follows:

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the City Hall Commission:

In accepting this token of delivery, signifying the transfer from your commission to the city of Worcester of the building erected under your direction, in pursuance to authority delegated by the municipality, it is my privilege to thank you, in behalf of the people, for services rendered in such an able, conscientious and generous manner, and to voice the feelings of this community by expressing universal satisfaction in the results of your work.

In committing this charge to you, and in approving your acts as your duty ends, the people have given a treasure equal to any that citizens as such can give and receive-confidence in worth and honor.

A task unsought, but a labor cheerfully assumed at the public call, the end sees that high esteem which prompted the confidence, more abundant even now than then.

The thanks and praise of your fellows are the only reward received for the faithful labor so freely given.

Yet, after all, this itself is a rich recompense when viewed from manhood's level-as high above the worth of gold as is the noble charity that makes a self-denying giver above the miser's avarice.

The people now, with one accord, without reserve, and with no halting commendation, approve your course with such a genuine spirit as leaves you yet their debtors.

The history of Worcester, as town and city, is replete with incidents showing a community wise, conservative but progressive in business and public affairs, loyal to the traditions of its founders, patriotic toward national government, and beneficent in voluntary public benefits. other New England towns, it was founded amid hardship and privation.

To us can come no more inspiring thoughts than those aroused by contemplation of the works wrought by the pioneers.

Surrounded by menaces threatening their families as well as their community, they met all situations as firm as the hills upon whose summits, or in whose valleys, were built homes of virtue and devout religion.

Winthrop wrote that "the best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser."

Hooker answered "in matters which concern the common good, a general council, chosen by all, to transact business which concerns all, I conceive most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of the whole."

Thus early did Hooker block out the keystone destined to hold the arch of American free self-government in the temple of her civil liberty.

There never was a time, from the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth soil to the Declaration of Independence, when fibre was not being united into the structure of a republic by a race guided of destiny, in giving to the world what the world most needed.

The great hereafter was first in our fathers' lives, but in its shadow, where their souls constantly dwelt, they did not forget the great present, lapsing into history, to ultimately teach coming generations its momentous import.

Their church, their school, and their town meeting were the three great lights of their lives.

By the first they saw immortality; the second lit the way to future greatness of their race upon this continent; while the third searched out a government of absolute equality.

The town house was the forum where the people's rights were championed by voice and vote.

From that palladium, reflected by the rays of the dawning light of equal rights, arose a splendor beyond the prestige of castle or palace, more potent than the power of kings and princes, rendering every citizen a sovereign and no man a serf.

Plain, direct and effective were the civil functions of colonial government.

No circuitous path led from the people to the power, save where monarchy reached its hand across the sea; and when that was shaken from the land, there stood the transcendent form of civil liberty, more perfect in all her lines than ever yet was seen.

Our towns have grown to cities, yet have we preserved the substance of the lessons learned from these masters of their creed. Even to this day we recognize that every modification of the original town government tending toward centralization, is not for improvement in system, but to meet changed conditions of the times.

Fitting it is that the place where the people, through their chosen representatives, transact the public business, should be among the best within our city.

Sacred to us is the place where history was made by a sturdy people, who, like the rugged oak, withstood the storms with strength bred of adversity.

Here, where our history began, will it continue through the years to come, to what end no mind can foresee.

Our fondest hope can give no more glory to the future than crowns the past. But, full of confidence in the human race, let us dedicate this spot

where our fathers met to weave a portion of the faultless fabric of self-government, designed by the noblest aims of man, to its preservation, with a fidelity of heart no less patriotic and no less self-denying than marked their noble lives.

We receive from you a structure representing to us what the town house of 1825 did to the citizens of that time.

As in days before that time the place of worship was the place of civil rule, let something of the sanctity surrounding public deliberations then invest us still, maintaining free the spotless name of Worcester's corporate life.

You have builded well what well does represent our city's strength and progress. Useful first, then beautiful and grand, may this substantial building endure long after the memories of this day have passed. But so long as it recalls with interest the history of its existence, so long will largest honor be coupled with your names.

Outlasting the granite of these walls, may our city live in honor and success, reflecting still the virtues of a race noble, strong and free.

ADDRESS OF BURTON W. POTTER, ESQ.

We have met to-day not to recount the hardships and the heroic achievements of the early settlers of Worcester, though we are not unmindful of our indebtedness to them. We have assembled to dedicate a new city hall, to be used for municipal purposes in our thriving and growing city. Surely it will not be out of place in these dedicatory exercises to review briefly the history and progress of our municipal government. Inasmuch as we are soon to celebrate the semi-centennial anniversary of the city's birth, when eloquent and accomplished orators will recount the story of humanity's growth in this vicinity during the past half century, I will not attempt to deal with the general life of our people, but will confine my remarks to things appertaining to municipal affairs. The time at my command is too limited to permit me to give in detail the history of our City Government. I can only call attention to such things as stand out as landmarks in our local affairs.

During the first twenty years of Worcester's existence as a city, its population did not increase very rapidly, and its local government did not differ essentially from the local government of large towns. It had a mayor and a city council, but everything was done under the direction of committees. There was no separation between the legislative and the executive departments of the government, and no public improvement was planned on a large scale. The gold fields of California and the unoccupied agricultural regions of the West attracted a large and steady emigration from the East, and Worcester, like other eastern cities, was not overcrowded with population. But after a while there began to be a massing population in the large towns, and the nineteenth century is closing upon a race that desires for the most part to live in cities; and the enlargement of

Not

municipal life is one of the most marked characteristics of this age. alone in the new world and Australasia are cities springing up as if by magic and doubling their population in a decade, but in the old world the growth of new cities and the modernization of old ones are the phenomena of this century. Sydney and Melbourne, Boston and Chicago are easily matched by Liverpool and Copenhagen, Hamburg and Budapest. London, Paris and Berlin still maintain their primacy among all the great cities, while old cities like Athens, Rome and Amsterdam have doubled their population within a generation.

This increase of urban citizenship has increased the people's interest in local self-government, and the functions of municipal government have been multiplied and enlarged in a marvelous manner. Worcester, like other cities, has caught the spirit of the age, and for the past thirty years her population has grown at the rate of 2,000 a year, and more and more attention is being given each year to the management of its municipal affairs. Worcester now has a population of over a hundred thousand souls, and is probably growing to-day as fast as at any period of its history. Situated in the midst of a rich agricultural region, at the centre of Massachusetts and New England, with unsurpassed railroad and educational facilities, there is no reason why it should not continue to grow until it rivals such great inland cities as Manchester and Birmingham in England. And its future growth will depend more upon the character of its municipal government than upon state or national legislation, or on the size of our regular army, or the number of our battleships. Of course an industrious and intelligent people may make great progress in business and commercial life in spite of poor civic government; but if they can be aided and directed by wise and capable officials, who plan all public improvements in the way best adapted to promote the development and expansion of the municipality, and who see that the improvements are made with honesty, economy. and dispatch, then their progress is likely to advance with increased rapidity. A wise, self-contained and self-governed people will always enact laws and adopt customs adapted to their needs and typical of their state of morality and civilization. They always have a government as good as they deserve, and therefore the historian can trace their progress in the annals which record the growth and improvement of their local govern

ment.

Then by the application of this test let us see how Worcester stands before the world.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the progressive march of Worcester than the growth of the public schools and the character of the teaching therein. Since Richard Rogers and John Adams taught in the public schools of Worcester to the present hour, there never has been any lack of education here. The first classical high school was built on the site of the present Classical high school, and cost $25,000. It was dedicated in 1845, and was large enough to accommodate 175 pupils. At that time the city. owned thirteen school-houses and employed thirty-five teachers. The number of pupils then enrolled in all the schools was 1,130, and the annual