I am reminded by Professor [Georges] May’s generous introduction of a story about Winston Churchill. After World War II and his stint as prime minister, he was invited back to his old school, Harrow, to give the commencement address and decided he ought probably to oblige. So he went, weathered an introduction almost as laudatory as the one you’ve just listened to (except in his case deserved) then got to his feet and said to the graduating class, “Nevah give up!” and sat down. I think you will agree that this is the most memorable commencement address you have ever heard as well as perhaps the wisest possible comment on the life that all of us here are engaged in fostering, and that I, alas, on grounds that will be no more apparent to you than they are to me, have been singled out (“fingered” is, I believe, the underworld term) to address: the life of learning. . . . Although I stand here before my betters, I do not stand here before very many of my elders. I have already drawn down from that mysterious fund with which we all begin three and a half years beyond my Biblical allowance, with the result that on any reasonably quiet afternoon I can hear my brain cells dying so fast they sound like popcorn. And that, I came to realize, is precisely what ACLS had in mind: they wanted to exhibit me, the way the Egyptians used to exhibit a skeleton at the beginning of their feasts. “Nothing like a mouldy old professor,” I could hear the Executive Board whispering, “to energize an audience of other professors into taking thought—before they get to be like him.” So do take thought, ladies and gentlemen, golden lads and girls; and as an old gravestone in Exeter churchyard says, “The faults you saw in me, Pray strive to shun; And look at home: There’s something to be done.” My instructions for this talk urged me to be somewhat personal, even to reminisce.