The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-18 00:00:00

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MANCHESTER

ATHENEUM.
This aims] gathering, Which took place on Than-
day evening, was not on so large • scale as in previous years,
the Town-hall Assembly Rooms, instead of the Free Trade-
hall, being engaged fir the mead». But though the com-
pany was not so numerous as on firmer occasions the pro-
aedings went off with considerable i'ciat. Lord Maw
Provided, sad agape se the other guests were T. Milner Gibson,
Esq., M.P., Mark Philip+, Eel , late M.P. for Manchester,
John Bright, Hat , M.P., Wm. Brown, Baq., M.P., Wm.
Bumble. Esq., late M.P. for the county, James Kershaw,
Bp, M.P., Joseph Brotherton, Esq , and Mr. Bell.
The noble Pawnee?» said : Appearing before von tie I du
this evening, uncouneeted with you in redden» or in rem-
ideation—a stranger personally to almost every one around
me, and differing from many among you in views and opi-
Mons on public &Guts, I yet believe that these very Mecum-
stances milord only a clearer token and more convincing proof
of that link of brotherhood which should always bind toe
getter those engaged in the pursuit of arts, of letters, or of
educe. (Cheers.) When you invited me to my present high
position And when I accepted the honourrepeeed in me,you telt, '
and I felt, that minds animated by theism* desire fur mental
cultivation should not be deemed mangers to each other,
sad that party differences should be laid aside for a time,
freshly and freely, whenever the question arises " by what
means knowledge maybe best appreciated and most lumen
fully diffused ?" (Cheers.) I think, too, I may say, that
meetings like the present, besides their first main object, are
also in their collateral effects highly beneficial. We are all,
to whatever sects and denominations we may belong,
we are all, 1 think, inclined to judge a little it TOUT-
abq of each other. Surely, then, it is no slight advantage
of an usemblage like this iuviting to the common field of
action labourers both far end near, that we shall depart
again with kinulier feelings, with • belief in each
other's rectitude of purpose in our different paths,
and with sentiments of preonal friendship and goodwill.
Now, first, as to '6:ince. I cannot hut feel it aimed super-
fluous that I should say a single word to recommend its
study to ouch a meeting as I see before me ; for if you look
ensued you, if you see the greatness and importance which
Manchester has attained, and if you consider within how
limited a period that attainment ha taken place, you cannot,
I am sure, forget, that this greatness and this importance are
mainly owing to the discoveries of modern science. Con-
sider what a rapid advance these discoverhs in science have
enabled you to make, when little more than • century ago
the young Pretender marched through your town and lodged
at a house standing not muy years since in Market-street.
I ask you if it were possible for him to revisit these
scenes, do you think he would recognise those
teems aria ? Do you think he would see soy ram-
bler.» bets een the not considerable country town as it
was then, which he so easily marched through, and what it
has now become ? This immense capital of our manufac-
turing enteruise, this vast mart of active wealth, this mine
of active industry _—what would he have said to this ? What
would he have weld to those lines of notaries which have sine,
arisen on every side, affording honourable employment to
hundreds of thousauds of our people, and the beneficial
effects of whose produce have been kit in the remotest
quarters of the globe. Why, then, I say, when 1 see so
much progress made, and I know it has been due to science,
when the discoveries of science form, in fact, the chronicles
and annals of your city, can I then doubt fora moment that
the study of science will require any aid or encouragement
from me—that you will be all desirous to explore the root of
your own greatness, the groundwork of your own import-
ance ? Inns. place therefore do I think that • recommendation
to the study of science can be less needed than in this shy,
where I have now the honour of addressing on. (Ago
plume.) Nor let ma be told that the study of ukase is lee
hard and difficult for hours of leisure—tor hours whit* mud
be taken from many other active pursuits. Let ma »shell
those ladies who hive graced and hocoured us with their
presence this evening—let me remind them that one of them-
solvate—me of the ladies of England, Mrs. Somerville, is not
more remarkable for the depth and accuracy of her own
scientific knowledge, than for the still higher end rarer gift
of making the avenues of that knowledge clear and delight.
ful to others. There are sciences which, as it were, have
started into being altogether within the memory of man.
Seth a science is geology. See what great triumphs in gee.
logical dissever, have been achieved within how nar-
row a spec, of time! We cannot perhaps measure this
difference, this progress, more clear) y than by showing the
altered feeling with which men of education and knowledge
spoilt of knowledge. In the last century it was a not un-
frequent topic of ridicule. Now, we Bad these discoveries
treated with general esteem and respect. Sixty years ago,
for example, Bishop Watson, certainly a man of no mean
order of mind, and of no mean intellectual attainment, used
to may that the geologiet who attempted to speculate on the
internal formation of the glebe, reminded him only of the
ant which might be perched on the shoulder of the elephant,
and might, by the puncture of its tiny sting, affect to tell
him the internal structure of the majestic animal below.
(Laughter.) Than are the words of a learned and accom-
plished man sixty or seventy years Fined. Would any man
of any education or judgment use similar words now ? Is
there any man who would mention, but in terms of respect
and esteem, the researches of such men, for instance, u Dean
Buckland and Sir Charles Lyell ? See what results have
crowned the researches of these great men. Take
that very point of the internal structure of the
globe in which it was thought that nothing beyond
the reach of actual observation could ever he properly con-
jectured. Since that time, I need not remind many among
you, how It has been found that layer or strata, as they
are called decline into the earth at a certain angle, and then
at a certain interval of space re-appear upon earth again at a
similar angle, and at exactly the same distance between the
same layers. In these CAM l need not remind you it has
been found possible to calculate, almost with certainty, what
must be the structure of the globe for miles and mile' lower
than the feet of the most adventurous miner ever trod.
(Applause.) lof course glance only briefly at these topics;
but you will see from this that if it were developed by some
one better versed in scientific attainments, to do it justice,
you would see from it that even on that ground an which
the detractors of geology were wont to rely his afforded one of
its proud( st intellectual triumphs. (Applause.) In speaking of
geology I would not disjoin from it that science which, strictly
speaking, is not the same, but which is seldom separated
from it in study, I mean the study in which Cuvier attained
such mastery and skill—the study of extinct races of animals,
and the reconstruction of their skeletons from the bones, so
es to piked, by analogy, no small probability as to their
structure, their size, and even their habits of life. Sandy
this again is a great triumph of the human mind; surely
this, even in its first elements, even In the first stars of the
science, is well w .rthy of your hours of leisure. I remem-
ber being especially struck with one of the discoveries of
Cuvier, relating to one of those animals, which, a s far as we
know, human eye had never seen, and of which, in this
instance, it happens that as far aa we know no vestige of its
substance remains, not one fragment of its bones, not one
shred of its skin. Well, then, if this animal had never Wee
seen, as far awe know, or at least had never been recorded
in the annals of men—if no fragment of its sub-
stance, no fragment of its skis, nor its bone re-
mains, just ask yourself, for one moment, how
wan possible to acquire any knowledge respect-
ing it ? Does not this, at first sight, appear an almost
Impossible teak ? Just ask yourself the question whether
the difficulty does not, at first sight, appear insuperable ?
Yet this difficulty was overcome by Cuvier. How? By
the footsteps of this animal in Its lifetime on the seashore,
by these footsteps becoming petrified in the course of years ;
from an examination of these footsteps Cuvicr has been able
to deduce, by the interval between those steps • calculation
as to the sine of the animal; by the configuration of the
steps, calculations as to the order of animals to which they
may have belonged, comparisons with other animals whose
footsteps are the same. And thus, with no other calcula.
Eon, with no other vestige remaining than these petrified
footsteps on the shore, he had been able to construct—net
as a vague theory, not as a mere guess, unsupported by
experiment, but es the result of analytical reasoning,
a most probable reasoning n to the size, the structure, nay,
even the habits, of this salwesi. Am I then, wrong in saying
that a study which prememte seek results, which even when
in comparative infamy mss so surprising, is a study which
may be well resseamilsi fmsou. end in which you cannot
fail to find abwidest seeress of OWght ? From the study of
science we turn to the reedy of literature, which also affords
for your hours of leisure pursuits well worthy of your atten-
tive adoption. lam anxious, for I should be anxious at
least if I were able, to Jayne' upon you that literature is not
a mere holiday thing to be assumed on some special weal»,
but that it may mix and blend itself with the affairs
of every-day life, our hours of ptsure, our days
of excursion, end not only without diminishing the pleasure,
bat with a considerable Increase and enhancement to it.
Depend upon it these are plugsres which he who condemns
will find himself a miserable loser at the end. It is with
views like these that you founded the present institution—
to encourage and promote, a far as possible, a taste
for intellectual pleasures. This institution on that
ground deserves, end willreceive,support. Thie
institution contains within it the sure principle of
vitality, because I believe it contains within it the principle
of usefulness. Sow the good seed—rely on it that your her-
' test, whether retarded by a passing cloud or quickened by •
genial sun—your harvest, whether late or early—your
hnryest will be plentiful and your reward secure. (Loud
cheers.)

Tau A$ MILS!". GIBSON, Beg., next rose midst
tiotrAsable appkwe sad addromed the meeting It some
',oath. Re mid he believed moth Methadone as the Min-
eiteeterAthenteum calculated to inflate the testa, to improve
Ithe meanie, and to s=t the happinem, oldie ooramanity
la whit they were

- -
JO= 1111011 T, Brq M.P., rose and said lam not pee-
entepteme mengli to stand up teem to teach there who. I am
links arcs, win 'may ems able to leech me. But I
feel thit there is something in soy experiame, and in
the cease of my regimesa upon the sal4sets which
have boa treated here to night, with* may
be &danced without being wholly wren as CMiit's.
teretisi occesion. Almost every spoke who has
me has dwelt upon the great usefelesse ead exal-
rece-Tithis and similar %Wades& New I emcees that
on every °cession when I have attended the aselversayy of
your Athematic, or any 01111.9 meetings of mechanics' insti-
tutions throughout this porticos of the wintry, I hays been
somewhat oppressed with a nislaasholy feeling from the
belief that there is a very large pecuniary expenditure—a
very lame expenditan also of labour and exertion—which is
sot attended with so great and good a result as we might
hope mold be the ease, when we me the pains that are takes
by the promoters and active members of these institutions;
sad I mature not only to ask myself what is the neon of
this comparatively small malt, but I venture to ask this
meeting why it is ? and also to explain to this meeting what
in 199 opinion h the reason 19by, with ell the
adventsges which are now held out to almost every
SIMS Of gookity. the progress of information —of
knewirige generally—is not more rapid than it is.
I moat* the conclusion I have arrived at by a proem of
ressoaleg which is much more Mutilating to myself than it
can bete anybody else present. I judge from my own ex-
perience that our small experience WINS from our want of
duty appreciating the yes of time and the value of those
advantage which these institatioos offer so widely to ell the
I=6LThe moor part of us are infinitely more delighted
emcee-t, many of 99 even with frivolity, than we
are Mai that hard study end that laborious exertion which
we ea neeseary to enable us to participate fully in the ad-
vantages which are thus offered to us. We read (and, un-
derstand me, I am judging of others es I have found myself)
much more for amusement than for thought. lem not dis-
posed in the siiehtest degree to undervalue that description
of reading which is generally known by the name of '• light
Manners" lam least of all, perhaps no man lees, disposed
to undervalue our periodical literature, especially newspa-
pers. They give us the history 0 our own time, sod no
man can know where he stands in the world,
unless he occasionally, nay frequently, looks into
the newspapers of the day. I would not under-
value, as I said before, this light literature, but I think
it a greet mistake on the part of young men from the age of
litres to twenty-five, to consume their time to a large extent
in such reading. There is a saying, which I think may now
he classed amongst the old proverbs, that " a man is known
by the company he keels ;" and it may be added that a man
is known by the books with which he is acquainted. We
ought to apply the same principle and rule in choosing books
that we should do in choosing associates. It would be easy
to point out many books strongly to be approved of, and some
which it would not be wise to coon' ensue. I would parti-
cularly recommend one branch of reading, which his been
already alluded to—that of history—end to that I would add
biography. I would ask any young man here accustomed to
read books from the library of the Athenaeum, whether he
has sot found a sensible difference on rising from the
email of works of acknowledged standard merit than
when he has risen from the perusal of light, flimsy,
and anteing literature, of which there is a great
deal around us, and offered to us on every hand ?
Now, if you read the lives of great and good men, who
have passed away from this scene, you observe how they
have struggled, it may be from humble circumstance to
the more elevated, distinguished, and useful positions in
life. I speak from my own experience ; no man can read
such works without feeling humiliated that he is so far be-
hind; but often he feels a stimulus and incentive to make
spin and again a struggle in favour of any great and noble
aim which he may have placed before his eye. What young
ineu vatic is one idea added to all the other ideas that they
have, and the knowledge of one fact added to the knowledge
of all other facts. If it were possible to instil Into
the minds of young men how much of after life, or all that
is worth living for, depends upon what they do in early years.
1 think we should find all Kuehl. stitutions as these infinitely
mom thronged than they are now, and that every devotee
who comes to the institution would be infinitely more
laborious and zealous than he now ie. On a former occasion,
when permitted to address some observations at one of your
anniversary meetinr, I spoke with reference to this great
county in which we were ...hied, and to the extreme
necessity there was that there should ire 1s these northern
counties of Lan ashire and Yorkshire some greater, some
better means of education for the sons of our commercial
clause than are at present afforded. I spoke of the propriety
at some distant time of opening a university in these
northern counti.rahich the son■ of these classes might attend.
Every year that has passed since then has only strengthened
my opinion upon that subject, when I regard the vastness of
the population ; our enormous interests of every kind ; when
I think of oar past and present blunders, which would make
a long catalogue ; when I think of our increasing social and
political responsibilities—l confess that I doubt if those
classes who are to be the directors and controllers of the
caner of this part of the country are making that p
in knowledge which it is desirable for themselves earcirrr
country that they should make. It has been mid, with
some truth, that half en education is a dangerous thing in a
vast and populous district like this. If it be true that
A little keroing is a dangerous thing
to the working eases, because by that they discern some-
what of the uncomfortableness and apparent neglect of their
condition, without considering further what are the remedies
for the evils they suffer, so also
A little learning is a dangerous thing
he the clams in the social scale above them. If our aims of
manufecturers, merchants, traders and others, who am give
the time and afford tee expense, had the cime=
weeded them of obtaining a first-rate education,
pm. and morality of this class would be wonderfully Wm/
Bear in mind the battle of life is not the same now as it was
centuries ago. Centuries ago the monarch, and the will of
the monarch, was everything in this country, end we, se
those who were like as 19498 as nothing. Centuries biter
; the priest was everythins,, and the people seemed to have
little respoosibility upon ; but the power—l mean the
power which existed in a blind superstition—that vested in
the monarch and *helmet centuries ego, is now gone, and gone
for ever; and in the place of such rulers there is a resistless
opinion—an opinion which is struggling on through many
Manilas and many blunders to a higher order of things and
a higher state of excellence. Look at the social questiosa
being mooted in this country and on the continent of Europe.
Men ask themselves, Why is all this discontent ? Why is
misery seen and eves heard 1 Is it essential that
this turmoil should exist? Is it inseparable from the economy
with which the universe is carried on 1 Why, if wrong and
misery were to continue to exist as at present, would not
all our frith be destroyed in that benignant Christianity which
has enabled am to make such vast conquests since the days
it was first introduesd into the world ? Thee who think,
and can think—those who work end will work are the
parties by whom in succeeding ages etch eying vices
as drunkennem, for instance, are to be got rid of.
(Applause.) I may allude to thatwhichthe chairman has said
about the seed-time end the harvest ; and if God has not
left himself without witless of the seed-time and harvest,
over the broad =the of the globe, by which men
are fed and nourished, and live—if he has not left himself
without miaow of this, he will not do so with regard to
mental qualifications and with regard to all those virtues
which adorn mankind ; and can there be any doubt what-
ever that you will reap a rich harvest of comfort and joy to
tinuressfaletor,,yes and also become, in your day and generation,
to all your fellow men amongst whom you may
live. The hon. gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud
alVialsiorrell, Mr. Bell, and Mr. Brotherton afterwards ad-
dressed the meeting.
MI. MARK PIIIILIP9 moved • vote of thanks to the chair-
man, and the speaking having terminated, a hell eneeteded,
and dancing coon tined to a late hour.
thel