The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-23 00:00:00

INDON, FRIDAY EVENING, OCT. 23, 1846.

another string—l should like to ask uses whether their
spirit hsa not rather recoiled in modest awe, than swelled in
self-sufficient presumption, before the secrects of that space
into which they have been enable.' to dart a more far-seeing
gaze than any of their fellows. (Cheers.) And so it will
be when the time is come which shall, in our large and
irdperfect vision, unfold the whole bright mechanism of
stars, signs, and sysit'as, The laws which will then serve
to explain to us why their stations are fixed, or that their
masses are guided, will only supply us with fresh reasons
for being more reverent, more efficient, and more lowly. '
But I feel that I ought to come down from the clouds, and
indeed from everything else ; and I certainly could hardly
have alighted on a more radiant spot on earth than this
pmeat assembly. (Cheers.) I have now to hope that
all who shall have partaken in its excitements will bear
away with them not only the transitory emotions which the
scene might so easily excite, but a settled determination,
followed up by a corresponding practice, to give fair play
and full scope to all the highest purposes of which this insti-
tution is, and may be yet more, capable of. This must be done
by associated effort, but you will hardly have failed to ob-
serve, at least such is the case with most institutiocs of •
similar character, how very much of the work is done by a
few out of the whole number. Now I want to inculcati on
of you with the same active and enlightened spirit. I wait
to call upon you, each man and woman among you, to make
the work your own, to put more individual energy into the
collective body, so that no member of the Manchester
Athenaeum shall think that he has done his duty, unless he
has done something according to his individual opportunities
and abilities to give encouragement, efficiency, and credit to
the institution of which you have such reason to be proud.
As to myself, I have only further to say, that when the gay
glitter of this scene has passed away, when the strains
of music are hushed, and silence has fallen on the voice
of the speaker; if, in the stillness of your quiet homes,
or amid the clang of your daily labour, you shall have
derived a single encouragement to ennobling reflection
and to worthy pursuits ; or if, still more, any one of you—for
such times will come on all us—when he smarts udder the
sting of disappointment, or under the sense of the world's
coldness and aleniation,shall be reminded how little this really
signifies, and that, as I have ventured to say, failure is one
of the appointed means of access to heaven ; and if any word
of mine shall have contributed to this encouragement, or to
this alienation, I shall then feel that I have not come to
Manchester quite in vain. (The noble lord sat down amid
loud and repeated cheers.)
The Archbishop of DOBLIN, at the call of the noble
chairman, then came forward amidst loud applause and.
said—When he was invited in the first intence to attend the
meeting, he was requested to make some obsei cation upon
whatever might occur to him with respect to the subject of it
It would be quite superfluous in him to detain them with
any observations on the beneficial tendency of such an insti-
tution ; for he thought that the very circumstance of his
haying left very important parish business in Ireland, and
coming over to Manchester, showed how ho valued an insti-
tution of this sort, and how much sympathy he felt with its
supporters and members. (Applause.) lie would, however,
take that opportunity of saying, now that he had come and
had visited and had ins aired into it, what he thought of it.
He thought it quite sufficient for him to say that he was not
disappointed. (Applause.) He felt that it would be a re-
proach to so active and so commercial a city, to have paid
attention to every subject connected with gain, and to have
neglected an important institution for the purpose of inx.
proving and enliehtening their fellow-citizens; and he hoped
that they would not think it an insufficient phrase if he said
that they had done their duty. He had been greatly inte-
rested in hearing of such an institution so important a por-
tion of the United Empire—in a city which he thought
might be regarded in some respects as a kind of representa-
tive of the empire—and without any flattery he would state
that he never felt himself more completely in England than
when he came to Manchester. He understood that the fruits
of the institution had been seen in the rising character of the
rising generation. He had much less knowledge than they
had, not only of this particular institution, but of the means
of the institution. Although he had been engaged for many
years in the diffusion of knowledge, yet he had never been
specifically connected with any institution of this precise
nature. It was with the higher and lower institutions
with which be had been officially connected. He had
been connected with the education in one of their Uni-
versities, which were the seminaries for the highest class of
the nobility and gentry and the learned classes. He had
also been connected with charity schools, but with that
which tended to improve the classes between thel lowest
class and the learned professions, he had not been so closely
connected; but still he had been connected with education
in some shape or other, either by actually engaging in it
himself, or by publishing works relating to it, or by super-
intending instructions for its propagation in some shape or
other. Altogether lie had been connected with it 38 years,
and he presumed that those who had done him the honour
of calling upon him to address the meeting, had done so
under the supposition that he would be able to communicate
to them some of its results, and also that he would be able
to make some observations emanating from his own
experience. He would do so; and, in the fleet place,
he would ask them to bear in mind, that when he men-
tioned 38 years, he did not mean that ho had been
making speeches, but he had been in prcctical work. Having
made some observations in reply to the so-called arguments
of the opponents of the diffusion of knowledge, he (the
Archbishop) said that he admitted that there were some
dangers to be guarded against, and he did not differ upon
that subject from the noble lord who had preceded him, but
the dangers of knowledge were not at all to be put into
comparison with the dangers of ignorance. It was impos-
sible by keeping men in darkness to keep them from
temptation. It would not be possible to do that if they
were to shut them up in the cell of a hermit, for they
were certain to be tempted in some way. The advantages
of the diffusion of kbowledge were not so generally ad-
mitted as might be supposed. There were some persons
who advocated the doctrine, but took care to withhold
knowledge till they found that they must give it or sink
or swim in the siream when they cannot any longer oppose
it. A:knowleelga of letters could not make a man unfit
for his lot of a labouring man, and perhaps a little more
knowledge would mate the man fit for something else. If a
mau ofcultivated intellect was a bad
i man, he was of course
more dangerous than he wcs before his ntellect was culti-
vated—a man who had the use of his limbs would be more
dangerous than a cripple, and a men who had eyes would be
mere dadgcrous than one who was blind, or than a deaf-
mute. If there was a disposition to evil by rebelling against
God's providence, it was no ground to refuse education on
the ground that it might be abused. Ile conceived that the
best way of guarding against the danger that might arise from
bad men, was to advance as far as possible that power which
knowledge conferred; but he was convinced that it was
the tendency of knowledge, not necessarily to secure a
good moral character and conduct, but to fnrther and
promote it. lie wished to be diistiuenished from those
persons who thought that the mere infusion of knowledge
constituted the whole of education. He did say that it
was a good thine, but he did not say that it was the whole
of education. lie wished no man to go away with the
idea that a man was any the better for all he knew and
might obtain, unless there was a well-regulated and judi-
cious balance of moral principle. He warned them
ageinst the dangers of ill-balanced knowledge; for
person who had devoted himself to the cultivation of his
intellect and had neglected his morals—that might be
diffusion of knowledge, but it was an injudicious and
hurtful education. It was not the knowledge of some
things that d:d the harm; but the ignorance of others.
He had had difficulties to encounter during the fourteen
years that he had been engaged in the work of education.
They would understand that he alluded to the introduc-
tion of national education in Ireland, and sympathizing as
warmly as he did in the proceeding+ of the directors of the
Athenaum, he had no doubt but that-the meeting would feel
some sympathy with what was going on in the sister country,
and with the difficulties of those who had been labouring to
enlighten and improve the people of that country. (Applause)
He could not suppose that they looked upon the Irish as
aliens, and as being unworthy of their regard, and he could
not suppose that they would grudge the Irish that knowledge
which they were so eager to diffuse amongst themselves. He
did not suppose that they considered the people of Ireland
to be a parcel of irreclaimable barbarians. He had made great
struggles on the other side of the water, and he was happy
to say that in spite of all the storms that had
arisen they were advanteing towards the right path ;
and he believed that under the blessing of Divine
Providence the national :system of education in Ire-
land. when it should have had time to be felt
throughout the country, and when a new generation
should have felt its beneficial tendency, would prove
one of the greatest blessings to the empire and to every
part of her Majesty's dominions. Influenced by these feel-
lugs, he should be wanting both to himself and the govern-
ment who were supporting that institution—he felt that he
shonld be wanting in his duty to the cause of education, and
he thought he should be wantin: in respect to the anima of
the poor Irish, if he did not give a flat contradiction to some
of those calumnies with which the Irish national system had
been assailed. (Loud cheers.) He (the Archbishop of Dub-
lin) would not have the Manchester institution assailed with
any calumny that it was in his power to repel, and he be-
lieved that none of them would willingly listen to any ca-
lumny that tended to disparage the merits or defeat the
objects of such an institution as the Irish National Board.—
Hs lordship then defended the Irish national system of edu-
cation faom the calumnies which had been heaped upon it,
and concluded amidst loud applause.
G. DAWSON, Esq., was next called upon, and briefly
addressed the meeting.
The Right lion. Lord EBRINOTON was then introduced
to the meeting, and received with great cheering. He said,
though he thought he had some right to complain of his right
hon. friend in the chair, for having given him no longer
warning than a minute and a half that he was expected to
addressed the magnificent assemblage before him, he never-
theless,—having come, thanks to the wonderful invention of
our age, from the downy wilds of Wiltshire that very morn-
ing, and find himself here, in a very different county, and
in the thronged centre of the thronged district of Lancashire,
teeming with industry and full of machinery,—and teeming,
moreover, with intelligence and activity of mind, to which we
must look as likely to led to greater things than the mere ma-
chinery which was jurring and clanging around us,—he said it
was impossible, finding himself here, not to irespass upon
their attention, though unprepared, with a few words, under
the impnlse o! feelings more easily conceived than ex-
pressed. They bad been told already, and by none more

eloquently than the Last speaker, of the advantages which
such an institution as th„, Athenaeum afforded—of the con-
veniences, comforts, intel:ectual resources, and innoocnt re-
creation such a home furnis24ed those who might be at
traded from afar to seek their fo.tunes ;.1 this seat of com.
merce and of wealth. Bat he (Lord Ebrington) would venture
to remark that there was one source of advantage connected
with an institution like this, which he had not pointed out.
He had not shown them that it was better to wear out than
to rust out—and how many there were who for want of
making any provision for themselves of enjoyment ur
occupation beyond that in which they were ordinarily
engaged, had no resources left in their hours of leisure
or retirement. (Hear, hear.) How often had they read,
in their biographies, of persons eminent in their profes-
sions, who, when worn out with toil or wishing to retire
from business, had been withhe:d by not knowing to
what enjoyment they could seek a relaxation. Now to
those who had made use of the advantages which an
institution like the Athenmum afforded, heart-weariness
and bore would be words not known. (Applause.) They
would find an inexhaustible and unwearied source of
pleasure in communing through their library with the
spirits of old, they would find in it net the magician's
spell which should make them alone forget the weariness
of penury, but which should relieve them from that
weariness of spsrit, the result of an unoccupied mind,
which he believed was more irksome than eves tthe misfor-
tune of penury and want. Nothing, he believed, had tended
to promote and perpetuate that most foul and mischievous
feudal prejudice of the degrading influences of the pursuit.
of industry and its incompatibility with refinement of the
mind, and with the elegant accomplishments, so much as
the conduct of persons who spoke from prejudice, and who
had not taken the means of acquiring correct views on this
subject. (Loud applause.) His lordship referred in re-
futation of this prejudice, to the encouragement given
to literature and art in the earlier seats of commerce.

He contended that so far from the pursuits of industry being
incompatible with elegant accomplishments and refinement
of mind, they had done more to promote these ends, than all
the overvaunted glories of war. or the pursuits of ambition.
W. Cnamszsts, Esq., of Edinburgh, then responded to the
call with no small degree of trepidation. Ile telt no small
pride and satisfaction in being thus honoured, and he could
conscientiously say, that he had never before experienced
such gratification as he had this day enjoyed. It was im-
possible for a stranger to visit this large and wealthy city
without feeling that he had solved the riddle which had
puzzled continental Europe as to what had raised England
to such a mighty pitch of grandeur. It was not to science
or the form of government, or the warlike arrangements o
the country that this grandeur was attributable, nor to any-
thing connected with our social manners or national arrange-
ments, but it was owing, in his opinion, to one single quality in
the English mind, its intense industry. Th;spromment quality
bad latterly assumed for this country a magnificence which
could find no parallel in any previous period. In Lancashire
it had assumed its most important and interesting features.
The wonderful realities of machinery bad assisted in this
work, but it could not have been accomplished without the
intelligence to create, and the perseverance to sustain, which
had distinguished this part of the empire. In no part c: the
kingdom had there been a wider diffusion of literature than
in the 000nty of Lancashire. He would compliment Man-
chester on the po.szasion of so interesting an institution as
tlse Atheneum ; but he would still more compliment this
town upon the intelligence of establishing such an institution.
Mr. CHAMBERS having pamei a high eulogium on Richard
Cobden, moved a vote of thanks to the Directors of the Man-
chester Atheneum for the efforts they had bestowed in ma-
king the meeting interesting and instructive, which was
passed.
A vote of thanks to Lord Morpeth was proposed by Mr.
M. Philips, and seconded by Mr. W. Browne. His lordship
having acknowledged the compliment paid him, the company
adjourned to a ball, which was opened with great spirit, and
dancing kept up to a late hour.

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