The Express.
London, England, 1858-10-04 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 4, 1858.

tonnes are systematic, and arranged so as to illus-
trate, within the period of two years, the principal
subject• taught at the institution. The only condi-
tioos of admission are the payment of sixpence for
an estrum ticket, and the production by the appli-
cants of some satisfaetory proof, such as a note from
their employer or the like, that the applicant is really
a working man. This effort—a comparatively recent
eme—has sesseeded far beyond the expectation
of its promoters. On this point the evidence
of the President, Sir RODRRICK Mracnisoar,
iv decisive. In his speech at the Leeds Mechanics'
Institute last week Sir RODULICIL thus alluded to
the new experiment. "He was," be said, " a
geologist by profession, and was the Director of
" the Geological Survey of Great Britain. He
" mentioned this fact in order to announce that he
" was, as director of that institution, really the
" President of a Mechanics' Institute, and he would
" tell them how. The Professors of the establish-
" ment had volunteered to give lecture' upon various
" branches of science to the working men of the
" metropolis ; they had succeeded in a most remark-
" able manner ; and he mentioned it to the credit of
" the working men of London, that when the tickets
" were to be issued the 600 were applied for in lees
" than three hours, and such was the desire
"to obtain them that it required two or
" three policemen to keep order." The most
noteworthy fact is, however, one not mentioned
by Sir Rontificx, that of the 600 who thus received
tickets the average attendance at each lecture, in
the different courses, is rarely less than 560. When
we consider the numerous calls, of a domestic and
convivial kind, made on • working man's scanty
leisure, the regular attendance of so many on courses
of strictly scientific lectures, delivered during the
winter months at a considerable distance from their
homes, is certainly a striking fact. There is at pre-
sent no means of accurately testing the results of these
lectures, as the pupils are subjected to no ex-
amination. Bat the lecturers amen that they rarely
address a more attentive audience ; that the majority
of their bearers take notes of the lectures, and that
instances have been known in which a workman has
repeated as much of the lecture ea he could remember
to those of his companions who were not fortunate
enough to obtain tickets for themselves.

These facts teach us an important lesson. They
prove that the cry hastily raised on the failure of
certain ill-advised attempts to diffuse adult instrue-
tioa among the working classes—that all such at-
tempts were useless—has really no foundation. And
they explain how it le that Mechanic' Institutes
established on the old system so generally come to
nothing. The founders of these institutions took
an important step in advance of their time, for which
they deserve all honour. They recognised the import-
ance of stirring up intelligent operatives to vigorous
end combined efforts in the direction of self-improve-
ment, and the duty of three who are above them in
education and social position to help in securing the
means. Bat they fell at the same time into a two-
fold error. They implicitly denied that the working
classes had any claim to be amused, and assumed
that they had no natural taste for instruction. This
double blunder in the end ruined the whole echoes'.
No direct provision was made for mere entertain-
ment in these institutions, as at first established.
The diffusion of knowledge was the one end in view,
and the knowledge to be diffused was of a severely
useful type. But on the erroneous assumption
that no real desire for such knowledge existed in the
classes addressed, it was deemed necessary to gild
the pill. The lectures were to be made as popular
and attractive as possible, and the element of amuse-
ment, which had been rejected for its own sake, was
now employed as a means to secure the great end the
Institutions had in view. This was a fatal mistake.
The forbidden element of amusement proved •
cuckoo's egg in these local nests of learning. The
lectures delivered in them, desultory rhetorical
effusions dashed with science, were neither
very amusing nor very instructive. They
sow became, in fact, a mere weariness to
the flash, equally distasteful to all classes. Those
who mime for amusement found them dull ;
even blue lights and gigantic skeletons failed to
make chemistry and zoology entertaining. Those
who went for instruction found them superficial and
insipid. The intelligent mechanics who had entered
in the hope of adding to their stock of knowledge,
and studying science in earnest, dropped off in die-
appointment and disgust at such childish folly. To
attend lectures of this sort was to them mere legate
of time. A few evenings spent in the diligent study
of a cheap scientific manual proved far more profit-
able than • three months' course of such desultory and
superficial prelections, and when the serious students
had left, the Institutions either fell to the ground, or
were managed by those who cared only for amity-
men OM willingly sacrificed everything to popularity.
The new directors quickly huddled the stuffed
birds and fossil specimens into a cupboard, turned
the platform into an orchestra, and the lecture-room
into a =lino-hall, or pleasant evening lounge for
concert and conversazione purposes. Outraged
nature thus avenged herself on feeble-minded sci-
ence, by turning its chosen seats topsy-turvy. By
a kind of natural Nemesis, the very institutions
which at their outset rejected everything in the
shape of direct entertainment, came at last to can
for nothing else. Having commenced with matheam-
tire and chemistry, they ended in music and dancing.
We have, it may be hoped, gained some little
wisdom by this instructive experience. In the new,
or remodelled, literary or scientific institutions, the
classes addressed are dealt with in a more frank,
straightforward, manly way than in the old.
Yeowledp is no longer administered in a disguised
form, and the recipients insulted by the tacit as-
sumption that if offered pure it would be refused.
What is merely pleasant or entertaining is no longer
rejected as a forbidden element ; on the contrary,
while far better provision is now made for systematic
instruction in science, the importance of amusement

.
I
and recreation is fully recognised. The library is
stored not only with =WWI of science and history,
but with works of general literature, of travel,
Action, and poetry. And just as on the cos hand
there is the museum and its classes for scientific
students, so, on the other, there is the reading-room
for literary loungers and aetive politicians, where
those who desire such entertainment may inform
themselves of current events, study public question,
or beguile an hour with the lighter periodical litera-
ture of the day. Institutions of this type succeed,
and the rawest of their success is plain enough. If
you frankly offer what is really wanted, whether
beiroos, Literature, or Polities, it will be thankfully
accepted. Thecae condition of enemas is that every
p►omw be well fulfilled—that whatever is done be
dose thoroughly. The lectures on science should
be good and systematic; the library contain as large
and varied a collection of works as possible; and
the reading-room be liberally furnished. And
while a multitude of working men, who, perhaps,
never read with any regularity before, will frequent
the newspaper table or patronise the shelves devoted
•o lighter ►iterature, a smaller number will pro-
btu:4y become earnest student/ of science, and re-
it !ran time to tame the ranks of our national
chemiaii, and engineers, many of whose leaders,
both &moot; the living and gin dead, have risen
from the huehleet ranks.

Inc i!E ouri.

BALMORAL, Berm N.
The Queen and the Prime Comet drove ant.

ml royal dame party facials' the Dachas wileat,
Lady data Maria Daum, Laid Jams Money, sad Man
Stuart Watley. _ _

Oar. 1.

hiritEbts

PARIS, SUNDAY EV1.1310.
There are in the text of the convention of Paris,
of August 19, as published in the Moniteur of today,
some slight differenoes front the version given some
days since by the independence Beige. The most im-
portant of these regards the wording of the first
article, according to which in the authentic text the
Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia are des-
scribed as the " United Principalities." The Inde-
pendence said the" Re-united Provinces." The distins
Lion is somewhat more than verbal, and the final word-
ing was not agreed upon without considerable discus-
aion. The expression " re-united" was intended by
its partisans to imply that the Principalities consti-
tuted from ancient times one identical nation. The
wording which has been adopted implies that they
are now for the first time " united." It appears by
a recent correspondence from Bucharest that
the painful result of the labours of the Paris
Conference is the reverse of happy. " The
new constitution,' says this letter, " pushes us
backwards. We have now no political existence.
We are in this regard as dependent upon the
Ottoman Porte as are the Rape who inhabit the
Turkish empire." In support of this view it is
urged that Moldo-Wallachia loses by virtue of this
convention the right to declare war and to make
peace. She must rely almost exclusively upon
Turkey for her dearest interests, and her very
existence. This is a sorry safeguard, considering
that Turkey has allowed Bukovina to be taken from
her by Austria, and Bessarabia by Russia. The
new constitution thrther diminishes the indepen-
dence of the Roumains by stripping their hospodrro
of the privilege hitherto enjoyed without contest of
corresponding directly with foreign powers. The
populations, it is said, also fear that notwith-
standing the title of " United Principalities,"
' the division of power between the two hospodars
will give rise to continued jealousy, and they farther
complain that the electoral law puts the qualifica-
tions so high that the major part of the agricultural
population will be shut out from the polL
Since the advent of M. Delangle to the Ministry
of the Interior, vice &pinups of sinister memory,
no warning haa been given to any Paris journal. It
is only lately that the Patric, a paper which, though
not official, is in its leanings entirely governmental,
congratulates M. Delangle on his having availed
himself of a law long fallen into desuetude,
by requiring the insertion of an official answer
to a journal instead of inflicting a warn-
ing. The Petrie inferred that argument
and not force was henceforth to be resorted to, in
order to counteract the errors of the press. A
provincial journal of some conaequemos, the Gironde
of Bordeaux, has now, however, been visited with a
warning. I am not sure that M. Delangle knows
anything about it. It purports to emanate solely
from M. de Stentque, the Prefect, bat I can scarcely
rtkink that a prefect would have ventured, of his
own authority, to innovate upon a principle known
to be favoured in any positive manner by the
Minister of the Interior. The grounds of the warn-
ing given to the Gironde are stated in the docu-
ment to be, that the article in question contains
" a direct and excessive attack against the laws
which regulate the press"—that it represents the
present law as " an instrument of oppression and
tyranny "—that it "exceeds the limit of discussion by
agitating a question which ought to remain
beyond the limits of controversy, and in-
salts the law and the administration, which
is found to act upon the law." An African
journal called the Echo d'Oran has alto
been warned, for some strictures upon the munici-
pality of the town.

-T6a Mowiteur contains, in a aide page, a circular
which is a death-warrant to a multitude of minor
' journals in Paris. By a return to the strict letter of
the law, and controry to a long received practice,
no newspaper not stamped will be hereafter allowed
to insert advertisements. Hitherto the stamp has

only been exacted for political journals; very many
the names of which are little known have enjoyed a
wide circulation, steering clear of politics, but giving
gossip and piquant., personalities. The extinction
of some of these will scarcely be a social evil, but the
principle is despotic and bad.