The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-07 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPT. 7, 1865.

Birmingham is just now quite the centre of at-
traction. In addition to the meeting of the British
Association, which has just been inaugurated there,
the formal opening of the Central Free Library has
given occasion for some interesting and profitable
addresses. Prominent among the speakers was
Lord STANLEY, who, from his warm advocacy of all
educational movements, and the practical good
sense and knowledge of human nature which he
brings to bear on social questions, is admirably
fitted for being the spokesman on such an occasion.
It is easy for a Reformer to sit in his study and
consider what are the best means of improving the
intellect, and what is the most instructive
and profitable course of reading that a man may
follow in his leisure hours, but the discrepancy be-
tween such theories and the actual wants and capa-
cities of this work-a-day world has been the reason
of the failure of so many well-intended establish-
ments. Lord STANLEY does not content himself
with the visions of the philosopher in his easy chair ;
he looks out into the crowded streets, the busy
workshop, the uncomfortable home, the lonely
lodging. Men living in such places, jaded and
harassed, oppressed by long hours of toil,
and exhausted by incessant 'application, are not
likely, he perceives, to sit down to the study
of DESCARTES and LAPLACE, to devote their
evenings to BACON and NEWTON. Neither can you
compel them to restrain their search for recreation
and companionship to their own firesides when they
know very well that they will find no companion-
ship there. There is, besides, in human nature an
irrepressible craving for change of scene and
thought, a wish to escape from the monotony of the
daily routine, to lighten the perpetual burden
of labour by a little variety of interest and occupa-
tion. It is not mere idleness which is fascinating
even to the busiest man. It is a natural instinct
which bids him exercise those faculties, those tastes,
those capabilities, which were born with him,
but which are left to rust through
disuse. Nature is never one-sided. Every
man is capable of more than one occupation or
enjoyment, but very many spend the greater part of
their lives in the study or pursuit of one thing. The
mistake or the error, like all infractions of natural
laws, brings its own punishment. The man
gets narrow-minded, contracted, and one-sided
in his views. , The burden always borne
in one place grows wearisome and oppressive, and
a life which properly varied might have been
healthful and enjoyable, becomes a dreary round of
mechanical task-work. The best means to avoid
this result among our busy classes is to provide
them with the means of innocent and pleasurable
recreation. Men unaccustomed to hard and abstruse
study will not, as a rule, turn to it for refreshment
when their day's work is done. No doubt, as Lord
STANLEY says, there will always be some whose lore
of science and knowledge is deep and sincere, and for
them due provision may easily be made, but in no rank
of life will such individuals predominate. For the
masses we must have exhibitions, museums, concert

rooms, lectures, clubs, reaclin.r.g-rooms, and lending
libraries with a good supply of wholesome fiction.
On this ground Lord STANLEY speaks with his
wonted good sense, and boldly declares he shall not
be at all disappointed if the report of the Bir-
mingham library proves that the greatest demand
is for works of fiction. This has been the result in
most other places where a free library has been in
active operation. We are very glad that Lord
STANLEY has spoken out clearly on this branch of
the question, because it gives an instance of a very
common mistake. Men of educated minds and
studious habits are apt to expect from the compara-
tively ignorant and uncultivated the same interest
in history, science, and biography that they feel
themselves. They are disappointed at the result of
opening a free library, and regard it as a failure
because works of a solid and standard character are
not in daily requisition. But if they take a
given number of their own class, and set
them down in a varied library for an evening's
reading with no particular object but amusement,
how many will they find turn to the history or the
treatise, and how many to the novel, the magazine,
or the newspaper ? We suspect the proportion
would not be so very different, and that if our West-
end libraries were supplied in accordance with the
theories that govern some of our Mechanics' Insti-
tutes, the financial result would be most unsatisfac-
tory. In spite of the Archbishop fiction will al-
ways be one of the most attractive of all forms of
reading ; and if it be but good, wholesome fiction it
is directly profitable. No one wishes to see our
rising generation studying romances based on the
school of PAUL DE KOCK and EUGENE SUE, but
the general tone of our modern English novels,
is something widely different. Lessons that are
yawned over by the young in the sermon or the
essay are taught emphatically in the lives and cha-
racters of men and women like themselves, and even
to those of older growth the moral is the same. It
is the old story of example being better than pre-
cept, and the enlistment of the sympathies, the
awakening of the better and deeper feelings of our
nature, are actual gains. Immersed in worldly
pursuits, unaccustomed to grave reflection, the men
and women of the day need strong lights and
shadows to impress them forcibly, and poetry, fic-
tion, and the drama are powerful auxiliaries in the
task of awakening and refining when rightly used.
The " Song of the Shirt" and " The Christmas Carol"
are a mere ballad and story, but they have preached
sermons from Christian texts to many thousands of
sympathetic readers nevertheless. Even when in
the the view of mere amusement, as Lord STANLEY
says, we must not quarrel with the tone of fiction.
" Don't let us grudge amusement to those who
come here for it. Let us be satisfied if it is harm-
less, as in 999 cases out of 10 00 I believe it is. Life
is dull and monotonous to many of us, and with
our English climate and our English character, we
are all the better far any little additional sunshine,
moral or material, that we can obtain." This is
the true principle which should guide the origi-
nators of these institutions, and if the books
selected are less solid and instructive than
they deem desirable, they must remember that it is
a great thing to cultivate and encourage a taste for

reading at all, and that the books selected may be
improving to the moral nature if not to the mental.
Englishmen, as a rule, are not too imaginative, and
anything that takes the reader for a time out of his
own material surroundings is not to be despised.
This is one great good of our industrial exhibitions,
and the number of working men and women who
have exhibited works entirely foreign to their ordi-
nary employment shows how great is the need for
a variety of interesting or mental diversion. No one
would wish a great establishment like the
Birmingham Library to be entirely devoted to the
lighter branches of literature, and there is no fear
that such will be the case, or that the solid and
scientific departments will be neglected. We can
only hope that more of our great towns will follow
the example of Birmingham, and, availing them-
selves of the act of '55, open free public ligraries,
which must prove as beneficial to the intellects as
they will be welcome to the tastes of the people:

The first meeting of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science took place yesterday
at Birmingham. Several interesting subjects were
treated of by the President, Professor PHILLIPS,
who assumed the office for the first time. His re-
marks appeared to give the greatest satisfaction to
the numerous assemblage present, and the vote of
thanks which was proposed by Sir RODERICK MUR-
CHISON, and seconded by the Mayor, was carried by
acclamation. He commenced by an eloquent allu-
sion to the circumstances which had called them
together. Assembled as they were in the " busy
centre of industrious England, how pleasant it was,"
he said, " to hear the accent of science, the friend
of art, and the guide of industry." Here, where
PRIESTLEY analysed the air, and WATT obtained
the mastery over steam, it well becomes the student
of nature to gather round the standard which they
carried so far into the fields of knowledge." There
is nothing in which the present generation is more
fortunate, than in the facilities which they possess
for combining science and art with the practical
affairs of every-day existence. The young life of
the British Association has been characterised by
great successes in various directions, and achieved a
renown that has never yet been surpassed. As the
Professor rightly termed it, the " fair alliance of cul-
tivated thought and practical skill" is indeed a boon
to any community, and should always be encou-
raged to the greatest possible degree.
Much may be learned by the perusal of this ela-
borate and comprehensive discourse, and we appre-
ciate in its perusal the great advantages which may
be derived from dwelling on themes that are treated
by a master hand. It is some check to the pride
and self-sufficiency of the present day to hear that
there are hardly any of the great branches of the
study of nature which were not considered in the
schools of Athens, as they are now in the details
of modern philosophy. Of course, they could
not be illustrated by experiment, because the
requisite instruments were not then discovered ;
measures of " time, space, force, and motion," are
of comparatively recent date, yet the individual
talent seems to have been the same. It is truly
said that the discoveries on which the moderns pride
themselves would have long before taken place
had these important adjuncts been in existence.
Had the "first Galilean, or the smallest Newtonian
telescope" been in the hands of HiP
ranncoitiuns
oo:
PTOLEMY, their remote successors would
be left struggling in doubt as to exact dis-
tances and relative proportions. The Professor
dwelt upon the grand results which are now ob-
tained by spectral analysis, the powerful instru-
ment of chemical research, and charwacittehripthde it as
the message which " comes to us
which springs from the distant stars,
upon h
and shoots
through the depths of space, to fall
earth after tens or hundreds of thou-
sands of years." In his remarks on Geology the
Professor delivered some striking truths, and led
his hearers to contemplate the: vast scope which
such a theme offers for study, research, and
contemplation to the thoughtful nd reflective
among us. Before the ALMIGHTY placed man
upon the earth, there was a long
_series of in-

habitants who rejoiced in the gift of life, and how
instructive is their history. The discoveries' of
science reveal to us the types and semblances of
existence which, as MACAULAY has expressed it,
belong to the twilight of fable, " the many succes-
sive races of plants and animals in seas
now dried on sandbanks, now raised into mountains
or continents, now sunk beneath the waters." Af-
ter analysing the several gradations through which
this science takes us, the Professor concluded
this portion of his address by referring to the
comparative shortness of the date of all European
antiquities, and those which belong to the remote
antiquity of the world's history. Yet tried by the
monuments of natural events of the age of man,
" the human family is old enough in Western
Europe to have been sheltered by caverns in the
rocks, while herds of reindeer roamed in Southern
France, and bears and hyaenas were denizens of the
south of England. More than that, the remains of
the rudest human art ever seen are found buried
with races who lived contemporaneously with the
mammoth and rhinoceros, and experienced the cold
of a Gallic or British winter, from which the woolly
covering of the wild animals was a fitting pro-
tection.

Geography and hydrography formed interesting
subjects for discourse in the Professor's address, and
he declared that in reply to the query what share
the British Association had in the discoveries and
inventions of the last thirty years, they would
boldly answer "We had a part in all." In some
they took the foremost place, and in others they
devoted their strength to support the Royal Society,
and other institutions in accomplishing objects they
had at heart. It is worthy of notice that many
valuable discoveries have been made in
consequence of the reports which have appeared
in the early volumes of the Transactions
of the Association. By this means addi-
tional knowledge was acquired of the probable
depth of the channels of the sea. The great system
of magnetic observations has been established by the
untiring zeal and the unflagging efforts of the
Association, acting in concert with the Royal
Society. These efforts have not been fruitless, as
has been proved in many an undertaking which hail
resulted in the advancement of science and the
spread of knowledge ; and whether the agents ex-
plore the devastations of earthquakes, dredge the
sea, catalogue the stars, or experiment in
countless directions, they are working out one
end and tending to one gaol, the advancement
and improvement of science to benefit the
great family of mankind. The general purport of
the labours of this Association was ably described
by the Professor at the conclusion of his admirable
address. A higher object could not be placed to
incite strenuous exertions, and a nobler goal be set
for enterprise and energy to reach.

Wherever and by whatever means sound learning
and useful knowledge are advanced these to us are
friends. Whoever is privileged to step beyond his
fellows on the road of scientific discovery will re-
ceive all applause, and if need be all help. Wel-
coming and joining in the labour of all, we shall
keep our place among those who clear the road, and
remove the obstacles from the path of science ; and
whatever be our own success in the rich fields which
lie before us, however little we may know now, we
shall prove that in this our day we know at least the
value of knowledge, and join hearts and hands
in the endeavour to promote it.

The Cattle Disease.