The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-04 00:00:00

SOIREE AT THE LANCAST-ER'
MECHANICS' INSITtIyrON. - -
(Abridged from the LaneastegOtardian.)"-7.
On Tuesday evening this longpepe.-Aed festivit3e
took place at the Assembly Rooms,' The proceed-
ings consisted of three portions promenade tea
party ; a public meeting ; and lastlyja ball. ,
The doors were opened soon after4l4fpast
and company began to arrive at a few nrilnttes
six. Among the company present We observed tla'o•-
following :—James Heywood, Esq., M.P., in the
chair; Thomas Greene, Esq. M.P.; Rev. James
-ci •
Aspinal ;R. Greene Bradlee, R-q. •J. S. Harrison,
Esq.; John Armstrong, Es
Dr.' De \Titre ; H.
Gregson, Esq. ;C. T. Clarke, ; Rev. W. 11.
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Baldwin,
hEonisqa.s;
Baldwin,G ard n Es
Esq. ; (1.1 r..;
John Manners, Mr. William Woods.
JAMES Unmoor., Esq. M.P., rose and said that
it gave him very great pleasure to attend the meeting,
and especially at that time, because, it appeared to
him that the difficulties which had hitherto beset
Mechanics' Institutions were over. The prejudice
against them which had existed for a certain period
had passed away. At no time had so much attention
been paid to public education as recently, but it had
hitherto been considered chiefly with reference to
the working classes. Attention would, he be-
lieved, be shortly directed more to that of
the middle classes, and especially to the ma-
nagement and direction of the Grammar Schools.
lie sincerely hoped that this scheme could be realized.
—(Applause.) The speaker then gave some interesting
details of his visit to America last year. Ile had been
much pleased with the state of education. The schools
were well managed and well supported. Some of the
most eminent men there took an active interest not only
in the promotion of their welfare but in the actual ma-
nagement of the educational movement. If this was the
case in England a larger number of persons would be
educated. He was convinced as a part of the educa-
tional movement, that the Mechanics' Institutions
were doing good service, and he hoped that they would
continue to do so and increase their sphere of useful-
ness. Ile had been making some inquiries about the
state of their library, and he thought that he could help
the committee in that department. He had found
that they had no complete copy of Sir Walter Scott's
Works, and it was his intention to present them with
one.—(Loud cheers.) The Chairman concluded, by
again expressing the pleasure he felt in being present
upon that occasion, and sat down amidst hearty
plaudits. He called upon Mr. Harrison to read the
report.
J. S. HARRISON, Esq., then came forward and read
the report from which it appeared that the affairs of' the
institution were in a very satisfactory state.
Mr. CHRIS. JOHNSON, jun., proposed the adoption
of the report, &c.
Mr. C. T. CLARKE seconded the motion.
T. GREENE, Esq., M.P., proposed the following
resolution :—" The Lancaster Mechanics' Institution
has developed, and is developing, the mental energies
of a large portion of the labouring and middle class
youths, and therefore is worthy of support."
The Rev. JAMES ASPINALL, Rector of Althorpe,
Lincolnshire, then spoke as follows :—When the
angry poet sought to break his victim on the wheel
of his bitterest sarcasm, he wrote—
" She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell."
Now, in connexion with such meetings as this, I am
never invited to attend one of them, but I approach it,
without hesitation, as one of the learning teachers or
teaching learners so fiercely denounced by the noble
bard. For I can safely say that I never yet listened
to the proceedings elicited by such occasions without
acquiring many points of information of which I was
ignorant before, gleaning new ideas which had never
previously struck me, and carrying away many seeds
of wisdom, and much food for thought and contem-
plation. We assemble as a mutual improvement class
of a larger growth, to give and take according to our
several capabilities. Moreover, I never attend a meet-
ing of ,this kind without wondering within myself, as
I gaze upon the intelligent countenances which sur-
round me, what would have been the aspect and pros-
pects of the world at the present time, if the art of
printing had never been invented. Long ago did
Horace sing that there were many mighty
kings and heroes before Agamemnon, but
that they lacked a Homer to proclaim
their praises and immortalize their names. And,
even so, before that glorious discovery to which I have
alluded, not only what "village Hampdens," as we
have been told, but what village Shaksperes, what
village Miltons, what village Bacons, what village
Stevensons, Wattses, Ark wrights, and Herschels,
may have perished in the bud, unnoticed and 'un-
known ! What big thoughts conceived by big hearts
may never hve struggled to the light ! What
mighty secrets of improvement may have been buried
with the minds which gave them birth ! What
splendid developments of intellect and noble aspira-
tions of genius may have " wasted their sweetness on
the desert air," and have been lost to mankind for
ever ! Writers of history have speculated on What
would have been the state and face of things Low if
Hannibal had marched upon Rome immediately after
the battle of Canna,, if Julius Cassar had never been
born, if Charles Martel had been defeated by the
Saracens, or if John Sobieski had not raised the
siege of Vienna. They have calculated, too, how
the tide of events down to the present time has
been affected by the victories of Nebuchadnezzar,
Alaric, and Attila. One curious inquirer, indeed,
has so far refined upon all the rest, that he has told
us that, if Cleopatra s nose had been a quarter of an
inch shorter, Antony might have been the Emperor
of Rome, and changed the whole destinies of the
world. But of this lam certain, namely, that, as it
has been said that the greatest stand ever yet made
for civilisation was the inkstand, so the inventor
of the printing press did more to change the current
of human affairs and to stamp them with a new cha-
rrcter, than all the great and mighty names above
mentioned put together, the royal nose included.
They only gave an impress, a bias, and a turn to
things material. He opened the channels of thought
and intelligence pent up before. They, most of them,
forged chains for the body. He was the Wilberforce,
the Clarkson, who emancipated the mind, that ruler
of the rulers of the earth, who gave wings to words,
substance to ideas, and made the chambers of the
brain no longer chambers of the dead, but of the liv-
ing, of intellect called from slumbering stagnation
into vitality, no longer confined to the educated few,
but transfused, as so much new blood, into the
veins of the masses, and animating or to anima'e
the whole body of the people. Immediately after
this great discovery had been made, we are told that
the age of pamphlets, those arrows of the rapid press,
commenced, by some called " a weighty branch of
intellectual commerce," by others denounced as "new
unfounded little books," and the work was carried on
so vigorously that a minister of despotism in those
days was soon driven to exclaim, "Either we must
put down this or it will put down us." But these
were mere skirmishers in the van. A more serious
" battle of the books" followed, and so the war of
light against darkness, of knowledge against igno-
rance, has gone on until we have reached the point at
which we stand, with such a present in our grasp,
with such a future in our hopes. Only a day or two
ago, as I was reading " Printing and Stationery "
written over a shop window, I could not help gallop-
ing the hobby of my imagination on this very subject.
It is wonderful, I thought to consider how much
depends upon one little letter in the spelling of a word.
Change but one vowel in all this, take away an
e and substitute an a, and how does it
read ? Printing and stationary ! But no-
thing has been stationary since printing was in-
vented, and nothing can be stationary while it abides
with us. It is the moving power. On ! on ! For-
ward ! forward ! It lets nothing rest. It gives the
impulse to progress. It is the lever of improvement.
It finds wings for words, for thoughts, for principles
to career and circulate through the world. On ! on !
Forward ! forward! It carries the human intellect
from hill to bill, and from valley to valley, through
every difficulty and over every obstacle, as the mighty
Missionary of mind, it advances in its glorious work,
darkness fleeing away as it appears on its illuminated
track, even as the night clouds are scattered as the
orb of day mounts above the horizon. But let us
dwell for a moment on the present results of educa-
tion. They are great and satisfactory. Only son.*
two weeks since, on Lord Mayor's Day in London,
the French Ambassador, speaking of what he had
seen in the procession of the morning, observed, we
have seen a countless population exhibit the leading
points of the English character—an instinctive mode-
ration coupled with the pride of strer gte—the respi of
of order combined with the love of liberty. Well
may the British empire boast of its material power;
but there is a more effective grandeur in these
high qualities, which enable a nation to tower
above all the storms of conflicting elements, to steer
its way through the political tempest, and to keep a
steadfast eye on the beacons of peace and civilization.
This was indeed an eulogy worthy of a people who
boast that Alfred was their king a thousand years
ago, and who at the present time hallow his honoured
name as " a household word " more fervently than
ever. And while we do not shrink with any mock
modesty from accepting such an eulogy for our
countrymen from the illustrious foreigner who pro-
nounced it, to what moving cause in operation shall
we ascribe the fact that they deserve it P For my
part, I attribute it at once to the working of educa-
tion, to our schools, and to those universities of the
people, our Mechanics' Institutes, which, having
helped to rock them in their cradle, I rejoice to see
in the fulness of their manhood's strength. There
are insects, which, it is said, take their colour from
that of the bark of the tree on which they live.
And I am quite sure that an improved love of
law and order is, generally speaking, the moral
colour derived from awakened and spreading in-
telligence. But let no member of this Institute
, misunderstand me. General results do not establish.