The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-14 00:00:00

lis, and the subscription libraries in the provinces. How
has this been accomplished? We may safely assert that 1
the first conception and the chief portion of the saccess
of this noble scheme to render the humbler class of the
community a thinking class are attributable to the So-
ciety for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. We say this
under all correction, and we say it in all justice. Cheap
books had undoubtedly been published before 1826,
but, to quote the expressions used in the address, " those
books had been accompanied by a deterioration either
of print or of matter." The works, however, whether
separate or serial, which hare been issued by the Soci•
ety were intended to combine cheapness with excellence
of typography, utility of material, and perspicacity of
style ; their motto was, "a work need not be bad be-
cause it is cheap." We will not say that the publica-
tions which have appeared under the authority and su-

perintendence of this Society partake of those qualities.
Should any gainsay that such have been the character-
istics of those serials, the works themselves are their

refutation. Time and space would alike pre-
clude us from individualising the great bulk of

publications, instructive and amusing, scientific and
literary, historical and miscellaneous, which owe their
existence to the industry of the association. Two,
however, we must pause to commemorate, "The
Penny Cyclopoedia," and " The Library of Useful Know-
ledge." The latter from its having supplied the multitude
with " sound treatises on the principles of all branches
of human inquiry" at a reduction in price which enabled
thousands to revel in realms of thought from which
they were hitherto excluded. The former, from its
being without any question the noblest effort for the edu-
cation of the mass ever made in a single production.
That " The Library of Useful Knowledge" has entailed
individual advantages upon our English community we,
ourselves, can avouch; within our own experience men
have risen to a great eminence in the scientific world
through the fostering influence of those treatises, with-

cut which the persons in question could never have at.
tained the requisite information. Nor has this " Diffu.

sion of Useful Knowledge," through their own instru.

mentality, been the only benefit accruing from this
society ; their example has encouraged others to similar
efforts in the multiplication of cheap books. On this
head the address observes :—" The powerful contribu-
tors to this great object, who have been taught by the
society how to work without the society, may almost be
reckoned by the hundred, and there is hardly a country
in Europe, from Russia to Spain, which has not seen
the society's publications in its own language, and felt
their influence on its own system of production." Thus
far the efforts of this invaluable institution were re-
sponded to in the spirit with which they were evolved:
but in one particular their endeavours have been unfor-
tunately attended with such indifferent success, as, com-
bined with other considerat ions, has induced the commit-
tee to suspend their hitherto untiring operations. A pro-
digious work, a " Biographical Dictionary"—a greater
undertaking, possibly than the " Penny Cyclopmdia"—
has been attempted, and failed from want of patronage
from the public. This is the one amongst the other
causes for the suspension of the society to which we
have already alluded. Another, and an infinitely more
satisfactory reason, has led them to this determination;
and here we will gladly transcribe the language of
the " Address:"—" The Society's work is done, for its
greatest object is achieved—fully, fairly and permanently.
The public is supplied with cheap AND good literature
to an extent which the most sanguine friend of human
improvement could not, in 1826, have hoped to have
witnessed in twenty years. The committee congratu-
late all who feel as they do upon the spirit of improve-
ment now so actively displayed, and trust that it will
not tire until it has achieved the universal education of
the people. The time is coming, they trust, when all will
act upon what most now see—namely, that knowledge,
though it adds power to evil, adds tenfold power to
good; when there shall be no part of the community
on which this maxim shall not have been verified; and
when The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
shall be co-existent with society itself." Surely these
sentiments must find an echo in the hearts of all, and
afford an universal satisfaction at such reasons being
those which cause the retirement of such a body. The
words are grateful to us, because they are instinct with
philanthropy and hopefulness. Before we terminate our
remarks, it would be unjust were we not to individualise
one among the most assiduous and earnest of the pro-
moters of this admirable association. His labours, to
quote one of our own observations, have indeed been
peculiarly unostentatious, as they have been peculiarly
disinterested and peculiarly influential. However
parties may regard him as a politician, there
is no single individual but what must ac-
knowledge the great genius of the ex-Chancel-
lor Lord BROUGHAM—that genius, and a brilliant and
discursive genius it is, has been devoted, since 1826 up
to the present time, to the interests of The Society for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and in consequence
to the interests of the multitude at large. As the origi-
nator of the association, Lord BROUGHAM deserves the
gratitude of his fellow men, of whatever party in politics,
or of whatever sect in religion ; while, as chairman of its
Committee, he has laboured for twenty years as nobly
and as unswervingly for the good of the people as he did
anterior to its formation, when the name of lIENnv
BROUGHAM was synonymous with Patriotism. To his
care and encouragement the Society owes its chief
strength, while his example has served as an incentive
to Mr. CHARLES KNIGHT, the publisher to the Society,
and the many eminent men who constituted its Com-
mittee. They have all emulated each other in the ad-
mirable scheme which they had undertaken, and which
they have fulfilled ; and on this account do they deserve
the good-will of their country. We shall not descend to
a consideration of those political and sectarian attacks
which have been variously levelled at this Society, feel-
ing them to be most singularly misjudged, and most
miserably ungracious. Because a body of men, anxious
for the improvement of the million, steer between the
sand-banks of religionists and the sunken breakers of
party politicians, they are not surely for that reason
alone to be branded as the promoters of infidelity and
scepticism. The supposition is beyond all common sense.
Now, however, that the members of the Society have
terminated their labours, their retrospect must be pecu-
liarly gratifying, for their work is indeed done, " their
greatest object is achieved—fully, fairly, and per-
manently."

With something beyond ordinary pleasure we direct
attention to a letter, in another column, addressed to
ourselves, by Mr. Sheriff LA lIRIE ; and we experience
this peculiar degree of satisfaction in so doing, because
we are inclined to regard that communication as an
augury of an inestimable boon to a helpless class, and
inferentially to the entire population of Great Britain.
The hearts of philanthropists have been long moved at
the consideration that a number of wretched creatures,
aho are annually released from gaol by the expiration
of the time allotted for their imprisonment, are thrown
upon the world again without home, patron, or any oc-
cupation by which they might eke out even the most
scanty subsistence, and by this means are driven to com-
mit still further depredations upon society, to harden
themselves to the trade of larceny, and become in the
end habitually criminal. This painful reflection has pre-
sented itself to every one interested in the slightest degree
in the moral relationship subsisting between all grades of
the English people; it has stood forth, beneath their scru
tiny a villanous blotch upon our social system, infectious
in its growth, and detrimental to those hopes of ulterior
happiness towards which the hearts and imaginations of
all are, more or less, directed. By the heartless manner
in which these unfortunate beings are again thrust
amidst their old temptations, without one single preser-
vative against the exercise of their former passions, the
moral energy of the destitute classes, feeble enough in
the hour of its greatest vigour, is reduced to a state of the
most deplorable tenuity. They find themselves plunged
once more amidst the contamination of their vile haunts
—they breathe again that infectious atmosphere which
always envelopes the gregarious criminality of a great
city—they are possibly goaded on by an ignorant ani-
mosity towards the law, under whose scourge they have
but very recently winced ; everything, in short, tends to
confirm their evil habits, to develope yet further their
capacity for vice, and to imbue them with such
a lawless rage for crime as will irrevocably place
them beyond the reach or the influence of redemption.'
Such is the extent of the evil whose eradication has
long been a dim aspiration in the mind of the philan-
thropist. But unfortunately it has hitherto been only
a dim aspiration ; nothing more. So many real and
imaginary difficulties have appeared in the way of a
thorough and effective reformation, that each man has
shrunk back at the multiplicity of the obstacles to be
overcome, and contented himself with the formation of
a wish. One individual, however, has had the intre-
pidity as well as the benevolence to press the grievance
" home," to probe the matter to the bottom, to hint at
is s melioration, and to insist upon the necessity of some
speedy movement in the proper direction. That man
is Mr. Sheriff LAURIE, and the mere mention of his
name in connexion with the foregoing facts, forms the
noblest panegyric that could be pronounced in his favour.
Lie has striven for some time past in what many
conceived, and what some still conceive, to be a hopeless
cause ; he has done so courageously and perseveringly,
in spite of every obstacle that lay upon the path—and
I
many of them, be it remarked, were no insignificant
obstacles indeed. After these arduous and almost soli-