The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-24 00:00:00

THE O,r4DHAM LITBUM.

In The Sun of yesterday we gave a report of a great edu-
cational gathering at Oldham on the occasion of the open-
ing of the Lyceum. Lord Stanley, M.P., presided at the
meeting in the evening, with which the proceedings closed ;
and there were also present Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, Mr.
W. Brown, M.P., Mr. J. Heywood, M.P., Mr. W. J.
Fox, M.P., and Mr. J. M. Cobbett, M.P., besides other
gentlemen of local standing.
Lord STANLEY, M.P., in taking the chair, said—l had
last year the pleasure to see the first stone laid of this
building, the inauguration of which we celebrate to-day ;
it is therefore doubly gratifying to me to witness the cor-
diality with which Oldham has seconded the design of its
founders, and the rare rapidity with which a work of such
magnitude has been con pleted. We cannot as yet pretend
to estimate the number of those who may hereafter attend
your lectures, avail themselves of your library, or partake
of the instruction of your evening classes. If lam to judge
by the accounts which have reached me to-day I believe
the fact to be that, whereas in the old building where the
institution was accustomed to meet the number of sub-
scribers was about 400, not less than 30J names have been
added since the occupation of the premises which you
have entered to-day. (Hear, hear.) I give you the figures
as I have heard them; ycur experience will test whether
they are correct. But there is eve remark which may be
made even without the help of experience—that wo
greatly underrate the efficacy, in point of amount, of adult
instruction given in these institutions, if we take merely
the number of those who frequent an Athena urn or me-
chanics' institution, and compare it with, or judge it by,
the number of those who attend a school. The difference
is this—children go to school because their parents send
them, and many, as we know, with no particular desire
to learn ; youths and men attend pieces of teaching of
their own free choice, with the determination to profit,
as well as with intellects more ripened and matured.
(Hear, hear.) Thus, while in schools you must teach
many in order that, comparatively speaking, a few
reay benefit, in an Athenaeum you may be sure that none,
or next to none, of the teaching given will be thrown away;
that the words of the instructor will fall upon open ears
and will be received into willing minds. (Hear, hear.) It
is common to contend (end the objection weighs with many
who are otherwise our friends) that the mechanic, the ope-
rative, the tradesman, the man immersed in business, has
no time to learn anything really, that he must be a smat-
terer only, and will merely acquire a taste which he can
never indulge. I want to say a word on that point, be-
cense the objection, if well founded, would be almost fatal.
I believe it is not well founded, and I will tell you the
reason. It is true that most, perhaps all of those whom
your Lyceum will instruct, aro not men of leisure ; but it
is not true that a large amount of leisure is requisite in
order to obtein a considerable proportion of learning. The
brain, like the body, can only bear a certain amount of
active exertion—nay, of all bodily organs it is the most
delicate, the most easily put out of repair, the most diffi-
colt to set right when once disorganised. Now, it is liable
to suffer in two ways—from too little work in those whose
labour is mechanical only, or who do no work at all : from
too much work in those whose labour employs chiefly or
exclusively the intellectual faculties. It is idle, therefore,
to suppose that the majority of men, though free from any
pressure of business, though independent of a profession
or trade, can, whatever the amount of their leisure, or
however much they may desire it, occupy anything like
the whole, or even the greater part of their time in
study. If no external circumstances interpose to limit
their exertions, Nature will and does. The mind only
retains its freshness fur a limited time; if that time be
exceeded exhaustion ensues, little is learnt, and the
seeds of future mischief are sown in the constitution.
What I contend for then, is this—that no man willing
to study need despond because ho can only command a
portion, it may be, of his evenings, while others aro
masters of the whole day. It is bad arithmetic in such
matters to compute that four times as much can be learnt
in four hours as in one. Just as reasonably might
olio argue that, because one good dinner daily gives
health and strength, therefore four such dinners every day
would make a man four times as strong, and four times as
healthy. (Laughter and applause.) Just as reasonably
might one affirm, what all who have looked into the ele-
ments of finance know to be untrue, that if you double the
rate of a tax you will double the amount it produces. The
foci is, nature intends that we should develope all our
faculties, that we should work our whole organisation in
turn, and not a part of it only. The man who exerts his
brain only, and the man who exerts Lis muscles only, is
equally violating her laws, and those laws are never
vio-
lated with impunity. I don't want to overstate my case.
I am not denying that the hours of labour are many, nor
that the cares of life press heavily on the workingman
who is also a student. (Hear.) But I affirm that the ob-
stacles which labour places in the way of intellectual ad-
vance, though real, are less formidable than they look,
while by their nature they save the student from oldie;
langere quite as real which beset the man whose time is
entirely his own—the danger, on the Quo hand, of an idle
and relaxed habit ; the danger, on the other, of mental
wear and tear induced by not knowing when to leave off.
Even four hours ire the week, or rather mere than 200 in
the year, regularly and earnestly devoted to one branch of
thought, will carry tee intelligent man very far in any
re rely whatever. (Hear.) Speaking in this place, I need
hardly notice the old cavil raised against institutions like
tlia:;o, that their promoters look only to the development
of intellect, and neglect the moral faculties. No doubt
there aro instances where grievous moral imperfections
have been shown by able and cultivated men ; and, on the
other hand, we all know that very ignorant persons may
be exemplary in their conduct, although in cases where re-
markable ignorance is found associated with high morality
I think it will usually be observed that the ignorance has
not been voluntary, but the inevitable result of unfavour-
able circumstances, (Hear, hear.) But the general rule I