The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-29 00:00:00

THE COMMERCIAL TIM VELLERS' SCHOOL.

The anniversary dinner of this very important and ad-
mirable institution was held on Saturday, at the London
Tavern, Bishopsgate-street ; Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer
Lytton, Bart., 111. P., in the chair. More than 220 gentle.
men sat down to dinner ; and amongst the gentlemen pre-
sent were many who were the principals of some of the
great manufacturing and trading establishments of the
metropolis and the provinces, kc.,—namely, Mr. George
Moore (the treasurer), Mr. Thomas Chambers, M P., Mr.
Sheriff Mechi, Mr. C. Blowers, Mr. W. Nicholson, Mr. T.
Roberts, Messrs. Routledgo and Warne, Mr. Graham (of
the firm of Jackson and Graham), Mr. T. Clarke, Mr. J.
B. Gunter, Mr. J. R. Calor, Mr. J. G. Evans, Mr. Thos.
Blake, Mr. W. Stockdalo, Mr. H. W. Russell, Scc.
On the removal of the cloth, " The healths of her
Majesty, Prince Albert, and the Royal Family," were pro-
posed in effective and appropriate terms by the CHAIRMAN,
and responded to with hearty enthusiasm.
The children were here placed in the gallery, and were
afterwards paraded round the room, and then resumed

their station in the gallery. Their appearance indicated
all that could be wished as to health and cheerfulness.

The CHAIRMAN, in proposing the toast of the " Army
and Navy," said that he would simply give expression to
two hopes and one conviction. His first hope was that it
might be long before our gallant countrymen were called
into active service, and his second was, that whenever they
might be so called upon, they would only have to contend
against their enemies in war, and not against the blunder-
ing of officials at home. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)
His conviction was that at all times their gallant defenders
would merit the same enthusiasm which had always greeted
the victors of Alma and Inkerman, and which had sympa-
thised with the patient and long-sustained endurance of
those who had been the conquerors of Sebastopol. (Cheers.)
The toast was drunk with loud cheers.

The CHAIRMAN next proposed " Prosperity to the Com-
mercial Travellers' School ;" and in doing so said : I call
upon you to rejoioe in the prosperity of that institution in
honour of which we are now assembled. In a neighbour-
ing country various attempts have been made at what they
call " fraternity ;" but as they have insisted upon estab-
lishing that idea with the imperative condition of equality,
so the first operation of fraternity naturally was to bring
►ll the brethren to an equal standard of size, by cutting
down the great brother and trampling down the little
brother. That process was found so remarkable that it
brought the relation into such odious repute that at this
day you could scarcely utter the very name of fraternity in
the streets of Paris without some little brother informing
against you, or some big brother committing you to prison.
(Laughter.) Now, in England we have not attempted to

establish fraternity upon the same plan. Far from assert-
ing the doctrine that all men are equal, we are willing to
acknowledge those inequalities of life and condition which
render it the duty of a man who finds himself comfortably
seated at the top of the ladder to lend a helping hand to

his distressed brother, who would otherwise- etas ve at the
foot. (Rear and cheers.) Therefore our brotherhoods

have been successful, because the bond which unites them

is not a rope of sand—(hear)--but a strong chain which

binds heart to heart and prosperity to distress by links of
briman compassion and Christian charity. (Cheers.)
Nor is there anything more honourable to our age and coun
try than that these institutions, which are everywhere

Found around us, are formed of the simple and disinterested

object of doing good, of giving to penniless ago a refuge
from the workhouse, to desolate childhood a fostering

home, and opening up to it an honourable career in life.
We are endeavouring to carry out those principles of hums•

vity at the time when it seems as if the chief cares of the
Mate were to provide for the children of felons, and to
extend to the adult who may already have violated the
laws of the country a chance of reformation, and a cheer-
ing prospect of an honest livelihood in the future. Now,

I at; not stop to question or to criticise, much less to con-
.. . _ _

demi], that direction of a benignant and merciful policy ;
but I do say that great care must be taken, or else it will
be rather an advantage than not to be the child of a felon.

Hear, hear.) But certainly tho children of honest men

ought not to be much worse o 8 than the children of those

who had "left their country for their country's good." (A

Laugh). Therefore it behoves all honest men of this 13;o-

therhood to be up and stirring in order to redress that
balance of charity which would otherwise be falsely
weighted, and which' might offer absolute premiums to

dishonesty. It behoves us to be up and stirring in order
to secure to the children of men who, though they may be

beaten down by adversity, have been useful and honour-
able members of society, and to provide for them a home

more tender, au education much bettor, and a career more
promising than those which the professional thief may have
the consoLdion of leaving to his degraded but interesting
offspring. (Cheers.) That is the chief object of the so-
ciety which now appeals to you for aid and support.
(Cheers.) We may well be proud of our merchants and

traders, not only because of their wealth ani enterprise,

and the commercial genius which have exalted this island
into an empire, and made our shores the markets of the
world, but for the more touching and sacred cause that pro-
sperity has never hardened their hearts, and that their
wealth has ever been the treasury of the diAressed. It has

been mainly by the sympathy, zeal, and indefatigable ex-
ertions of the traders of this country that we hare founded
these magnificent institutions—charitable asylums, hospi-
tals, and schools—which are at once a blessing and an orna-
ment to our land. But among all such institutions there is
ol.lvel
e to commerce
wco me mmealy talk of honest parents.
In Commeernctis.al
noneTravellers'more School.
In what class of society can honesty be more essential than
among those in which every lapse from honesty must be a
breach of trust, where a man's certificate of integrity is in
the confidence of his employer, whom habits of business
naturally makes cautions and acute in the selection of
agents ? That the children of men thus emphatically use-
ful should, by the premature death or disabling disease of
such parents, be thrown upen the world without friends or
without hope, and that, too, at a time when this good-
hearted m other country of ours is fostering at her breast
and rocking in her arms the lawless offsprings of the Jack
Sheppards and Jonathan Wilds of society, would indeed
he a libel, a stigma, and a disgrace to the nation. (Cheers.)
This society, however, does more than attempt to extend
to these children an education and advantages immeasura-
bly beyond all that philanthropy can extend to the progeny
of the felon ; it not only preserves the child from danger,
but in the quality and degree of the education which it
bestows it rewards the honesty of the parents. (Cheers.)
I have looked-with great pleasure over the programme of
the education bestowed at your school, and I rejoice to see
it so liberal and comprehensive ; because if you have a
standard of education merely rudimentary in its character,
you would make no difference, or at least very little, be-
tween the child of the honest man and the miserable pupil
of the ragged school or the reformatory. Now you take
these children, according to your last regulation, at the
age of five years, and keep them until the eo
of go
tenof fifteen.
You have therefore a long interval
years,
which you must fill up with study of
some kind or
will
other.apt them You naturallyto he
employmentteach them
nthings
ich
to enter, but also those higher branches, which will
whichwhadthey
are
enable them, as they rise into life, to add to the gene-
ral enlightenment of the body politic. I am glad to see
that you are resolved that the children shall keep pace
with a progressing age. Steam and railroads tend to make us
wore than ever the citizens of the world, and cur tradel
in order to maintain itself, must take advantage of all
such modes of transit, not only in this country, but upon
the Continent. You therefore act wisely in deciding that
a certain portion of the years of education shall be occu-
pied by the study of those two modern languages most
practically useful in the operations of our trade, and in
the interchange of the wants of our commerce—l mean
French and German. And I think it is not without some
reflection and, for a practical purpose, that you have added
to the study of these languages some insight into Latin.
Not that I presume to predict that you will be able to vie
with academies and schools purely classical, or that you
will turn out very profound Latin scholars, but partly be-
cause Latin is the readiest key to such modern languages
as are formed in some measure from it, but principally be-
cause there is no modern language which makes so much
demand upon the observant and reflective faculties, which,
when once roused, may be applied to all other purposes
hereafter, as that Latin language which contains within its
vuenrlyikgertahmenar grammar all
of
lic,thoagtsymmetry of close reasoning which
is as useful to the understanding as logic itself, but which,
of children. To this moraeresao(lliadpitnedstrtouctthieoncoraprehmpelenassioedn
to see that you have added other lighter accomplishments,
such as music and drawing. Not that dram ing itself is a
mere accomplishment, it is also a useful art to persons en-
gaged in commercial and manufacturing negociations and
transactions. I think that my friend Mr. Moore would
tell us that a young man who was also able to give a clear
sketch with his pencil of some fabric or pattern in manu-
facture, may dispose of them much better than he could
possibly do by words, lot him take what time he pleased
in expressing them, and therefore would his services
be of greater value to his employer. Music, too,
is one of those accomplishments the pursuit of
which demands no extravagance, and the indul-
gence in which bequeaths no remorse. (Loud cheers.)
I am not surprised to find that your theory of education
bears the test of practice, and that commercial houses
which have taken some of your pupils are always ready to
apply for others. (Cheers.) Nor am I surprised at the
immense rapidity with which you have established this
institution upon so solida basis. Land has been purchased,
schools erected at a cost of more than 25,000/. and you
have a reserve fund of 13,0001. invested in government
securities, and all this has been accomplished in the space of
i two years. I am not, I nay, surprised at your success.