The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-29 00:00:00

could have no sufficient guarantee for the efficiency
of the teaching in the evening classes. Of late years
there have been great efforts at improvement, which
I have not time at present to do more than glance
at. The principal and most effective has been the
associating together of various institutions, with
the three-fold advantage of attracting greater notice
of and publicity to the union than the small insti-
tutions could have commanded singly, of obtaining
competent teachers to organise and direct local
efforts, and—most important of all—of establishing
a competition for prizes and certificates, taking in
a sufficient area of country and number of candi-
dates to make it a real and not nominal competition.
In East Lancashire and Yorkshire the experiment
has been attended with marked success. In Man-
chester, also, the principle of association has been
acted on, t hough the details are not precisely the same.
Another step in advance has been the establishment
of local examinations, such as those of the Society
of Arts, by which young men more than ordinarily
proficient are brought under the notice of employers,
and they and their parents enabled to feel that some
practical good will come out of the time and
trouble they have bestowed. (Cheers.) It is im-
possible to say how far these plans may succeed,
they have only been tried within the last few years,
but whatever may be the result, I am quite sure
they promise better than anything otherwise
attempted with the same object, which is one that
we should do our best to promote. (Hear, hear.)
So much, gentlemen, as to the machinery of educa-
tional institutions. I am not going to waste your
j time by talking of the pleasures and advantages of
_knowledge, that is a subject which, however in-
teresting, is worn so utterly threadbare that nothing
can be said upon it which you have not often heard
before ; but one remark may be allowed me, not as
from any theories I have heard or read, but from
such small experience as chance has thrown in my
way. For four years and a half I have acted as
chairman of the Kirkdale quarter sessions. In that
time some hundreds of cases have come before me of
the kind usually dealt with by inferior tribunals,
and nothing has struck me more in the course of
their investigation than the utter stupidity—l can
use no other word for it—the utter absence of intel-
ligence and common sense, and utter inability to
calculate or comprehend the consequences of what
they were doing, which seems to me to mark by far
the greater portion of habitual offenders. (Hear.)
It is quite the exception, so far as my experience
goes, to find any man brought up as an habitual
criminal who is not in point of understanding very
far below the average of his class. It is equally an
exception to find one who is not more or less given
to intemperate habits. (Hear, hear.) The intel-
lectual and moral deficiency appear to go together,
and surely from that it is a reasonable inference that
the more you can do to increase men's intelligence,
and give them other interests and employments,
since idle habits are those which lead to drunken
habits, the more you will do to lessen the amount
of at least the grosser forms of crime in this
country; and it is that gross and vulgar form of
crime which constitutes nine-tenths of the whole.
I don't mean to say that the mere power of
reading and writing will make that difference ;
what will make the difference is the thoughtful
habit of mind, the wider range of interests and
ideas, the habit of looking to the past and future as
well as the present, and the having some other
pleasures besides mere physical excitement—some
other ideas besides those suggested by the routine
of daily life. (Hear.) Turning now to your local
affairs, I may congratulate you on the great exer-
tions you have made here in the cause of education.
I have had the pleasure of seeing your museum and
free library, which are supported, I am told, by
subscriptions from all classes ; you have also schools
abundantly sufficient for the wants of the town,
and amply maintained ; you have the School of
Art, with 170 pupils, and likely, if I may judge
from samples, to turn out pupils who will do hon-
our to this place; and you have two other institu-
tions—one of them being that on behalf of which
I am now speaking—acting together, on somewhat
different principles, but in friendly co-operation,
and by no means in antagonistic rivalry, to perform a
work that is arduous enough to overtax them both.
(Cheers.) Like most other establishments of this
character, your mechanics' institute has had its ups
and downs. The number of subscribers had of late
years fallen off, and it had almost ceased to be avail-
able' for working men, when its promoters adopted
a measure which had certainly the merit of courage,
and which seems to have answered its purpose. The
rate of subscription has been reduced to a point at
which, I apprehend, it can hardly, in the long run,
cover .the expenses. As a temporary measure, it is
proved that you were right, because the result has
been to add 900 members to the previous 400; and
you anticipate an ultimate increase to 2,000 or 3,000.
The first thing to do is undoubtedly to create an in-
terest—to show that the institution is living and
doing good—and then you may rely on support
from various quarters. But when matters settle
down a little, and when the crisis is over, I hope
that it will be found possible to place the insti-
tution, not merely in a condition of prosperity
as regards the numbers who attend it, but
absolutely and fairly self-supporting. When I say
self-supporting, I mean that it shall be maintained
by the subscriptions of those who use it, and not
merely by contributions or subsidies, however libe-
ral, from other quarters. It is a poor story, if
working men, fully employed, and for the most part
well paid, are not able, in a town like this; to keep
up an institution intended for their advantage, and
which, by entering it in such numbers, they have
shown that they really value. (Hear, hear.) If I
know anything of working men in these towns,
oue of their strongest feelings is an honourable and
almost jealous sentiment of independence and self-
respect, and nothing goes nearer to their hearts
than an appeal to them to keep up the honour of
their class. I hope, therefore, in a year or two we
shall hear that this institution is at length main-
tained by its own regular subscribers, and does not
stand in need of casual donations, however libe-
rally intended. One thing I must say in praise of
those who have had the management. They have
been under great temptations, considering the
former position of the undertaking, to sacrifice the
future to the present, and embarrass themselves by
contracting debt. Those temptations they have
altogether resisted, and at this moment I am told
there is not a shilling of debt upon the institution.
(Hear, hear.) Just one thing more, gentlemen, and
I have done. Whatever you do, or leave undone,
let me entreat you to keep these questions of educa-
tion from becoming party questions in this town.
I have no reason; to suppose that here they have
ever been so, or that they are likely to be so ; but I
have for some years taken an interest in these
matters, and in more than one place I have seen
plans that in themselves held out every prospect of
success break down simply because their promoters
had suffered them to get mixed up with some petty
local dispute. In this country, as in every free
country, we shall always have political parties, and
certainly the tendency at the present day is rather
to multiply than diminish the number of religious de-
nominations. But ignorance is no help to any party
or to any sect, it is merely a common danger and com-
mon enemy ; and if we understand our interest aright
we shall all unite, whether conservatives, liberals,
churchmen, or otherwise, in the same spirit and
with the same energy as we should rally to resist
invasion. (Hear, hear.) I beg to propose to you
the toast that has been given' to me—" Success to
Mechanics' Institutions." (Cheers.)
The toast was responded to by the Rev. Mr.
JACKSON, and

Mr. MACKIE, who said he trusted that Lord
Stanley, by this visit to Warrington, would be
found to have bridged a moral gulf existing there
between Lancashire and Cheshire, as one of his
ancestors had 300 years ago been the first to bridge
the river Mersey at that place. The fact was, that
all the rising employers of labour showed a strong
desire to escape from Lancashire and become
Cheshire squires—(laughter)—and there was the
greatest difficulty to get them to attend lectures or
meetings like the present, whoever might be the
lecturer or chairman. It was earnestly desired
that they would not cease to give support to such
an institution as this, and although as Lord Stanley
urged upon them, it was imperative that the pro-
moters should make both ends meet for the future,
they might ask for assistance at starting, as reason-
ably as a young couple who began housekeeping—
(laughter)—especially when they could point to
unmistakeable evidence of having striven to help
themselves. (Hear, hear.)
Several other toasts were afterwards given and
responded to.

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