The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-05 00:00:00

LORD BROUGHAM AT LEEDS.

Lord Brougham presided at the soiree of the
Leeds Mechanics' Institution and Library Society,
which was held in the Music Hall of that town, on.
Tuesday evening last.
The noble CHAIR/lAN rose to address the assembly,
and was received with loud and reiterated cheering.
After the applause bad subsided, he said—Ladies
and gentlemen, I assure you it gives me the most
unfeigned satisfaction to find myself once.
and constituents.
among my old and valued friends more
(Cheers.) It carries me back f
seven-an-twenty years
ago, when I received at the hands of the peop
Yorkshire the greatest and proudest memorial of my
le o
country's approval and of their kindness the
highest and most prized honour of my life. (Loud
applause.) But as nothing is
more useless than
vain declamation ; aet nothing could excuse it
heartfelt sense sense of the kind-
less the expression of ney
ness of tee people of Yorkshire ; so nothing would
excuse my prolonging it .cor an instant to the exelu-
sion of more useful, and therefore more important
matter—for we are here m 'et upon a practical sub-
ject, the education of the p eople, and especially of
the working classes of the people, not excepting
those immediately above the erorking classes—viz.,
the middle classes, without who se education, aye, let
me add, considerably improved ,education, there is
no safety either for those above s'itern, or for those
beneath them, in the scale of so ciety. (Cheers.)
It is neither upon the improvement of the higher
classes, nor the improvement of the bumbler classes
but upon the improvement of the _middle classes,
that the security of both depends. (Applause.) Now
it gives me unfeigned satisfaction to reflect on the
very material change that these last 2'4" years since
I last addressed you have wrought upon the condi-
tion of the people of Leeds. I then had occasion
to complain, when I attended the meeting, of the
very small bocinnings of this institution at that
time—l had then occasion to complain, perhaps I
might even say to chide the people of Leeds, that
so little had been done, that so faint a beginning
only had been commenced ; but now I find that
that small beginning has ripened into the great and
flourishing institution which we are now met to-
night to commemorate the progress of ; and though
I grieve to hear from your worthy president that
there are difficulties, and of a most important nature
—financial difficulties—in its affairs, I hope and
trust that these, like all the other difficulties, will
before long be overcome, and that then we shall
have that without which no mechanics' institution,
no literary society, no institution or society of any
sort, can long hope to flourish—a due accurate
balance of the two sides of the account, the expendi-
ture and the revenue. But now on the progress that
has been made, and of the existing state of things as
regards the instruction of the working and other
classes, it is most gratifying to find that in various
parts of this great community, in almost all of the
great towns, in some inferior towns, even in some
villages, this great work of instruction goes on and
prospers. (Hear.) Now, one thing that I com-
plained of before, and I have in other parts of the
country since I last addressed you here, is tkat these
institutions have been too apt to be diverted from
their original intention—that their primitive design
having been somewhat neglected or obscured by
other designs, they have grown up and thus come
in to take the benefit of such foundations—of such
voluntary associations, for none of them can be
called foundations—for whom originally that be-
nefit was not designed. But nothing can be more
gratifying than to find, what I have had access to
see, the results of these most judicious and most
wholesome—not only most wholesome, but most
useful—proceedings in conjunction with the Society
of Arts in London, which have been carried on for
some time past, and nevermore successfully carried
on than very lately in this great county. (Hear.)
I will first say a word about the lectures. The
original intention of all such institutions, whether
called mechanics' institutes, or aeprentice libraries,
or literary societies for the working classes or other
classes—the original design no doubt was to en-
deavour to obtain the benefit, the great benefit, of
lectures, as well as the benefit of libraries. (Hear.)
Now lectures are of two descriptions, either what
may be called partial, and even, to use a me-
dical phrase, sporadic, that is to say, not continued
courses of lectures, but lectures taking up one sub-
ject now, and taking up another subject then.
such lectures, though infinitely inferior in their
use to continued courses of lectures, con-
tinued courses of instruction—though incomparably
inferior in their benefits to those—are by no means to
be despised. On the contrary, they have very great
uses ; first of all, in stimulating men to exert them-
selves to attend courses of lectures when they can
have access to them ; next, to stimulate them to
improve themselves by that which it is to be hoped,
more or less, they always can have access—byread-
ing useful works, and to withdraw them from worse
practices, and worse courses, into the course of im-
proving their minds, without neglecting, Heaven
forbid—without neglecting the cultivation of their
bodies by attention to their health, and even to
their amusement, to their rational recreation, for
nothing can. be more true than the old maxim,
" All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
(Hear.) Therefore, I far from wish to exclude these ;
quite the contrary; but on one condition, that
they are wholesome recreations—(hear, hear)—
above all, that they are innocent recreations,
that they withdraw men from the weest of all
possible indulgences, indulgences in excess I
only say in excess, for I do not even exclude alto-
getherfermented liquors—but indulgence to excess,
or anything approaching to excess, of that the
greatest curse that can befal any community. (Ap-
plause.) Now, these lectures have been delivered
by many, some by persons employed by the York-
shire Union of 130 institutes, others by volunteers,
public-spirited men of learning, of ability, and zeal
in the cause of popular instruction and improve-
ment, and to the greatest possible benefit of all
classes to whom they have been delivered. But
the great advantage to the class to which I am par-
ticularly referring—the working classes, I mean
particularly the class of skilled labourers, artisans—
the greatest of all these advantages is education
classes—(applause)—sueh classes as may enable
those of a proper age, from between 16 and 17 to
somewhere about 23 or 24, to obtain the inesti-
mable benefits of a good literary and scientific
education. (Applause.) And the advantage is in-
calculable which has resulted from the examina-
tions that have been undertaken in various parts of
the country, of which reports have been made from
time to time—and latterly a very full report by tire
institution at the head of which is my excellent
friend Mr. Edward Baines—to show in what way
these examinations have been carried on, and I re-
joice to say have prospered wherever they have
gone. Now, I will take one instance, for it not
only shows the benefit of it, but it also shows how
great is the evil which I a short time ago adverted
to, of these institutions not being confined to those
for whom they were really designed, but being, I
will not say perverted, but to a certain degree diver-
ted for the benefit of other classes. The resaltof what
has taken place in these examinations plainly shows
that these difficulties no longer to any considerable
degree exist. Now I find, upon looking at the re-
turns, that the results of the examinations over the
whole district with which the 130 institutes are
connected, are, that there have been somewhere be-
tween 35 and 40 prizes distributed, and, including
the certificates as well as the prizes that have been
distributed, there have been somewhere between
80 and 90 during the course of the last examina-
tion. How many besides those who received
prizes and certificates—how many candidates came
forward at these different examinations? Very near
double-the number—l should say from 160 to 2uo
candidates. But we should form a very inadequate,
I might say not only an inadequate but a very in-
accurate estimate of the result of these examine-
tions—of their general effect in practice upon the
encouragement of education and the stimulation of
persons to attend these education classes, if we con-
fined ourselves merely to the number of candidates
who thus come forward, even supposing that that
number was nearer 200 than 150; for probably every
one of those candidates you may reckon 30 or 40
others—other youths—who are devoted to educa-
tion, who are educating themselves at those classes,
but who were not ripe to come forward to be ex-
amined, and to be candidates for the honours, but
who next year, or the year after, will attain that
maturity, and will swell the list of candidates for
honours and certificates. (Applause.) Now, I will
take one casteoarssahn illustration, and that shall be
not Leeds, e jeld, but it shall be Hudders-
field. I find that
to be prepared to beillett)Pa'li attend those classes
candidates for the prizes and
certificates, though not above 25 or 30 ac-
tually come forward as' candidates in order to ob-
tain those prizes. But all the restt
u dwyeinre i.n course
g
of education ; all the rest were
all the
rest passed th it evenings at the echo- Is,
a'na were
preparing
to be Lext year, or the year atter, candi-
dates for those prizes. (Applause.) Noe it is gra-
tifying
to observe in what way these 1,100 or 1.200
are composed. Not above one-quarer of the whole
are other than young men belonging to the working
classes—the artisans of Huddersfield. (Applause.)
Twelve hundred and odd being the whole number
of pupils thus engaged m education, between 900
and 1,000 are members—young men of the working
classes, the rest being clerks or persons in a station
superior to that of the working classes ; but 900 or
1,000 are entirely youne. men belonging to the
skilled labourers, that is,athe working artisans of
the great town of Huddersfield. (Hear.) And so,
when your worthy president who read
to-night,
his statement giving the average per tentage of
those who in this mechanics' institution and lite-
rary society paid 155., and of those who paid 12s.
and 83., I Wok leave to interrupt him in order to

.........--e--------
as f the le nuer of ascertain, for for it escaped me when he. read :it, what
per centage there w
scribers who paid 125.0 and Ss.,who becaumse b
thcee pay-
ins, 12s. and. Bs. are the mere working classes, men
living, he said, by daily working wages mid by
weekly wages, and I was highly gratined to find
that it was considerably above one-third. (Hear.) I
mention, therefore, these things as holding out the
greatest possible hopes that we are in the rightpath,
andthat we are assisting in the education—or, rather,
what is much more important, that they themselves
—the working classes—are assisting in their own edu-
cation, because unless they do that we may wish till
we tire ourselves with wishing, we may toil till we
fatigue ourselves to no purpose, and we shall do little
l or nothing—whatever expense of time, of labour, or
even of money, we bestow upon it—we shall do
nothing solid and substantial to help the education
of the people unless the people will educate them-
selves. (Cheers.) First of all, it breaks in upon
their independence. (Hear, hear.) Next, evenlif it
had not this vice, it is not within the limits, humanly
' speaking, of possibility, that it could succeed. But
they must themselves succeed in providing for their
own instrutioa, and with very little help, rather in
Ole way of advice and suggestion than of anything
—1: was going to say more substantial, but than
good edvice and wholesome and useful suggestion
there can be nothing more substantial—anything
wiser, anything more certain than their beue6ting
by that, or anything more clear than their being
unable withou!; that to secure their own instruction
cannot be imagined. Now, there are several ways
in which the middis
1 classes may greatly help them-
selves, without anyth,ng that can break in upon
their independence—wig
bout anything that can at
all be reckoned visionary or speculative—and one
or two of those things I will take leave, upon the
e
)
present occasion, shortly to meettion. Hear, ear.
I have had an address presented to me this morn-
ing from the Early Closing Association, with which
my mind, my judgment, and my
feelings, I must
say, entirely go along. (Hear, hear.)
Very far be
it from me to require of those who ete.pdoy young
persons in labour—in manufactories for i ',stance—
.
or even to recommend to them, how respectfully
soever, to give up any considerable portion of the
time for which they pay their workpeople ; but
only let us consider what a very considerabl;
proportion of young persons, of both sexes,
in a town like Leeds, are employed, not by
manufacturers who pay them gages for their
work in order by that work to make a profit,
but by shopkeespers and others, who might very
well so arrange matters as not to require 13, 14,
and even 15 hours' work a day from the young
men and young girls in their employ. (Hear.) ,
This matter bears immediately upon the ques-
tion of instructionf because if a lad or a
girl go to a shop at seven :n the morning, and is
kept there not merely until 7 o'clock in the evening,
meals included, but until ten o'clock, making 15
hours ; reading, school going, or ai7.9r education in
any form whatever, is wholly out of the question.
(Hear, hear.) The utmost you can exrct is, that
when they come home, fatigued with their day's
services in the shop, theyshould be toogladtoset to
bed, and rest themselves, in order thatthey might
be able to get up at six o'clock the next morning,
to gat to the shop at seven. Why do I say that
this might be altered without difficulty, and avoided
by au easy arrangement on the part of the em-
ployers with those young people in their employ ?
For this reason—l address myself not to the shop-
keepers but to the customerejof the shopkeepers.
(Hear, hear.) Let the customer, instead of going
between seven and ten o'clock at night, buy what
ever goods he may require before seven (hear,
hear)—and then those young persons will be
released in time either to attend the school or to go
home and read. (Hear.) The half-holiday is a
great success in various parts of the country, and
in none more so than in Loudon. At first it was
said, "It is perfectly out of the question—the
shopkeepers cannot afford it, they will be obliged
to shut up their shops. But had that been se ?
No, the only difference is, that the customer is
obliged to go before two o'clock instead of at ten,
the shopkeeper sells what he has to dispose of, the
young people have their half-holiday for the recrea-
tion of their bodies and spirits, and I hope, though
I am afraid not always, for the improvement of
their minds. I don't want every day to be a holi-
day—God forbid—but I want every day to be so
arranged by the customer and the shopkeeper as to
give a little time every evening to those behind the
counter from seven o'clock in the morning. (Hear,
hear.) I would go a step further, and say that
even the manufacturer, though my observation
applies less to him than to the shopkeeper, might
so arrange as to give a little more time, and to
press a little less hard upon hie workpeople than at
present, without the lessening of wages, and with-
out, I hope, lessening his profits. I do not recom-
mend either to the shopkeeper or the mummiram-
turer a sudden change. (Hear.) It should be done
gradually. (Hear, hear.) Suppose that the mall
who employs his workpeople 15 hours a day
reduced the hours to 14, my opinion is that you
would not find less work done. Let it be explained
to the assistants, and let them be fairly told that
instead of 15 hours a day they are only to work 14,
and I have no doubt they will work all the harder,
and better. (Hear, hear.) There is an old maxim
which may be applied to all persons living a labori-
ous and industrious life—and that is, that time is
money. There is another old proverb, " Take care
of the pence, and the pounds will take care of them-
selves.' So I say of time—take care of your mi-
nutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.
(Hear, hear.) Do not let the minutes be wasted,
no more than the hours, and depend upon it you
will profit by the suggestion. (Applause.) Any
listlessness orcessation of work attimes which ought
to be devoted to work, is not only mischievous
from its lessening the profit of labour—mischievous
both to the employer and to the person employed
—it is not only so far hurtful, but it is also hurtful
to the mind. It begets habits of listlessness—it be-
gets habits of inattention, and therefore I say,
" Attend to the minutes." It is the best advice I
can give you ; it is the advice which, if I may quote
my own instance—(applause)—l have observed
throughout life. If this economising of time be
constantly kept in view, you might hereafter reduce
the hours of work from 14 to 13, and afterwards to
12. I don't, however, stand upon a particular hour,
or half-hour, or quarter of an hour, but I would
gradually go on reducing the time until we got the
hours within a reasonable compass both for the
shopkeeper and those whom he employs. (Ap-
plause.) I ought to apologise for dwelling so long
on this subject, but as I began by saying that
nothing is more useless than a speech of declama-
tion, it is much more useful to attend to the facts
before us. (Applause.) A remark has been made
upon various occasic us, that one very great defect
in schools of all descriptions, and particularly in
schools for the humbler classes, is the want of
qualification in the teachers. (dear.) I presented
a petition to the House of Lords at the end of
last session, signed by my noble friend the
then member for Middlesex, and by other warm
friends of popular improvement, having reference to
this subject, and the statement of the memorialists
was this, that in every walk of life you require the
test of examination as to who shall be qualified to
exercise a particular calling, excepting in the case
of schoolmasters. Te begin with the highest and
most important class, I mean the reverend clergy,
they don't become capab!e of o htaining church prefer -
ment without receiving holy orders, and those holy
orders are only to be obtained after due examination
by the prelate of the diocese, such examination
being pieceded by a course of academic study, and
an examination testing their titne's for the im-
portant function they wish to discharge. Then, as
to medical men, you do not allow an apothecary to
miv up drugs by a prescription from a physician, or
a surgeon to perform an operation, or to attend to
his patients surgically, without due precaution
having been taken that they shall be reasonably
qualified to exercise the important duties of their
profession. So is the learned profession to which I
have the honour of belonging, though it may be
truly said there would be no great risk in allowing
any person to go the bar, inasmuch as, if he were
not fit for it, he would not be very likely to thrive
—(hear, hear, and laughter)—at least he would
have to make up his mind to live won very short
commons—(renewed laughter)—nevertheless there
are previous steps taken by members of both
branches of the profession, both solicitors and at-
torneys, before they can pass their examination,
such as a clerkship for a number of years with a
master. There is this kind of train ng, though
lat _ly there has beeen complaint made that tee ex-
amination in one branch of the profession is very far
from sufficient ; and I must say that I entirely agree
with the doctrine that examination ought to he
compulsory, and that iu the case referred to the
degree of barrister-at-law ought not to code) re 1
upon any one who has not undergone previously
an examination sufficiently searching to test their
knowledge of the law. (Hear, heir.) Then, why
should. it be that th© important office upon which so
a
much depends—that of a schoolmaster—should
be taken up
by anyone, how utterly incapable
soever they may
be from previous habits,
from knowledge
or
exercise frotmh
at
importantabili ability, aye,ur
from character, to office.
, (dear, hear.)
Why-ois it that there is no examina-
tion in that profes
most important in the n'
which, of all others, is the
due performance of the_. community, and upon the
of which so much depenhdisgsill and useful functionscountries. In France, for instance,
is not so in other
,t
examination is required before a anee'a previous
person can
school of any sort. Now the
petition
i take a
honour to present to the House of Lords had the 1
did not
require that the examination, at all events in the
first instance, should be compulsory ; but it most

justly said, that iif a ptoi)er and due provision were
made for all those who chose to present themselves
voluntarily, in order to have their fitness for school
keeping tested, al id who would receive from a pro-
perly constituted board a certificate of their qualfi-
cations, the result; would be that none would keep
schools but such teertilicated persons, and that, con-
sequently, withon I making it compulsory, the ex-
amination would in the end become so, and the
evil complained of would entirely ceaec. (Hear. )
When I stated the number of young people at Hud-
dersfield (though the proportion there is more than
in any other town in Yorkshire) who were enjoy-
ing the benefits of a good education, and are dis-
tinguishing themselves by their progress in attend-
ing the schools, I omitted to mention what I am
therefore now bound to mention, that there will
n )ve be more encouragement than ever for young
persons to qualify themselves in those branches of
knowledge, of science, and of literature, which, in
these schools, are making such material progress.
I will take one instance. Those mist deplorable
events that have taken place in our Eastern Em-
pire must lead sooner or later (I hope rather sooner
than later, because it must be on the extinction of
that foul and execrable rebellion) to such a new
modelling, and such an increase of all the civil and
other offices in that vast dominion as must afford
the most important, extensive, and valuable en-
couragement to all persons well educa'ed. It i 3
impossible for me at any time, and more
especially at this moment, after the recent in-
telligence which has reached us from those coun-
tries to avoid saying a word upon that rebellion
before I sit down. (Hear.) That most foul and exe-
crable rebellion differs from anything that we have
ever known before, and in two particulars it is most
remarkable—one is the suddenness, the instantane.
ous, and without warning, suddenness, with which
it broke out. It is a common thing to compare it,
and I have heard it so compared to the sudden ex-
plosion of some great volcano, laying under ruins by
its devastation the fertile plains beneath, but it dif-
fers most materially from that, because volcanic
explosions are always preceded by some warning.
The giant who is fabled to groan beneath Etna,
moves and heaves the mountain—gives a warning
—before the torrent of liquid fire is poured forth to
lay waste the plains below. To find anything like
the recent, the sudden, the instantaneous outbreak
of what has taken place in India, we must go to
the East itself for a comparison. There is nothing
like it but the typhoon, which suddenly seized upon
the ocean, rippled by no wave, and instantly raises
that ocean, without further warning, mountains
high. So the whirlwind of rebellion which broke
out in the East burst forth without the whisper of
the breath of a breeze to warn any one of what was
about to lay in devastation the whole of that su-
perb dominion ; and yet, sudden as it was, unpre-
pared as all parties were, without the possibility of
the least preparation, our countrymen, both civil
and military, were (to their eternal, immortal, and
imperishable glory be it said) ready instantly to
rise to do their duty and to sacrifice themselves.
(Long continued applause.) Observe in what part
of our dominions it was that this atrocious rebel-
lion broke forth—in the very portion of all India
which was the best cared for, and the best governed
by us—(hear, hear)—the north-western province,
where we had fixed a certain rent, on a moderate
scale, proportioned to the actual value of the pro-
duce, a rent for 30 years ; where we had canals that
traversed the country, and joined togetherthe great
rivers ; where we had built, rather than constructed,
roads, some of them as fine as any roads in England
itself ; where we had begun to construct a railway
and established the electric telegraph ; where we
had planted schools and colleges—in that district
it was that this atrocious mutiny broke out. It
needs no more to prove that it could not be the per.-
ple themselves (I hope and treat iu Heaven it
could not be), but only the erased rabble whom we
ourselves had taught—to a certain degree spoiled
—and who had turned against ourselves those
weapons which we had taught them to use, but who
were met by the unconquerable valour of both civil
and military Englishmen (loud applause). It was
in Allahabad that one regiment, which had been
thanked by the officers for having joined against
the mutineers, in the evening of the same day rose
upon its officers and massacred them at their mess,
and afterwards performed atrocities to which no
reference can now be made, but as bad as any com-
mitted at Cawnpore of at Delhi. (A voice from the
bottom end of the room—" They did right with
the officers.") When I say that civil as well as
military Englishmen deserve the credit of having
stood against this mutiny, against this rebellion,
I speak not without book ; for it does so happen
that the civil servants of the company marched in
the same line with the infantry, and were for some
time the only cavalry who were available to put
down the revolt (hear, hear). It is to support and
aid such countrymen to complete the suppression
of such a rebellion, that we have a-right now to
call upon all England to imitate the example, I
rejoice to say, of a part of Yorkshire—l mean
Sheffield—which, to its immortal honour, has seut
forth, or is sending forth, 500 men to join the
armies of the East (hear, hear). Do not let it be
supposed that because Delhi is taken that all is
over and that all is settled. Part of the north-
west provinces still remains in the hands of the
rebels. Oude is not reconquered. Luck-now, I feel
unspeakable anxiety even in mentioning the name
of Lucknow—Heaven forbid that there should
be ground for that anxiety—but Lucknow, we
do not yet know to be relieved. Then there are
those hordes from Delhi, scattered over the coun-
try, carrying on a kind of guerilla war against us,
which we know from experience in the Penin-
sula, was far more fatal to the French than our own
unconquered legions (hear). Now all this is still
to do, and all this requires a large increase of our
military force, but will Englishmen ever hesitate
to give their aid to increase the number of those
who shall go to augment the army in India,
when they recollect what hes been,done there by
their countrymen in arms, as well as tt:eir country-
men unarmed ? I speak first of their countrymen in
arms. Four and twenty battles were fought by
those gallant men before Delhi fell, every one of
which was equal to the battle of Alma or of Taker-
man ; and the siege of Delhi itself was equal to
more than the siege of half a dozen Sebastopols. I
say this, Heaven knows without the slightest wish
to depreciate—God forbid—the great merits and
the glories of our troops in the Crimea, but while I
fully and freely admit their glories, it is impossible
iu the circumstances in which the later triumphs of
our arms have been achieved, to conceive what in-
calculable, unspeakable, and eternal claims upon
the gratitude of their country our soldiers there
have. (Applause.) Then never let it for a mo-
ment be supposed that we dare abandon our hold of
India, though upon that neither our wealth nor
power in the slightest degree depends. (Haar'
hear.) Some of our ill-wishers on the Continent
have a notic" that if we lose India we are done.,
There never was a greater delusion. Long before
we gained India we stood as high in the nations of
the world as we have stood since, and if we lost
India to-morrow, should stand as high as we do
now—(applause)—bet if we lost it, we abandon
millions and millions to the most cruel of all fates—
the anarchy, the rapine, and the blood of their own
contending chiefs and tyrants ; and if we lose it
after being defeated, our reputation is gone for ever
and we are safe in no quarter of the world. There•
fore it is that I do most devoutly hope, most hear-
tily, and I will add most confidently, that the
example set elsewhere will be followed throughout
the country, and that no lack whatever will be
found of men to increase those just proportions
which the army—the now absolutely necessary
army of the country requires. (applause.) I must
apologise for having detained you a few minutes
on this subject, but I could not find myself ()nee
mo7e amongst my old constituents of Yorkshire
without giving vent to those feelings which prevail
upon that subject in my bosom. The noble lord
thou resumed his scat amidst the hearty and gene-
ral plaudits of the audience.