The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-03 00:00:00

.EDUCA2IONAL SOIREE AT MAN-
CHESTER.

-
On Tuesday evening, at the Free Trade Hall, the
Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Df
~ distributed
prizes and certificates of honour to 133 students in
the Association of Mechanics' Institutes of Lanca-
shire and Cheshire. On the platform were Lord I
Stanley, M.P., the Marquis of Chandos, the lion.
A. Egertod, M.P., the Hon. W. Egerton, M.P.,
Mr. Bazlcy, M.P., Mr. J. A. Turner, M.P., Mr. W.
N. Massey, MT., Mr. W. Fairbairn, Mr. 0. Hey-
wood, Mr. E. Tootal, Sir J. Watts, and the Mayor
of Manchester. The great area of the hall and
galleries were closely filled with a respectable au-
dience, of whom a I age proportion were lathes.
The following is a summary of the annual report,
read by Dr. J. W. iluDscee.to a conference of dele-
gates from the various institutions, held in the
afternoon, under the presidency. of Mr. Bazley,
M.P. :—The association now consists of 110 literary
and mechanics' institutes and mutual improvement
societies, with 22,000 members, including 2,000
females, and they possess in the aggregate 135,000
volumes in their libraries. Nearly all are increas-
ing in prosperity. Sixty-five institutions report an
increase of members this year; only six a diminu-
tion. The relative proportion of the labouring
olasses has been greatly augmented. The number
of male and female pupils attending the evening
Glasses of 72 institutions is 6,584, but the total num-
ber on the books of the several institutes exceeds
8,500. Twenty-three institutions have buildings
of their own, acquired at a cost of £82,774. The
as -institutes have been severally asked,
" What is the most attractive feature in your in-
stitution at present ?" Forty-five replies say, the
evening classes ; 20, the newsroom ; 12, the
library ; seven, tea-parties and di. cussions ; and
three the lectures. The itinerating library proves
as attractive as ever, and the committee only regret
that the boxes of books are not far more numerous.
During the last three years upwards of 3,500
male and female candidates have been subjected
to a preliminary examination in spelling,
grammar, writing, and arithmetic. Out of
1,200 pupils wose elementary knowledge
was tested by the preliminary examination held
this year, 403 males and 45 females were deemed
eligible for public examination. Out of this num-
ber prizes and certificates have been awarded to 123
males and 10 females. During the,past year one
member of the Council has visited many of the in-
stitutes, and devoted two months to an inspection
of the working of the classes. It is believed that
the vitality and importance of the public examina-
tions are dependent in a great measure upon the
impetus and encouragement given by a visiting
_agent of the Council. The committee cannot con-
ceal that the Government is slowly and steadily
rearing a strong opposition to the educational de-
partment of mechanics' institutions by the estab-
lishment of subsidized nightschools for tile instruc-
tion of the labouring classes during the years of
_adolescence. The night schoolmaster, backed by
the public purse, when in his own building, is in
some cases enabled to offer lower terms to the work-
ing classes than the mechanics' institution, but
without its collateral advantages. The financial
position of the association has improved, the income
for the past year being £l7B lls. 3J., and the ba-
lance in hand £22 lls.
Mr. DISRAELI, on taking the chair, was received
with loud and repeated cheering. He said—My
first and moat agreeable duty is to acknowledge the
honour which you have done me by requesting that
on this occasion I should distribute the prizes of
your institutions. I have acceded willingly to the
invitation which I have received, because I sympa-
thise with your feelings and honour your efforts.
(Cheers.) Although for a long period I have my-
- self taken a deep interest in what is called popular
education, and although, to speak frankly, I have
ever thought, considering the difficulties which,
in a country circumstanced as England is, that
question must always encounter, that one of the
most obvious means by which those difficulties
could be successfully dealt with world be by an
effort on the part of the people themselves to
overcome them, I admit that I have felt much
disappointment in the results of those mechanics'
institutes that to-night will engage our conside-

ration, and whose efforts I once thought would
have been productive of far more benefit than for
some time they appear to have accomplished. Often
when thinking over the causes which may have
produced on the part of those institutions that de-
ficient success which I think all candid minds must
acknowledge has been, or rather had been, for some
time the effect of their operation, I have been in-
duced to believe that the reason of their compara-
tive failure might be traced in the isolation in' which
an institutien of that character necessarily found
itself when it was established. After the first fever
and heat of original success had passed it seemed
almost obvious that in the comparatively restricted
area from which its resources could have been col-
lected, a great depression of action and a great de-
ficiency of sentiment must inevitably occur., It
would from such circumstances arise that there must
be a want of the experience, emulation, and energy
only to be furnished by a fund of thought, and feel-
ing, and activity, which the limited area whereon
a single institution of that character was founded
would inevitably fail to supply. It seemed to me
always that the mechanics' institute, or any institu-
tion of that character, necessarily was one that could
not stand alone. (Hear.) However, I have observed
of late yearn, and to-night we have a brilliant and
triumphant example of the success of the course to
which I shall have to refer, that you have, especially
in the north of England, endeavoured, and I think
successfully, to discover the principles by which you
might obviate or overcome those disadvantages.
Yon have thought it a wise and prudent course to
combine the action of a large number of bodies of
this character, and in so doing you have found a
succcess which I am not surprised that you have
been so fortunate as to meet with. You introduced,
indeed, that federal principle which in politics has
already accomplished many considerable results of
advantage, and which even at the present moment
may be successfully appealed to to meet some em-
barrassing circumstances which we have to en-
counter. Now, the great advantage attendant on

the principle which in the 'north of England in
several instances has been adopted with regard
to this institution was that you supplied all those
societies with one of their greatest deficiencies—
you supplied them with experience. When 100 or
more societies were bound together, in this combi-
nation of the institutes of the two counties, there
was a central point to which they might appeal for
advice, for sympathy, for information, for all those
beneficial. forms which experience adopts and as-
sumes. Therefore, as respects the first want which
occasioned the coma arative failure of the isolated
mechanics' institutes, that was Supplied by the happy
idea of combining in a federal union the various in-
stitutions of this character which the two counties
of Lancashire and Cheshire present. But that was
not sufficient; experience, though advantageous, is
not all that you require in order to obtain the re-
sult which originally was anticipated from the
establishment of mechanics' institutes, or societies
of that character. But, having attained this great
advantage, this wider constitution, as it were, on
which you could move, you adopted an admirable
principle, new to this age, which has already in the
civil service of the nation produced moat beneficial
consequences to the country and the St te—that is,
the principle of competitive examination. I don't
think this is an occasion on which I ought to tres-
pass upon your attention, as we have much interest-
ing matter to touch upon, by dwelling upon the
merits of competitive examination ; but this I will
say, that, in the case of the institutions which have
formed the great society over whose fortunes we
are met this night to deliberate, this important ad-
vantage was at once attained, that every man who
attended a class in these institutions for the sake of
acquiring knowledge, the moment the competitive
principle was introducA had a new object in the
prosecution of his studies, something which stimu-
lated him to acquire that information which we
have always impressed upon him itw;as so desirable
to obtain. Thus, as by tile principle of uniting these
isolated societies together you obtained that expo,
rience which was wanting fbr the beneficial action
of your mechanics' institutes, so by adopting the
competitive principle in your examinations you ob-
tained the second great quality which was requisite.
-and that was emulation. (Hear.) Having by thesetwe
great changes secured two great desiderata—experi-
ence and emulation—yon had yet to acquire another
great quality necessary for success, and that was
entilergy. When you required to find in a great so-
y, as the one with which. we. have to deal to.
quality like energy, it was necessary t :act
upon the consciousness of those who cane in any
degree under your inft y union anr-snp.; the
Nl'vaarsi ous
experiencesocieties.
wiTui
td peri once, but that
influence few. By admittch
ing the f'';;vt'-it°irvenl!igihnt-
eiple in tie _exanainationa. of yeutelL°.MClP'
in-
troduced an active principle which ..e;sti:lsneush2;-GeC' :ill
those who felt confidence in their own powers to
cultivate those powers, and to obtain the public
approbation which was sanctioned by their posses-
,
ion of them.lint when you had to deal with the
s
whole mass whi;sh you had to work upon, when
you wanted
to infuse this generous spirit of energy,
it was necessary to have recourse to some
.means
which might touch all, and the application of 1,
which, at least in its principle and constitution, all '
might in time be susceptible of. Therefore it was
necessary that you should appeal to literature in its
most diffused power—the form of a library. In old
days—comparatively speaking old days, I mean—
of mechanics' institutes and associations of mutual
education and culture, the common principle was to
take the first opportunity and to exhaust all pOS-