The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-19 00:00:00

MR. RE PERDY JOHNSON ON EDUCATION

On Friday evening Mr. Reverdy Johnson presided at a
meeting in London for the annual distribution of prizes and
certificates to the students of the Birkbeck Literary and
Scientific Institution. It was supported by Lord H.
Lennox, M.P., Mr. C. Gilpin, M.P., Mr. Locke, M.P.,
Professor Brewer, Professor Hughes, Mr. T. W. Charley,
M.P., and Mr. 11. Cole, C.B.
Mr. G. N. NORRIS, the secretary, read the report
of the Educational Council, which stated that
during the past year a very considerable increase had
been made in the number of members, and that the
number of persons who had joined the institution or
its classes during the winter term of the present year had
reached the grand total of 1,309, which shewed an increase
of 228 when compared with the corresponding term of
last year.
The CHAIRMAN then distributed the prizes, several
young women, who were loudly cheered as they came upon
the platform to receive them, being among the recipients.
The two scholarships were awarded to Mr. Robert Norris,
who received the first scholarship, and Miss Elizabeth
Packhouse, who received the second.
Mr. REVERDY JOHNSON, who was greeted with much
cheering, said he highly appreciated the honour done to
him in asking him to preside on such an occasion. Having
been in his own country the witness of many examinations
he had never seen any which gave him more delight that
the present, and there was this peculiarity about it of
which he much approved, that it was not confined to one
sex. Women were the fairest of God's creation by a
great deal. God designed woman to be the aid
and comfort of man, and in order that she might be
so he had endowed her with faculties amply sufficient
to attain every species of knowledge. If the men were
educated and the women were not, the country might get
on, but what sort of a getting on would it be ? A man
with literary and scientific tastes might as well
marry a savage as an uneducated woman. And
then what refinement an educated woman gave to the
home ; what purity she communicated to the atmo-
sphere of the fireside! What motive had the man
to wander from his home unless his calling carried
him away? He came an hour or two ago from a school of
a different character. There were before him some 600
boys and girls, taken, as he understood, from the very
poorest of the poor of the metropolis, amongst whom were
the poor shoeblacks, who wandered about in the streets in
the hopes of finding a dirty foot and a penny. They wer
all taught reading and writing, and the institution was
presided over by a man who was a nobleman by birth, it
was true, but who had a grant of nobility from a higher
source than kings and queens could give. It was the
nobility which was to be found in the heart and in the mind,
and was to be found in the nobleman to whom he referred
—the Earl of Shaftesbury—who, with untiring zeal, de-
voted himself to that institution. Before he came t)
England he knew that this institution was founded by
Dr. Birkbeck, of high skill and attainments, and who,

while deriving a revenue of some £B,OOO or £lO,OOO a year
from his profession, began to think that the best thing he
could do was not to continue to amass money, but to pro-
mote education, and with that view he founded this insti-
tution. What an honour ! Who could envy the monu-
meat to the mightiest hero who ever led armies through
seas of blood if he could be able to secure upon his own
monument such words as could be, and should be, in•
scribed on the monument to be erected to the memory
of Dr. Birkbeck ? But he was not alone in his undertaking ;
he had a coadjutor, able and powerful by position, to d'
everything necessary for the accomplishment of Dr. Birk-
beck's purposes. It was he who said, and said with truth,

what he believed was never said before, however obvious the

truth, that the pen was mighter than the sword ; it was he
who said that whatever power there was abroad which might

possibly endanger the freedom of England and of the world,
there was one power which was mightier than all—the school-
master was abroad—and he devoted himself, with the
energy belonging to his character, to do everything he
could to assist the formation, and afterwards the col
tinued progress of this institution.
The meeting was then addressed by Mr. Locke, M.P.,
Mr. C. Gilpin, M.P., Lord H. Lennox, M.P., Mr.
Charley, M.P., Professor Brewer, Professor Hughes, Mr.
H. Cole, Mr. Lowland, and Dr. Zerffi ; and reso-
lutions thanking the Society of Arts for the encouragement
it has given to art, manufactures, and commerce, and
especially by its excellent system of examination to the
improvement and the extension of evening education ; to
the honorary examiners ; to the teachers for the successful
work they have accomplished during the past year, and
to the educational councl, having been passed, the pro-
ceedings were wound up with a vote of thanks to Mr.
Reverdy Johnson for the interest he had shown in the
astitution by presiding.

THE PATENT OFFICE. —The Patent Office ought
to bless boobies for the revenue they bring it. It would
be instructive, yet humiliating, to the boasted genius of
our country if Mr. Woodcroft would make known the
proportion of patents that are obtained for inventions and
proposals manifestly useless and absurd. What think you
of a genius who seeks protection for a scheme for utilising
the weight of passengers or goods in carriages to propel or
assist in propelling the said vehicles. along rail or tram-
way? Doubtless this wiseacre could sit in a basket,
and lift himself by the handle ; his light head might help
him, balloonwise. Another talented individual patents
improvements in paving streets, one among his brilliant
suggestions being to form flues beneath the flagstones,
leading the pipes into the sewers, that the warm air
' exhaled therefrom may heat the pavement, warm the feet
of the passengers, and, mark the foresight of the inventor,
";provide against the effects of frost and snow." These
two specifications appear in one week's list. No wonder
the Patent Commissioners have more money thau they
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