The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-05-24 00:00:00

TO SAMUEL ROLME, ESQ.

DEAR MR. MAYOR,—No one will be surprised that I
should address you on the subject of commercial educa-
tion. My business in life is the practical work of educa-
tion in the second commercial town in the world. You
are the chief magistrate in that town, and you have always
been known for your lively interest in all branches of
industry, and your sympathy in every effort to improve
and elevate the condition of your fellow-townsmen.

---ftis;iie evident that this country is ina critical posi-
tion as regards industrial instruction. The Exhibition of
1851 showed us very clearly that there is some danger of
.
our being outstripped the race of competition. The
value of our local advantageshas been in a great measure
neutralised by increased faci▪ lities of locomotion ; and it is
generally agreed that the success of our efforts to main-
tain ourpre-eminence in the practical arts will hereafter
depend more on intellectual than physical causes.
Under the influence of these convictions, the Govern-
meta Department of practical Art and Science has been
organized in connection with the Board of Trade, and,
as it seems to me, very .orgapized, on the principle
of giving aid to local institutions without interfering with
local self-government. In these circumstances, the large
towns of England are practically asked what response
they are disposed to give to the well-known sentence in
the Queen's Speech on the 11th of November, and how
far they are prepared to avai▪ l themselves of the facilities
which may be placed at their disposal by the Government.
Liverpool, among other places, will presently be called
upon to answer this question.
One answer which will probably be given by Liverpool,
in common with other towns, will be the more general
introduction into schools of some courses of instructionwhich have a direct bearing on the utilities of life, and the
gradual adoption of such apparatus as the government may
be able to place on cheap terms within their reach. All
this is evidently within the power of managers of schools ;
and their judgment will be shown by maintaining the due
balance among different studies, and by holding a right
course between too ready a compliance with a prevailing
movement, and too strict an adherence to older prece-
dents. Any attempt to turn schools into workshops will
lead to disappointment ; and, if the highest purposes of
education are sacrificed to mere utility, nothing but harm
will be the result.
When, however, I look beyond the walls of our schools,
and think of industrial instruction in its widest bearing
on our whole population, I cannot but feel that this re-
sponse would be inadequate and unworthy of Liverpool.
Among the results of the Great Exhibition, it seems to
be now understood that we are to look for the formation
of a great Central Museum of Art and Manufactures,
which of course will be situate in the metropolis. The
usefulness of such an institution will hardly be disputed ;
but in order that its benefits may be fully diffused over
the country, similar museums must be called into ex-
istence in all our great centres of industry. And it ap-
pears to me that such collections ought not to be mere
copies on a small scale of the collection in London, not
miniature repetitions of every portion of the metropolitan
institution, but rather full and detailed representations of
whatever department of the Central Museum has special
reference to the prevailing industry of the place where
the Provincial Museum is situated. It would be easy,
for instance, to define the nature of the collections which
would be appropriate to Manchester, to Birmingham,
and the Potteries. The groat business of Liverpool is
Commerce and, without entering into details which
would only encumbes this letter, I will just say that it
would be worthy of the enterprise and public spirit of this
place, if it were resolved that the Trade Museum of
Liverpool should be grander and more complete than the
Trade Department of the Central Museum at Kensington
Gore.

Yet even a museum of this kind, useful and impressive
as it would be, would be comparatively valueless, if no
active courses of instruction were connected with it and
based upon it. And this leads me to mention another
'subject, which, in my judgment, is well worthy of the at-
tention of the merchants of Liverpool. Nothing is more
painful to a schoolmaster, who wishes to do his duty, than
the early age at which boys are taken from school and sent
to business. They are frequently removed at the very
time when their improvement is just beginning ; and,
from the nature of the occupations into which they are
thrown, their education is too often practically arrested in
early boyhood. I am very well aware of the difficulties
with which this subject is beset ; and I do not doubt that
many parents would be glad to see a higher education
combined with the experience which must be required in
an office. Is it not possible that these difficulties might in
some measure be overcome, and these wishes partly accom-
plished, if higher courses of instruction could be organised,
which might succeed the regular school-training, and have a
direct reference to the requirements of Liverpool ? Might
not many parents thus be induced to continue the educa-
tion of their sons to a later point of that critical period
which extends from fourteen to twenty years of age ? I
am suggesting what, in fact, would be a Commercial Col-
lege, or a section of some great Industrial University. It
would not be difficult to define the proper courses of in-
struction, which, as in the case of the Museum, should
have a strictly local reference. Physical geography,
natural history, chemistry, the history of commerce, mer-
cantile statistics, international law, are among the topics
which immediately occur to the mind.

I could easily;;rile at much------- length ; but my
Simple object has been, by the aid of your name, to in-
vite general attention to this subject. If this letter should
meet with favourable attention, I shall be glad hereafter to
lay before the public some suggestions in more minute
detail.

I have the honour to be, dear Mr. Mayor, your very
faithful servant, J. S. HOWSON, M.A.,
Principal of the Collegiate Institution.
Collegiate Institution, May 23, 1853.

THE business of the Liverpool Borough Quarter
Sessions was brought to a close on Saturday afternoon
shortly after four o'clock. The recorder, in discharging
the jury, thanked them for their attendance.

THE NEW FORT AT THE NORTH SHORE.—The Board
of Ordnance has issued a notice calling for tenders for the
erection of the new fort on the north shore, the tenders
to be delivered by the Ist of June. It will thus be seen
that the fort will be commenced forthwith, and its erec-
tion will more then double the existing defences of the
Merspv in Pffi eienev.