The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-25 00:00:00

ADDRESS TO THE INHAI
LIVERPOOL.

GENTLEMEN,—The con

ttee of ti

Northern

Institution, in presenting to the public the fir
•. ••

s, with a catalogue of the library

,ntribut

ch neglected part of the town, but that it
re extended usefulness; whilst, therefor

y feel grateful for t

pecuniary and all

ered during the last two years by those favourable to the
istruction of the people, and which has been of essential
-vice to the existence of the institution, they would take
opportunity of submitting their views of its claims
J the continued patronage and support of the community,
nd of the means best calculated to give efficiency and en •
argement to its operations.
It appears, from statistical and other published documents,
that by far the greater part of our criminal population is
totally or very imperfectly acquainted with the elements of
literature, and hence it is that we hear exhortations from the
bench of justice, confirmed by the governors and superin-

Le present

tendents of prisons, to devise the means of removing or a
minishing the gross ignorance and vice pervading
of the neglected masses of our populous towns and citie..
The sentiments of Lord Denman have already been referred

the minds

to in the report, and it was only at the Liverpool sessions in
October that we find the Recorder coinciding with the views
of the Lord Chief Justice. The Recorder, in addressing the

grand jury, regretted the heaviness of the calendar, and ob-
served that imprisonment was quite ineffective for the pre-
.

vention of crime, and did not seem to arrest the evil in the
slightest degree. Of the prisoners awaiting their trials, one-
ha!f had been convicted over and over again. The only ef-
fective remedy was the improvement of the people, by giving
them sound moral and religious education.
And when we reflect on the condition of a large portion of
the working population, unable to read the address of a let-
ter, or even the words descriptive of a place of business, dead
to the thousand instances of information inviting attention
on every hand, prompted to relieve the tedium of life by re-
course to sensual and pernicious stimulants, how listless and
dreary, how comparatively profitless to others and themselves
must such a life be passed. Considering, further, that books
record the accumulated observations and experience of ages,
how powerfully should our sympathies be excited in behalf of
those unable to draw for themselves any supplies from these
inexhaustible sources of intellectual and moral wealth.

Passing over the numerous advantages arising from ability
to write, the committee would just refer to the extended ra-
mifications of our colonization and commerce, and to the
consequent dispersion of families and friends, as sufficient to
show how exceedingly desirable and important is the ability
to correspond by letter, in order to keep alive and cherish
those kindly affections, on the exercise of which depend so
essentially the comfort and happiness of life. . .

But it is also on behalf of the working classes, as mechanics
and artisans, that the committee would enlist public sympa-
thy and support, assured that a knowledge diffused amongst
them of those principles of natural philosophy and chemistry
applicable to the arts and ordinary occupations of life, and of
which they are in the daily application, would prove of incal-
culable benefit both to the employed and their employers. It
is thus that a cultivated understanding becomes a well spring
of life to him that hath it. The word philosophy is by many
erroneously and unhappily applied to subjects remote from
common life, unconscious that it is by its agency we are com-
manded to replenish the earth and subdue it ; that its truths
are intimately and essentially blended with all our interests
and pursuits, personal and domestic, manufacturing and com-
mercial; that we are everywhere surrounded by its results,
daily and hourly enjoying its benefits, or suffering from the
non-application and extension of its principles ; that, through
its universally applied agency, our country has 'risen to its
present height of power and splendour, every fresh acquisi-
tion enabling us to advance still further in the career of na-
tional greatness and of individual comfort and enjoyment, at
each successive step brightening our hopes, and strengthening
our convictions that its resources are equally inexhausted and
inexhaustible.

Again, whether viewed in reference to the practical appli-
cation of the principles and truths of natural philosophy ; to
its supply of materials for thought, pure, pleasant, and ele-
vating to the soul ; to the relative facility, with proper appa-
ratus, of making interesting and profitable progress ; or to its
adaptation to the wants of the classes frequenting mechanics'
institutions,—the sentiments of the following writers of esta-
blished reputation and celebrity will evince that its impor-
tance and fitness cannot easily be over estimated :
" Nothing can be more serviceable and beneficial in life
than experimental philosophy. To the want of proper ex-
periments, and the taste for reading and making them, must
be attributed all our ignorance in natural things. There is
no employment wherein mankind is so much and so generally
concerned as in the study of natural philosophy. 'Twas a
truly great saying of Plato, ' The world is God's epistle to
mankind ;' for God, accordingly by Solomon, sends the
sluggard to learn industry of the ant, and Christ commands
his disciples to learn prudence and inoffensiveness from ser-
pents and doves ; he bids them also consider the lilies of the
field, in order to acquire a firm reliance on God ; and the
Psalmist grows humble by contemplating the highest works
of nature. Methinks 'tis plain that to hinder the progress
of natural knowledge detracts from God's glory, as well as
obstructs man's felicity."—See Boyle's Usefulness of Natu-
ral Philosophy, and his Works, by Dr. Shaw, 1725.
Thus the sciences of the present day all prove to be con-
genial to the word of God, and the wisest of men in all ages
bear testimony to the same. " Nothing, then, can be more
unfounded than the objection which has been taken, in lirnine,
by persons, well meaning perhaps, but certainly not well in-
formed, against the study of natural philosophy, and, indeed,
against all science, that it fosters in its cultivators an undue
and overweening self-conceit, leads them to doubt the im-
mortality of the soul, and to scoff at revealed religion. Its
natural effect, we may confidently assert, on every well con-
stituted mind, is and must be the direct contrary ; en-
couraging rather than suppressing every thing that can offer
a prospect or a hope beyond the present obscure and unsatis-
factory state."

mind which

biberl a t

quirt', and has learnt the habit of applying its principles
readily to the causes which occur, has within itself an inex-
haustible source of pure and exciting contemplations ; lassi-
tude is excluded from his life, and that craving after artifi-
cial excitement and dissipation of mind which leads so many
into frivolous, unworthy, and destructive pursuits, is alto-
gether eradicated from his bosom. These pleasures are to be
enjoyed in every situation in which a man can be placed in
life ; in the intervals of the most active business; and the
calm and dispassionate interest with which they fill the mind
renders them a most delightful retreat from the agitations

and dissensions of the world, ane from the conflict of Passions,
prejudices, and interests in which the man of business finds
himself continually involved."—Sir John Herschell's _Dis-
course on Me study of Natural Philosophy.
" Physics, or natural philosophy, is fundamental to the
other sciences, and is, therefore, that of which a knowledge

is indispensable. Lord Bacon truly calls it " the root of the
sciences and arts." If the study of physics be so easy as
now appears, there can be no excuse for neglecting it. The
greatest sum of knowledge acquired with the least trouble is,
perhaps, that which comes with the study of the few simple
truths of physics. A man reading a thousand volumes of
ordinary books as agreeable pastime will receive only vague
impressions, but he who studies the methodised book of na-
ture converts the great universe into a simple and sublime
history, which tells of God, and may worthily occupy his
attention to the end of his days ; " for the works of the Lord
are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."
" The laws of physics govern the great natural phenomena
of astronomy, the tides, winds, currents, &c. Some of the

artificial purposes to which man's ingenuity has made the
same laws subservient, are, in civil engineering—canals,
docks, harbours, bridges, common roads, railroads ; in archi-
tecture—temples, pyramids, domes, and palaces ; in machi-
nery—the steam engine, weaving, spinning, and moulding
machines, windmills, water-mills, and wheel carriages, im-
plements of husbandry and of warfare, the balloon, the div-
ing bell ; the implements of the intellectual arts, of printing,
drawing, painting, sculpture, &c. ; musical instruments, and
a thousand others. Reverting to the importance of natural
philosophy as a general study, it may be remarked that there
is no occupation which so much strengthens and quickens
the judgment."
"From contemplating the beauty of creation with the wis-
dom and benevolent design manifested in all its parts, there
spring up in every undepraved mind those feelings of admi-
ration and gratitude which constitute the adoration of the
Great Jehovah, the maker and governor of the universe, and
which form, as shown by many estimable writers on natural
theology, a fit foundation for the sublime doctrine of immor-
tality. There have been, however, at various times, even
among Christians, sincere, but weak-minded or ill-informed
men, who decried the study of the natural sciences as inimi-
cal to true religion, as if (,od's ever visible and magnificent
revelation of his attributes in the structure of the universe
could be at variance with any other revelation. But such
prejudices are now quickly passing away."—lntroduction to
Dr. Arnott's Elements of Physics.
" It is just because we wish so well to colleges that we hail
the prosperity of mechanics' institutions. The latter will
never outrun the former, but so stimulate them onwards that
the literature of our higher classes shall hold the same rela-
tive advancement as before over the literature of our arti-
sans. It will cause no derangement and no disproportion.
The light which shall then overspread the floor of the social
edifice will only cause the lustres which are in the higher
apartments to blaze more gorgeously. The basement of the
fabric will be greatly more elevated, yet without violence to
the symmetry of the whole architecture, for the pinnacles
and upper stories of the building will rise as proudly and as
gracefully as ever above the platform which sustains them.
There is indefinite room in truth and science for an ascend-
ing movement, and the taking up of higher positions, and if,
in virtue of a popular philosophy now taught in schools of
art, we are to have more lettered mechanics, this will in-
stantly be followed up by a higher philosophy in colleges than
hdretofore, and in virtue of which we shall have a more ac-
complished gentry, a more intelligent parliament, a more
erudite clergy, and altogether agreater force and fullness of
mind throughout all the departmenti of the commonwealth.
The whole of society will ascend together, and therefore
without disturbance to the relation of its parts. But in every
stage of this progress the endowed colleges will continue to
be the highest places of intellect. the country's richest lore ;
and its most solid and severest philosophy will always be
found in them."—Dr. Chalmer's Use and Abuse of lhe Ec-
clesiastical Endowments.

In the report of the meeting held at Leeds in October last,
on the occasion of founding a new mechanics' hall, and which
was attended by gentlemen of all political parties, including
several magistrates and the members of parliament for the
borough, the Rev. Dr. Drury, after detailing an interesting
interview with Prince Albert, whilst exhibiting, in company
with the Rev. Dr. Scoresby, some ingenious mechanical im-
provement by a member, observed that he thought a great
increase of human happiness might take place, by spreading
amongst all classes of society a love of science, the increase
of national power and strength being dependent on its dif-
fusion. This sentiment was most liberally responded to by
Wm. Aldam, jun., Esq., M.P., presenting for the use of the
members a splendid apparatus, chemical, electrical, galvanic,
and pneumatical, calculated at several hundred pounds
value.
But whilst such are the authorities on which the committee
rest their claims on behalf of the working classes, it is obvi-
ous there must be appropriate means for bringing the infor-
mation needed prominently and attractively before the notice
both of the young and of those more advanced in years.
Now, it is well known that the initiatory departments of
learning are usually dry and uninviting, but the various ex-
emplifications of the principles and results of physics, or na-
tural philosophy, tend to rouse the dormant energies, stimu-
late cariosity, and prepare the mind to submit to the preli-
minary labour requisite for its practical application. As ad-
ditional inducements and facilities towards useful acquire-
ment, "suitable apartments should be supplied with books,
Sketches, diagrams, views, maps, instruments, implements,
specimens, &c., so that the pupil may, as it were, breathe
the atmosphere of the required kno wledge."—Mr..l. Smith's
Suggestions on Natural Education.

In the belief that the majority of the working classes are
not in a condition to supply themselves with the requisite
materials for their due improvement, the committee submit
the present address to the respectful consideration of the in-
tellectually cultivated, the benevolent, the wealthier portion
y. They also indulge the hope that the
as trustees for the public weal, may be in-
luced to appropriate any available funds in providing suita-
"OOMS, apparatus, Szz., for illustrating the principles of
tl philosophy and chemistry, with their application to
ious arts and pursuits of life.
ippeal, the committee feel assured, might justly be
the grounds of financial economy, for in pro-

Town Council

the var
This

made even on

ness, and waste

people, ignorance,
would disappear, and become supplanted by intelligence,
frugality, forethought, and improved national production of
every useful kind, the county rates and poor rates would be