New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-08-10
Co-opERAEON AND EDUCATION IN EN-

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COOPERATION AND EDUCATION IN En-
GLAND.
There ia not n Cooperative Store, Land So
ciety. or Industrial Partnership Of any magni-
tnde in England that does not weave into its
web of economy the fbers of intellectual re-
fnement. Systematic instruction for the work
ne classes, so far as it exists, is, in fact
largely the product of industrial organization
The mechanics Institution" an immense
series of schools museums, lecture-rooms, labo-
ratories, and drawing-rooms, having all the ex-
ternal form and classification of college OF
learning is really q cooperative school oil
workngmen, having been organized by them
for their own and their childrens development
IL has its great centers at Leeds and York.
with numerous branches in most OF the towns
and cities of the North of England. In Leeds
there are two of these Mechanics Institutes,
or Cooperative Schools, which do not recipro-
cate with each other There is nothing
similar to them in America A poor boy
having q desire for learning, but without the
means of attending the ordinary college or
public school, comes to the Mechanics Institu-
ton, pays q small initiation fee, and is consti-
tuted a shareholder. He is Immediately looked
upon as an equal, assisted to a situation where
he can work and earn q little money at leisure
hours-in fact, finds himself unconsciousy
launched into a democratic element, an atmos-
phere of afiinities of which the outside world
of selishness and ignorance never dreams.
He fnss timself measured no more by guam
tin for fhe prestige of ancestry and jewels
are eschewed, but by quality, since the mag
unanimous school of which he is q dgnifed
follower ignores grade, class, and illegltimacy,
and only thinks to measure man by merit.
Like most other cooperative enterprises In
England, the Mechanics Institution has been
attended with remarkable success At Leeds, the
principal center, the new college building in
Cockeridge-st. has just been completed, and is
truly a palatial ediflce. 1t contains 4S rooms,
beside one of the most beautiful halls in the
city. There is a chemical laboratory with its
professor, an anatomical cabinet with its grim
skeletons and models, and a large draw
ing-room with its frescoes and landscapes
All are crowded with cooperative students,
who believe they can learn faster at home,
in their O,Cn domain, than under the cold
and costly rigidites of old school instruction.
It's library contains 1900 volumes, its mem
bership is I 600, and it is giving daily instruc-
ton to LII students, male and female, mostly
of the working classes. The entire cost of this
college and its surroundings was about $4,000.
This is only one specimen of this educa-
tional enterprise. 1t has yet another head
at York of equal importance, beside more
than dozen articulating branches, some small,
to meet the requirements and ambitions OF the
hamlets and villages in which they are located;
Others larger, with more numerous patronage
in the moro populOus manufacturing towns,
but all connected by the same plan, pecuniary
and moral support, laws and HABITS and man
aged by the same Board of Directors. There
are quarterly and annual exhibitions and con-
ventions, aud prizes are awarded to contestants
for superior intellectual attainments. There is
in Birmingham, where the unhonored name OF
wOrkingman has been stereotyped rs the syn
onym for ignorance, n similar school, called tho
Birmingham and Midland Institute, which,
though not to be cOnfounded with the York
shire Institution, (being the result of a benevO-
lent enterprise,) is also disseminating needed
instruction among the poor. 1t is splendid
building, near the City Hail. erected at a cost of
100000, and has one of the finest Libraries in the
world One apartment of this library contains
the celebrated Shakesperean collection"
The Rochdale Cooperative Store, OVERLOOKING
with the yield of its economy, is not slow in
appropriating its golden surplus to the estab-
lshment of "more generous and equitable
system of useful instruction" A regular
educational annuity has for many years been
given, consisting of per centage of the net
profits on sales. Out Of the profits
of total business for 1867 of $2,020,000,
no less than $5O,518 40 currency was appropri-
ated to the educational fund. In 1868 it was
$4,000, and it is probable that the voluntary
gift of the pioneers will this year exceed
the muniiicent total of $4,000. This, however,
must he considered simply as a mutual pro
rata allotment of otherwise idle treasure, which
these world renowned economists shrewdly
conceive to be more wisely appropriated in the
manufacture of brain and qualities than sordid
gains and quantities, since nearly all OF the
5000 co0perators have families Of children to
educate. Nor were they long in discovering
that cooperative schools disclosed an avenue
of economy both in material and intellectual
values fully equal to that Of production and In
terchange. In fact, they have shown the world
that the system of cooperation will work as
advantageously in securing mental as material
profit; and are, by systems long since defined,
developing from the stagnant elements OF sur
rounding prohigacy, corruption, and Ignorance,
hundreds of excellent and useful men and
women.
Halifax. whose great cO0Oeratiyo ENTERPRISE