Mechanics' Institutes.

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or hinder him with a giant power; as he has carved out a clear path for himself, he may do it for others, or inextricably entangle them in the devious wiles of a sweet self-deception. The once sectarian office has expanded into the broadest significance; the once bardic teacher retains the character of his priesthood still. The seventeenth century ordained that lecturers should exist to assist the men of God; the voice of our own demands that they shall still do the same.

A position like this is not to be lightly assumed. The man who undertakes to interpret whatever he sees fair, and good, and noble in history, biography, art, or science, should be a largehearted, earnest-minded, strong-willed genius. It is not for every weakling to rush in unbidden where even the true sage treads tremblingly. It is not for the mere learned, the glib and facile of tongue, and the happy in assurance, to compete with the early lecturers of Greece, who ennobled common life with purer conceptions, and the exhibition of grander actions. None but a reverential soul can, with them, lift up the crowd from the press and tumult of life to the quiet of the hill-tops and the beauty of the sunset isles. And yet there is room for all species of energy and talent. Whosoever has his written name in God's Golden Book of nobility, has a mission before him wherein he need not quail. The old paths are as yet unthronged with labourers; and, imitating Xenophanes, in reading parts of his own works, Mr. Charles Dickens has recently led the way in a newer sphere. There are no boundaries to cramp and fetter the outflowings of invention and wit, so long as they are made subservient to noble ones, and help to magnify our moral dignity and manhood. Remembering his power and responsibility, and rightly viewing himself in relation to his hearers, there is no field where his feet may not roam, no air where the wings of his fancy may not flash and quiver, and there is no hope, height, or 'spirituality to which he may not exalt and inspire his audience.

ART. II.-1. Newspaper Reports of Quarterly Meeting of London Mechanics' Institution, held March 2, 1859.

2. Report of Working Men's College.

IT

T would be idle to adduce evidence in proof of a fact which no one denies, namely, that working men have only in very limited proportion availed themselves of the advantages afforded by mechanics' institutes. These institutions are, in the majority of instances, supported chiefly by the middle and trading classes; whilst the working man has generally turned the cold shoulder towards them, or ignored their existence altogether. It has, in short,

become

become obvious that to these so-called advantages, the great majority of working men are, either by the very instincts of their nature, or the circumstances of their position, totally indifferent. Now, however lachrymose persons may become about this indifference, we will take leave to assume that, despite their illiteracy, the mass of the labouring classes of this country have native intelligence or rude common sense enough to perceive a real benefit when it is offered to them. If the instinct of the working classes have rejected the so-called advantages hitherto afforded by mechanics' institutes, we may depend upon it that such advantages are intrinsically of equivocal value, at least to them. Alluding possibly to the indifference now spoken of, or to some fact of like character in our social history, Lord Brougham made a declaration a few years ago that the great majority of the people of this country did not really want to be educated. His lordship was right if he used the latter term in the sense which is now ordinarily attached to it. They do not want to be educated,' if by that phrase you mean cramming them with mere book learning; making them the mere receptacles for so many imparted facts in art and science; mere beasts of mental burden (if we may be pardoned such a conjunction of terms), sent to carry up and down in this world a certain 'pack of knowledge' for seventy years, more or less, and then to die. They do not want to be educated,' if by that you mean that they are to devote themselves exclusively to a life of hard, dry study. Working men are, on the whole, amazingly like their fellow-beings; and the majority of men certainly do not want to be educated,' if by that you mean to make of them mere reading animals, if you want them to regard the acquisition of book knowledge as the be-all and end-all of their earthly existence. The great blunder which has been committed by the managers of most mechanics' institutes, has consisted in the attempt to increase the proportion of the student class of mankind-a class who must always form a very small section of the human family, and can least of all be recruited among that portion of society who must labour bodily for the necessities of life. Knowledge, or science properly so called, never has been, and never will be, to the mass of mankind, itself an end. With men earnestly intent upon intellectual self-culture, its acquisition forms, indeed, a means to the end of energising and enlarging the faculties, and giving them acuteness and force; whilst it is the especial mission of the man of science to investigate for the sake of extending the boundaries of human knowledge. But whoever hopes to educate' the great mass of mankind with a view of laying upon each one of us some share of responsibility in this latter work, betrays a total ignorance of human nature, or a total misinterpretation of the designs of God's providence.

The

Causes of their Failure.

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The fundamental basis on which mechanics' institutes were originally founded was, that the mind of the mechanic should be rendered as familiar with the principles of his trade as his hands were with their application. Many advantages were expected to result to the community from adding to dexterity of hand and ingenuity of head, a knowledge of the scientific principles which are the foundation of every mechanical art.' Here was an object laudable and philanthropic enough, an attempt to occupy ground which had never been occupied before; and the energy and enthusiasm with which, to their honour be it said, the original promoters of mechanics' institutes threw themselves into their work, led to results which, though not perhaps equalling the expectations of some, have nevertheless conferred important and lasting benefits, not merely upon individuals, but upon the community at large. But when the novelty of the project had passed away, it became apparent that an element of error, and therefore of decay, existed in the fundamental principle of which we have spoken. That element of error consisted in this-that the institutions were aiming at an object which could only be accomplished by contravening one of the laws by which Providence seems to carry on the machinery of social life. It appears to be a part of the established order of things that the world's work shall always, be carried on by the mass of mankind empirically; and even to human ken, the wisdom of this ordination is sufficiently apparent. How, then, can thinking men be surprised at the failure of institutions based upon a principle of antagonism to the divine organization of the social system?

We by no means overlook the fact that one main cause of the failure of mechanics' institutes, as such, has been, that the working classes were not prepared for them by a more generally extended system of early education. They offered to help the working man to become wiser and happier; but unfortunately, the process of becoming wise had not, with him, begun at the beginning-that is, in his childhood. Adult education, it has been found by painful experience, implies a contradiction in terms. Efficient elementary training alone would have broken up the ground into which it was the laudabie purpose of these institutions to cast the seed of instruction. But even assuming that the working classes had been prepared by a greater extension, in this country, of good elemental training, was it to have been expected that the majority of our artisans would have cared anything at all about the scientific principles which their practical hands are constantly applying? -that they would have cared (speaking of them generally) anything at all about the promotion of mechanical inventions? Do the classes that have been educated in early life, speaking of them in the aggregate, care anything at all about scientific knowledge?

Do

Do they, when they arrive at years of maturity, and their social position is fixed, trouble themselves about intellectual culture? What proportion of living clergymen, barristers, or medical men, have made intellectual self-culture a habit since they left the colleges or schools in which their capacities were developed? Are not the men fitted by such habits, or by their knowledge of scientific principles, to assume positions of responsibility and command, a scarce article in every other walk of life as well as in the humblest? Does not the high remuneration, or the social consideration, which these men command, prove the fact? Then was it not unreasonable to expect that working men would become what no other class of men, as a class-not even those who have had all the advantages of early education-ever do become, namely, a student class? Yet this was really what the founders of mechanics' institutes evidently expected. Here, as in connection with many other questions of the day, we find the fact obtruding itself upon observation, that there exists, in a large majority of the minds which take part in the social and philanthropic movements of the day, an utter ignoring or obliviousness of the great fact of the identity of human nature; and which often leads them to form very unwise or very uncharitable conclusions. From mere want of thought, or from allowing their zeal to blind their judgment, a large number of talkers on the subject of the moral elevation of the people are frequently heard to attribute to the world of humanity outside themselves, principles of action which they do not find in their own nature, which they never dream of, in fact, as actuating either themselves or their everyday friends and acquaintances. If the zeal of philanthropists did not so often outrun their discretion, if they would not so frequently part with their naturalness of feeling, their disinterested labours would not so frequently be expended in vain.

If mechanics' institutes are ever to succeed, the managers must avoid this cardinal blunder of addressing grown-up working men, with social positions in most cases fixed, merely as working men, or as beings endowed only with a physical and intellectual nature. Man is a being of composite nature-of religious, domestic, and social affections, as well as of mental capacities; and is it any wonder that he should turn away from institutions which offer him nothing more than hard facts in science and history, as he turns away from those pulpits which give him only the dry bones of theology, and teach him nothing of the celestial spirit of religion? If mechanics' institutes are to influence and benefit the working man, they must address his whole nature; they must appeal to his innermost heart; they must recognize the fact that he is not merely a being endowed with reasoning faculties, but that he is also, perchance, a husband, a father, a brother, a citizen,

a man.

Necessary Improvements.

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a man. They must come home to his every-day interests and every-day happiness; they must aim at his moral rather than his mental elevation-the cultivation of his character rather than his intellect. Let not these remarks, however, for one moment be misunderstood, as deprecating the acquisition of knowledge by the masses of the people. Their instruction is most earnestly to be desired, because in numberless ways it would contribute, not only to their own well-being, and the increased well-being, order, and progress of society, but because also it would prove the most efficient of all means of cultivating the moral sense of the community, and thus securing the progress of moral reform. Moreover, the intellectual culture of the individual is most intimately connected with his religious culture. There is a mutual relationship between them, which, though of considerable interest and importance, is but too commonly overlooked. Duty to his moral and spiritual nature, if no other motive, should prompt every man to earnest, however humble, efforts at cultivating also the intellectual faculties with which the Creator has endowed him. But let it never be forgotten that a man's intellectual and moral elevation must ever be mainly his own work. It cannot be done for him, it must be done by himself, though important help may be afforded him in the work. This important help mechanics' institutes are calculated to afford; but unfortunately, as respects the great mass of working men, in this generation at least, from various causes these institutions can do little to help them in the work of intellectual elevation. The majority of them are too ignorant to know how ignorant they are; and hence the great idea of self-culture has never stirred their souls. To proffer them more knowledge when they do not know how to make use of that which is already within their reach, is only (to borrow a simile of Archbishop Whately) like seeking to enlarge the prospect of a short-sighted man by taking him to the top of a hill. But much may be done by mechanics' institutes to help on the moral elevation and social refinement of the working classes; and to this great purpose, as we conceive, merely instructional agency should ever be subordinated in the plans of their managers.

It may be well to repeat, that in thus indicating the broad principle on which these institutions should be conducted, we are referring more especially to those existing at the present day. When a more generally extended and superior system of elementary training shall have prepared a future generation for all the advantages which they would be enabled with proper support to offer, we may hope that they will then become, in a true sense, people's colleges, which shall fill the void now existing between the school and the university. As that day may yet be far distant, we address ourselves to the practical question of what can Vol. 2.-No. 7.

Q

be,