Public Readings for Non-readers. 221 no new savings bank had been established; whilst the aggregate balances of those already in existence appeared to have remained in a stationary condition. We hope to see the day arrive when an increased popular confidence in these banks, and a more intimate acquaintance with their benefits on the part of the working classes, will lead to such an extension of their business as will justify their being open for as many hours in the day and week as other banks; so that a working man or humble tradesman may deposit his five shillings or his five pounds with the same facility that the capitalist can deposit his fifty or thousand pounds at an ordinary banking-house. The latter is usually a transaction of only a few minutes; whereas the more humble transaction of the working man often keeps him waiting an hour or two, owing to the depositors being compelled to throng in at a particular period of the week, rather than at those varying hours when it might best consist with each one's individual engagements. What savings banks cannot now do for the working classes, mechanics' institutes have in some cases already done, and in many more cases might do. They may encourage and foster the formation of provident habits in young and old, and thus affect not merely the characters, but even the fortunes of individuals. We attach the greater importance to the establishment of these provident funds as auxiliaries to mechanics' institutes, because they form a means of doing good to that very large proportion of working people who, from their illiteracy, cannot be expected to take a lively interest in their other departments. To learn the art of taking care of his money a working man needs not the preliminary ability either to read, write, or cipher. All he wants is honesty in the people who are benevolent enough to teach him the art. Whilst penning the last few sentences, the thought arises in the mind-how very completely and strangely the managers of mechanics' institutes seem to have overlooked in their operations that very large proportion of working men and women who cannot read. A large amount of the energy and resources which have been expended in accumulating large libraries, would surely have been expended in other ways, if the fact had been called to mind that the number of persons, even in what are called the educated classes, who cultivate the habit of reading, so as to make it a pleasure, is exceedingly small in proportion. And as to those working men who have ever been able to read, the majority have had so little inducement to practise the art as wellnigh to have lost it altogether, or at least find it positively irksome. To persons who are devoid of literary taste, or who have never formed studious habits, newspapers generally form the most attractive kind of reading; and hence the usefulness of news-rooms in connection with mechanics' institutes. They usually prove the most successful branch branch which can be grafted upon them. Still, that very large class of working men who read so badly that they derive therefrom little or no pleasure, or who cannot read at all, have never yet received all the consideration which a wise philanthropy would dictate. The great mass of these persons (of course there will be individual exceptions) cannot be expected, after having attained adult years, to set about learning to read, or even improving in the art. They feel it to be too great a shock to their self-respect to be asked thus to confess their illiteracy to the world. A true and wise philanthropy would respect this feeling. However ignorant and illiterate men and women may be, they still are men and women-not children, and should be treated as such. Their illiteracy may move us to pity; but their years entitle them to our fraternal love, and our kindly (not patronizing) respect and regard. Now, how comes it that so little thought or attention has been bestowed upon these non-readers, and those to whom reading is irksome? It is very well to multiply the number of our schools, and teach people to read; but why has the benevolence of the age thought so little about instructing or amusing those who are not likely to be able to read as long as they live? It is very praiseworthy to endeavour to elevate men's tastes as to recreation, and to supply them with internal resources of enjoyment; but why have we not thought more about promoting the innocent, and as far as possible instructive, amusement of the multitude whose tastes have been already developed almost beyond our guidance? It is easier to put such questions than to answer them. An experiment which was recently made in Newcastle in the winter season may, however, furnish a hint as to what might be done. We refer to the public readings,' so called, which were held in the lectureroom. Various gentlemen of the town gave their services gratuitously as readers of a popular history of England; and these readings, interluded with vocal and instrumental music, constituted an attractive entertainment, from which the most illiterate working man, at a very trifling cost, might have derived great instruction as well as rational recreation. The readings extended over several nights; they were the result of a private speculation, and we believe that, as a speculation, they were not a failure. They did not, however, attract that large proportion of the working classes which had been hoped for a fact which may be partly accounted for, perhaps, by their novelty. Their nature could not be very widely known, or rather understood, among working men; and they, like other men, are not prone to spend their money upon experiments in the way of recreation. A somewhat similar means of popular recreation and instruction was adopted about the same time in Manchester. There, however, if we understand rightly, the readings were free. A local paper spoke of them as 'free The Experiment at Salford. 6 223 public readings; and stated that the expenses were defrayed by voluntary contributions. They differed also from the readings in Newcastle by not being confined to one author or one subject. Select passages from various authors, and from the current literature of the day, were read; and working men who would prefer having an hour's amusement in this form to frequenting publichouses and beer-shops, were earnestly invited,' in the words of a handbill, to attend, and bring their wives and the grown-up members of their families with them.' The newspapers stated that in Salford, the adjoining borough, where the experiment appears to have originated, and where it was appropriately prosecuted in the hall of the mechanics' institution, a set of rules were adopted, well calculated to preserve the useful simplicity of its character. The meeting appointed its own chairman for the evening, which gave a democratic complexion to the entertainment,' and lessened any savour of patronage which the quick jealousy of humble life might detect in it. A necessary proviso was, that no subject should be introduced which was connected with party politics or religious controversy.' This did not, however, exclude the news of the day, when of sufficient interest to command a place; and in some instances extracts from the public journals were thought proper contributions to the evening's amusement. No discussion was allowed; but at the close of the reading any suggestion or opinion, addressed to the chairman, might be stated, provided no speaker occupied more than three minutes. In Salford, also, it was the practice to restrict the duration of each reading to twenty minutes, and to devote short intervals to vocal and instrumental music. Now, in these novel experiments, whatever their success, there is embodied a very valuable, though perhaps still crude idea, which earnest and benevolent minds may turn to valuable account in their endeavours to render mechanics' institutes useful and popular to the working classes, and especially that large section of them whose illiteracy renders it hopeless to reach them through any other agency. We have few other suggestions to make which are not already very familiar to the minds of managers of mechanics' institutes. Nor do we, indeed, claim the merit of novelty in all cases for those which we have already thrown out. Viewing these institutes from an outside stand-point, and having a real interest in their success, we have endeavoured, not so much to multiply practical hints, as to dwell upon a few which would best indicate the broad general principle on which we conceive that they should be conducted. To have enlarged on the great value of classes for the purposes of efficient instruction; on the interest which has generally been found to attach to news rooms; on the importance of localizing institutions as far as possible in the vicinity of working men's homes, bringing bringing instruction, as it were, to their very doors; on the desirability of the institutions possessing buildings planned and erected for their especial uses; on the interest attaching to frequent social gatherings, rural excursions, polytechnic exhibitions, and the like, and the means they afford of keeping the institutions before the public; on the value of the co-operation of the Society of Arts, and the usefulness of its recently-established system of examinations for members, with a view of distributing prizes and certificates,to have enlarged, we say, on these things, would have been either to repeat a thrice-told tale, or to dwell upon topics with which all managers of mechanics' institutes are, or ought to be, perfectly familiar. Whilst not overlooking the primary cause of the comparative non-success of these institutes, namely, the absence of a more generally-extended system of early training, we have also desired to point out the mistake which has been at the root of much of their mismanagement, namely, appealing to the capacities of their members as students rather than to their nature as men, and their interests as members of society. An instructional agency must necessarily form part of the machinery of every such institution-its nucleus, indeed. But seeing that the amount of scientific knowledge or general instruction which can be imparted to the working man of the present generation must necessarily be comparatively limited in its range, we have aimed to show that it is a wiser and truer philanthropy to attempt their moral and social, rather than their mental elevation-to cultivate character rather than intellect. To improve, not human reason merely, but human nature; to appeal, not alone to the working man's mind, but to his affections, and to come home to his every-day feelings and interests, these are the ends to be kept in view, if mechanics' institutes are ever to be useful and popular to that class of the community. And let us be distinctly understood that we do not go upon the principle of merely attracting working men by hollow amusements or false excitement. This sort of management may succeed for a while; but, sooner or later, its hollowness and falsity will become apparent, and the institution which has trusted to it will find itself in a worse position than before. On the contrary, we wish working men to be made to feel that they are really and deeply interested in the advantages which a mechanics' institute can offer to them; that by connection with it they become better and happier men, and learn to enjoy more fully the existence which God has given them. Let the managers of such institutes make their instructional appliances as efficient as they possibly can; but let them also foster, by every means in their power, all such internal arrangements and auxiliary institutes as have a tendency to give a rightful turn to the whole character of individual members. If a working man, by his connection with a mechanics' mechanics' institute, shall have learned to manage prudently and well his humble fortune; shall have learned to take an intelligent interest in the world's passing history; shall have become linked in sympathy with the great social and philanthropic movements of the day, and with the progress of scientific discovery; shall have acquired a taste for refined recreations; shall have formed habits of reflection, observation, and practical judgment; shall have learned to exercise self-respect, and to understand the moral dignity of independence and self-support,-then has a more real and lasting benefit been conferred upon him than if he had gone away the possessor of any amount, however large, of mere bookknowledge, or had even gained the completest familiarity with the scientific principles that regulate the handicraft which forms his daily avocation. ART. III.-1. Tennyson's Poems. Eleventh edition. 2. Tennyson's Princess: a Medley. 3. In Memoriam. Seventh edition. Seventh edition. 4. Tennyson's Maud; and other Poems. Second edition. 5. Tennyson's Idylls of the King. London: Edward Moxon and Co. 1859. То O that elemental and essential poetry, the ideal of which both poets and critics of poets must, as their own sacred fire, entertain within them, no man in England, perhaps, has ever clomb nearer than Alfred Tennyson. The reedy outskirts of the Muses' haunt are not nigh enough for him; he must attain to their great presence, he must penetrate into the very lustre of their own inmost sanctuary, returning to us, like the priest from behind the veil, transfigured, luminous. With him, image, emotion, music, which are as the three colours in the rainbow of the poet's thought, lucidly collapsing, orb into song that, heaving, lifts us too on the proud wave of its own rhythmic movement. Minstrels we have had, grander, fuller,' perhaps, than he; souls of a larger reach, hearts of a mightier pulse, but never a poet richer, never a poet truer. Finer gold, art more delicate, are nowhere else procurable; and the result is so consummate, that clumsy fingers seek in vain to grasp it. It is a shell most exquisitely white, filling to the lustre of a most golden sea; such a shell as the poet himself found on the Breton coast; made so fairily well, a miracle of design; frail, but of force to withstand, year upon year, the shock of cataract-seas.' The clumsy fingers that seek in vain to grasp it would petulantly crush it;-for coarse are the majority of criticisms that we have seen of this most genuine poet. Dull redactors transmute |