of view, but it is to the co-operation of both that they must undoubtedly be ascribed." And Mr. Whitworth's colleague, Mr. Wallis, reporting on the state of manufactures, says :-"Here (in the Northern States), where sound and systematic education has been longest, and in all probability most perfectly carried out, the greatest manufacturing developments are to be found. Bringing a mind prepared by thorough school discipline, and educated up to a far higher standard than those of a much superior social grade in society in the Old World, the American working boy develops rapidly into the skilled artisan; and having once mastered one part of his business, he is never content until he has mastered all." In another part of his report, talking of the precious metals, Mr. Wallis says, that having their minds prepared by education, the artisans seize on very difficult points of manufacturing construction as it were by mere instinct; and speaking of Schools of Design, he says, "The rapid progress made by the students at these schools is another evidence of the influence of the primary education which it is the good fortune of the children, male and female, of the United States to receive."

Educational Experience of Canada.-Although partially veiled by the decorous trappings of Monarchy, the social and political institutions of the British North American colonies have their root in equality of condition, no less than those of the adjoining States of the American Union. There, too, accordingly, we soon made the discovery that there were dangers ahead if political power should fall into the hands of masses of men unfitted by education and training to resist the seductions of quacks and smatterers; and we turned to the same quarter for protection against it. The Canadian educational system is distinguished from that of the northern States of the Union chiefly by the more strenuous endeavor which has been made under the latter to associate religion with the common-school teaching. Not that we undertake to relieve parents or pastors from responsibility for the religious training of the child. On the contrary, it is our desire that they should feel the full weight of that responsibility, and acknowledge that the utmost that can be expected of the day-school is, that it should better fit the child for the direct religious instruction which it is to receive at church, at the Sabbath-school, and at home. (Cheers.) But we have adopted precautions beyond those which our neighbors have seen fit to take, in order to insure, in so far as human means can do so, that in its practical working the system shall be constantly pervaded by a Christian spirit. With this view, influential clergymen have been placed on the Board which superintends the whole, and in the several school sections, the local clergy of all denominations are ex officio visitors of the schools. After all, it is a great thing to encourage whatever tends to promote Christian charity and brotherly love in a community.

ENGLAND.

LYCEUMS, MECHANIC INSTITUTIONS, AND LIBRARIES.

We have received from an attentive correspondent reports of addresses before lyceums and mechanic institutions by men of high parliamentary standing, which show the interest felt in this class of educational agencies, as well as embody many practical suggestions applicable to the improvement of similar institutions with us.

INAUGURATION OF THE LYCEUM AT OLDHAM.-We make the following extracts from LORD STANLEY'S speech at the opening of the new Lyceum building at Oldham-a manufacturing town with a population of over 70,000.

Large amount of leisure not requisite to the acquisition of knowledge.-It is true that most, perhaps all of those whom your Lyceum will instruct, are not men of leisure; but it is not true that a large amount of leisure is requisite in order to obtain a considerable proportion of learning. The brain, like the body, can only bear a certain amount of active exertion-nay, of all bodily organs it is the most delicate, the most easily put out of repair, the most difficult to set right when once disorganized. Now, it is liable to suffer in two ways-from too little work in those whose labor is mechanical only, or who do no work at all; from too much work in those whose labor employs chiefly or exclusively the intellectual faculties. It is idle, therefore, to suppose that the majority of men, though free from any pressure of business, though independent of a profession or trade, can, whatever the amount of their leisure, or however much they may desire it, occupy any thing like the whole, or even the greater part of their time in study. If no external circumstances interpose to limit their exertions, Nature will and does. The mind only retains its freshness for a limited time; if that time be exceeded, exhaustion ensues, little is learnt, and the seeds of future mischief are sown in the constitution. What I contend for then, is thisthat no man willing to study need despond because he can only command a portion, it may be, of his evenings, while others are masters of the whole day. It is bad arithmetic in such matters to compute that four times as much can be learnt in four hours as in one. Just as reasonably might one argue that, because one good dinner daily gives health and strength, therefore four such dinners every day would make a man four times as strong, and four times as healthy. Just as reasonably might one affirm, what all who have looked into the elements of finance know to be untrue, that if you double the rate of a tax you will double the amount it produces. The fact is, nature intends that we should develop all our faculties, that we should work our whole organization in turn, and not a part of it only. The man who exerts his brain only, and the man who exerts his muscles only, is equally violating her laws, and those laws are never violated with impunity. I don't want to overstate my case. I am not denying that the hours of labor are many, nor that the cares of life press heavily on the working man who is also a student. But I affirm that the obstacles which labor places in the way of intellectual advance, though real, are less formidable than they look, while by their nature they save the student from No. 8.-[VOL. III. No. 1.]-16.

other dangers quite as real which beset the man whose time is entirely his own-the danger, on the one hand, of an idle and relaxed habit; the danger, on the other, of mental wear and tear induced by not knowing when to leave off. Even four hours in the week, or rather more than 200 in the year, regularly and earnestly devoted to one branch of thought, will carry an intelligent man very far in any study whatever.

Recreation a necessity.--Recollect what modern society is. Recollect what modern labor is. We bring together men in masses; we employ them in mechanical pursuits. The very perfection of the work done,-the cause of that perfection, division of labor, carried to the highest point,-tends to render occupation more and more monotonous; so that the intellect, craving stimulus, asking for variety, is starved. For, to an active brain, intellectual inaction-the want of subjects for thought-is quite as painful as to the habitually inert temperament is the unaccustomed toil of thought. What, then, I ask, becomes of the vast masses of intelligent men and women whom we congregate in these towns? What are our national amusements? None-or next to none. Even the simplest of all pleasures, the enjoyment of natural beauty, is rarely possible. The leisure hours here fall mostly at night, when outdoor pleasures are inappropriate, even if the neighborhood of our towns afforded more facilities for such pleasures than they do. We want, then, besides teaching for those who will be instructed, rational amusements for those who only desire to be interested. I am not ashamed of putting that prominently forward as an object which we ought to keep in view. Health is weakened, disease generated, life shortened, by the depression of spirits which follows upon an unstimulated existence. Men die for want of cheerfulness, as plants die for want of light. That is a fact to which you may get medical testimony in plenty; and it is to this very difficulty of finding pleasures-a difficulty arising in part out of the accidents of our social state, in part out of the grave, earnest, energetic, reflective, but rather sombre cast of mind which for many centuries has distinguished the people of this nation-that I ascribe that habit of excessive social indulgence which is still the principal reproach upon our national morals and manners. I affirm, then, that in every point of view intellectual, moral, even sanitary institutions such as this is intended to be -partly social, partly literary, useful to the few who study in earnest, attractive to the many whose chief aim is amusement-have in both those capacities a real and substantial value. Your lectures, your reading-rooms, your evening classes, your lending library--for that essential element of popular usefulness I hope it is not proposed to omit-will each draw to you subscribers, each probably subscribers of a different class. The establishment of an athenæum, a lyceum, an institute, call it which you will, in every large town of England is no longer a mere luxury which may be enjoyed or dispensed with at pleasure, but has become an essential and integral part of our social organization.

Lyceums the universities of the people.-In my belief, their sphere of action admits of vast enlargement. I hold that they are destined to perform, as regards the more numerous class of society, the same functions as those

which the Universities discharge towards the wealthier. They combine two advantages of which it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the valuefirst, that members of every religious denomination meet here upon equal terms; next, that they start unencumbered with traditions, and taking as their point of departure the educational ideas, not of any former, but of the present age. Here, gentlemen, let me express a hope that you will not rest content with what has been or is being done-not even with the success and progress of this institution,-but that you will couple with it, either as part of the same establishment or separately under the act of Parliament, a free, or nearly free, library for the use of the 100,000 persons who inhabit this town and its neighborhood. Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Bolton, even Warrington, have set you the example. Out of eighteen places where it has been proposed to put the act in force it has been carried in thirteen; and having watched the movement during four years, I can bear witness that, though difficulties are often made about the setting up of a free library, no instance has occurred within my knowledge where, one having been established, it has failed to command popular support, or to answer the purpose of its establishment. If, as has been the case in some places, a rate be objected to, the thing may be done by private means. A capital of 2,000l. will give, at the lowest estimate, a collection of 10,000 volumes to begin with, and 1,000 subscribers of only 48. yearly will supply an income amply sufficient to defray all necessary expenses. But a ratesupported library, is preferable, first, because in that case alone can it be absolutely free; secondly, because that mode of support gives to it a more public and popular character.

Subjects of instruction in Lyceums.-First, I think it is desirable that intellectual competition should be stimulated in every possible manner; and I heard, therefore, with peculiar pleasure some words which fell from the president of the institution this morning, as to the propriety of establishing examinations and rewarding efficiency with prizes. What is read with some definite and tangible end in view is apt to be more carefully studied and longer remembered than what is read in a vague and general idea of improvement. Next, I hold that a wide latitude should be given to individual taste. What a man wishes to learn he will learn better, more quickly, and with more profit to himself than what he undertakes to study merely upon the recommendation of others, even though the latter may be more generally useful. Subject to this qualification I will mention those topics which seem most likely to be of service. I see in a prospectus which has been issued mention of French classes and others for the teaching of languages. I am far from depreciating such studies; their interest is great, their use is great even for those who stay at home,-much more for those who travel; but where time and opportunity are limited, and where no special inducement exists, I doubt whether the acquiring of languages is the most necessary or profitable branch of knowledge. Words, after all, are only vehicles of thought; the stores of thought accumulated in our own tongue are already immense; and if much of life be passed in that which is rather preparation for study than study itself, little time may re

main to complete the building for which such wide and ample foundations have been laid. It seems to me-but remember that I give my opinions on these subjects with the utmost deference-that the foundation of a complete and rational education lies in the knowledge of natural laws, as deduced from recorded facts; knowledge, first, of those laws by which the inorganic world is governed-as those which regulate astronomical, geological, and chemical phenomena; next, of those laws which control organized existences-a branch which includes physiology in all its departments; lastly, a knowledge of that which, for want of a more recognized term, I must call sociology, embracing the investigation of social problems, and enabling us to trace the paths along which human action has moved in all countries and ages. I cannot go far into these topics here, or else I think I could show that the order which I have named, from the study of the simplest structure-inorganic matter-up to that of the highest and most complex-the human mind-is no arbitrary progress, but one which Nature herself dictates and directs. I may be asked what man, unless solely and professedly a philosopher, can find leisure for such inquiries? I reply, it is not necessary to be an astronomer, a geologist, a chemist, a physiologist, in order to learn what have been the principal results of human thought in those departments, or what is their inter-connection one with another. The slow progress of discovery affords no measure of the time required to appreciate the results of discovery. It takes ages to make the road which when made may be travelled over in a few years. If interrogated as to the use of such investigations, I would point out that the two great questions which an intelligent mind on beginning to reflect naturally puts are these, "What am I?" and "What is this universe around me?" To give an answer, however partial and incomplete, to these queries has been the effort of the human intellect during more than 3,000 years, and may be for 3,000 more. No man is so dull that they do not interest him; none ever has been or ever can be so acute that they do not perplex and baffle him. In comparison with such reflections to talk of what we call the practical applications of science is indeed descending low; yet these applications—never the first object, often not in any degree the object of the philosopher-have doubled the wealth and power of England, and incalculably lessened the pressure of human suffering from material causes. In concluding on this head, I would observe that in England we need to study man's works less, and nature more; and even where we apply ourselves to investigate the vast course of human action, we are in the habit of ascribing too much importance to an almost mechanical recollection of facts, and too little to the establishment of those generalizations which give past facts almost their sole importance for us. I do not wish to speak in the language of accusation, or of complaint; yet it does seem strange that a man may leave cither of the great universities, after a school and college training which together have extended over ten years, an accomplished classic, an able mathematician, yet wholly unacquainted with external nature, ignorant of the principle upon which a common steam-engine is constructed, ignorant even of the mechanism which he carries about with