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are developed to us by the processes of inquiry and by the conclusions of science. I am happy to find that some of your lectures are set apart to these high and ennobling pursuits. I am happy, above all, to find that one of your number, a gentleman connected officially with the highest duties of this town, I allude to your Rev. Vicar,* not only makes presents of his works to you, but is himself the writer of works worthy to be presented. I am glad that at other times you should come here to gain a competent knowledge of the history of bygone ages, not only as that history concerns itself with the details of wars, which have too often been both bloody and unfruitful, with the mere annals of courts, with the intrigues of statesmen, and with the policy of sovereigns who perhaps may be only aiming at their own personal aggrandisement, but of that history which penetrates into the deeper causes that enter inwardly into the life of nations, that decide the laws by which states flourish and by which states decay, that affect the real condition, the average happiness, the daily comfort of the great bulk of the people. I am glad that at other times you should come to make yourselves adequately instructed in what is called the study of biography, in the histories and fortunes of those more remarkable men who have been the lights and models of the ages in which they lived not only of distinguished generals and mighty warriors, who, though we may regret the effects on human happiness which have too frequently resulted from the bare pursuit of military glory, yet still in the details of their individual lives may often furnish very high and inspiriting lessons of difficulties subdued and hardships encountered, but that you should augment your knowledge of those who have been the more real benefactors of the ages in which they lived, and who are therefore at least as fully entitled to the gratitude of nations, while they may divide with the others their admiration ; - I mean the inventors of useful arts, the discoverers of lofty truths, the martyrs to the sense of right and to the call of duty. And it is pleasing to think that our own times will be able to furnish many splendid contributions to the list of Worthies which I have thus characterised as proper subjects for Biography to concern herself with, and that she will be able to hand down to the latest posterity, together with the unconquered sword of Wellington, the equally enduring record of names such as that, for instance, of Thomas Clarkson, the man who The Rev. Mr. Scoresby.

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gave the first impulse to the movement which led to the final extinction of the African slave trade, over whose honoured, but not immature grave, all who are best and most philanthropic in the land are now joining together in respectful sympathy. Well, then, I wish that those who feel the due ambition should come to your lectures and to your libraries, to advance and to improve themselves by such studies as those of history and biography; but I think, also, that after the tear and wear of daily labour in your workshops and factories, it would be very captious to object to a man, at the close of a well-spent day, if he felt disinclined at the time to give his attention to any of those severer pursuits, relaxing his mind either with the perusal of good poetry or of graceful fiction. With respect to poetry, I need hardly tell you that, in its proper sphere, lessons as thrilling and as exalting may be derived from the pen of gifted poets as from the most prosaie writings to which we could turn our attention; and, perhaps you will allow me to say, upon this head, at least, that your library, which seems upon the whole to be very well and prudently selected, hardly contains as yet such an assortment of good poets as I think ought to be found in it. And with respect to fiction too, though I would not recommend it as giving the same healthy tone and nourishment to the mind as other more practical pursuits, yet I am pleased to think, especially in later times, that writers of fiction have treated it both with so much refinement and so much enlargement of view, that lessons may be derived from the pages of the best writers of fiction, be they male or female, scarcely inferior to what can be derived from the study of facts. But then, ladies and gentlemen, are you ever too tired even to attend to reading of any sort, or have you no fancy, after a hard day's work, to take up the pages of any book? Well, then, occasionally, I certainly am not sorry to find that you have been in the habit, in this large apartment, of seeking further relaxation in good music and in occasional concerts. Still I know that good concerts and good music cannot be had without some considerable cost, and I think it would not be difficult to devise even less expensive pleasures with which occasionally to vary the long evenings of the winter. Now, why should not any of you, accustomed to come here after a day's work, meeting in the reading room or the library, occasionally prevail upon some one of your number who may be a good reader, and I am sure such are likely to be found among you to read from one valuable work or other; or even why could you not

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enlist some one amongst those who are looked up to as moving in the more opulent classes amongst you, who would be good enough to give his time for such a purpose, and to read to any that may be gathered together in the evening, one of the best plays of Shakspeare, or a piece of Milton's Paradise Lost? And if you should find that the taste grows upon you, you might even take up Pope's Homer's Iliad. However, I leave all that to your own taste and discretion. Respecting those topics which relate more to the accomplishments and to the fine arts, I think it is very gratifying to find that you have established a school for drawing, and that it excites considerable interest among you. I hope you will carry that delightful pursuit still farther; and besides, it cannot be looked upon as a mere idle accomplishment, or as a mere delightful recreation it will even stand the test of this utilitarian age. This town is largely engaged in manufactures. As I have said, it is busied with one of the principal branches of the manufactures of this country, and it is a branch of those manufactures in which the art of making suitable patterns and designs must find a place. Now, it is a well-known fact that in many respects the manufactures of this country defy all competition, and that in the adaptation of our machinery and in the intelligence of our operatives we are not afraid to confront the whole of the Old world and the New. But it is not less acknowledged by those who take an impartial view on such subjects, that we are inferior to many nations on the Continent as yet in the arts of design and colour, and that we have not arrived quite at that happy delicacy in making out those beautiful combinations in patterns at which some of our neighbours, especially the French, have arrived. Now, I believe there is nothing in the natural composition or genius of Englishmen which unfits them from excelling here as well as in other respects; but they have not yet made it part of their practical, positive business to attend to it; and with this view schools for drawing are most eminently useful. It may be that in drawing schools, where you have models put before you of the human form and other objects of that sort, you cannot see at first sight of what good they can be to you in making out a pretty and delicate pattern; but depend upon it that the eye which has been trained to all the true doctrines of proportion and beauty, will attain comparative excellence in every branch of labour to which it applies itself. And I do most earnestly hope that not only the working classes, the operative

men, those who have to carry on the handiwork of the manufacturers, will attend to this suggestion, but that the great employers of labour will take it into their earnest consideration, too. I hope on all accounts that they will give an enlightened and liberal support to the general purposes of this institution. I feel it to be eminently their duty, but not more their duty than their interest, to take every means of surrounding themselves with an orderly, a refined, an intellectual, and an educated population, and I believe they will find this to be the case in every respect. It will return upon them in a thousand ways, however little immediately concerned the subject-matter of the studies may appear with the daily business with which they are connected; but as the poet Pope, whom I have once mentioned before, and whom I may specify, perhaps not as the first, perhaps not as the greatest, but as the most perfect of our poets, says

"True self-love and social are the same;

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by promoting the good of others, you are sure in the end to promote your own; and so upon the most sordid calculations of interest, upon what concerns your pockets, you may depend upon it, that if in the long run the patterns and manufactures of other countries exhibit a decided superiority over your own, you will lose your hold of the market of the world. And, therefore, besides encouraging good order, besides encouraging general knowledge, besides encouraging useful information amongst those by whom you are surrounded, also promote that taste for beauty, that true conception of the loveliness of nature of which art is but another embodiment, and you will find it the best means, not only of advancing and elevating the population in which you live, but of rendering yourselves superior to all the competition of the world's rivalry. I am glad with this view to find that it is in the contemplation of the committee to found, I believe, a new condition of admission, by which, if a person subscribe a guinea a year to the funds of this Institution, he shall not only be entitled to share in all its privileges and advantages himself, but shall have the privilege of introducing two pupils gratuitously to all its benefits. And most gratified I should be to learn that the great manufacturers and employers of labour in Bradford avail themselves of this condition not only to associate themselves with this Institution, which I think would reflect such just credit upon them, but to give the means to those least able to afford it, of reaping the benefit which

it holds out to its members. I am glad, also, to find another contemplated condition, which I think is conceived in the true spirit of Yorkshire liberality and hospitality, that condition is, that when any member of any other Mechanics' Institution in the West Riding of Yorkshire shall be resident for a time within this town, he shall be entitled to free admission to the benefits of this Institution. I think this is an admirable rule, calculated not only to extend the benefits of your Institution, but to promote the advantages of communication and feelings of good fellowship among all those who are brought together by kindred tastes and by kindred pursuits. It would be in vain for me to dissemble, ladies and gentlemen, now that I have offered the few practical remarks which have occurred to me it would be in vain for me to dissemble what interest I feel in all that concerns the real interests, and what pride I take in all that advances the real character of the inhabitants of this Riding. This important district comprises a vast number of large towns and communities which are themselves the seats and centres of kindred and analogous, though, I believe, in many respects, of somewhat different branches of manufacture. Well, what I want you to do is, not to vie with each other alone in the skill of your handicraft, or in the ingenuity of your machinery, or in the accumulation of your capital, but in the nobler growth of the mind, the intellect, and the character. Be careful to show that upon this generous and splendid field of competition, while you do not grudge being outstripped by any other town, you will not be content yourselves, if there be any danger, to remain the hindmost. You are now, most of you, and have been for some time, busily employed in connecting your several towns with each other by means of railways. Well, be equally careful to speed the intercourse of the mind as well as of the body. Do not let your "West Riding Unions" be confined merely to the railway world, but let them include in your care and in your liberality the Union of the West Riding Mechanics' Institutes, and all other institutions devoted to the like noble and improving purposes. Cut your first sod in the dense crust which has too long overlaid the genial capacities of the soil beneath open the waste lands of selfishness, of ignorance, of prejudice, and of error, in order that you may call forth the full development of mental progress and moral culture; and let the free communication of knowledge, and the improving intercourse of thought, ply inces

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