in abstract laws are of more real benefit to industry than their immediate application.' It is thus that the lecturer reasons on the necessity of union between the scientific and the practical student, and I sincerely believe that there is yet before us a coming age when the exact rules of physical truth will be brought to bear upon the constructive and useful arts, with the same certainty and effect in the practical operations of the artificer and the mechanic, as they now do in the laboratory of the chemist or the observatory of the astronomer.

Now in order to acquire these important desiderata, we must educate and elevate the intellect of the industrial classes to a higher standard of scientific acquirement than that which at present exists, and we must give to the mechanics and artisans of these islands the same facilities for obtaining knowledge as exist in other countries. This, you will observe, cannot be accomplished without schools; and unless something is shortly done, we shall rather recede than advance in the great road of improvement.

6

I have already stated that the French had long witnessed, not without interest, the wants of the rising generation, particularly as respects a more extended knowledge, and a sounder education for those persons destined to follow industrial occupations. To meet these wants, the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers' was established. Professors were appointed to give lectures and instruction in arithmetic, elementary geography, weights and measures, statics, descriptive geometry, stone-cutting, carpentry, cabinet-makers' work, perspective, mechanics, transmission of motion, hydrodynamics, including descriptions of instruments of all kinds, designing-plain and ornamental, machinery, architecture, and many other important subjects, at a cheap rate. These comprise a course of instruction given to upwards of 300 students, who receive an education fitting them for situations in the higher

branches of construction, in the military as well as the civil professions, and hence arises the superior knowledge in that country which is brought to bear upon the useful arts.

But even this school was not sufficient to meet the growing demand for knowledge in France, and some years since it was followed by another, entitled the Central School of Arts, 'Ecole centrale des Arts et Manufactures.' In this school the middle classes receive an excellent · education, and some of the most distinguished men in France, such as Olivier, Martelet, Masson, Dumas, Bélanger and many others, do not hesitate to give lectures, and conduct the different branches of practical science.

In other countries besides France, the same attention has been bestowed upon the education of the mechanic and the artisan. Prussia is famed for its educational institutions, and the Government, in its solicitude for the well-being of society, renders it imperative that every person in the Prussian dominions should be educated.

A distinguished writer, speaking of societies, says that 'associations for occasional discussion, of men pursuing the same or similar studies, have long been found advantageous for the intercommunication of the difficulties, the doubts and the discoveries of students. In more recent times, when each art has gradually connected itself with the sciences on which its success depends, the importance of these meetings has become obvious to the manufacturer, although in this country it may not have become apparent to the statesman.' In these sentiments we have every encouragement for the intercommunication and discussion of opinions, and I cannot too forcibly impress upon your minds the necessity which exists for forming yourselves into societies for mutual instruction.

IV. Differences of scholastic institutions in this as compared with those in other countries.

The Accademia del Cimento of Italy, the Royal Society

of London, the Academy of Sciences at Paris, have had a long series of imitators in the principal cities of the civilised world. The increasing extension of science, and the wants of its cultivators, have led them to a subdivision of their pursuits, and to form societies generally devoted to each separate department of science. The diffusion of scientific knowledge, so graphically described by Babbage, is still far short of the objects it is desirable to attain. In this large and important manufacturing district, we have no museum of the arts and manufactures, no collection of the various raw materials so extensively consumed, no depository for models or machines for illustration, and no public professors to direct and demonstrate the truths of natural science. Everything is left to the noviciate himself, and provided he is ardent and enthusiastic, he may rise to distinction by the force and energy of his own mind; but very limited indeed is the assistance he is likely to derive from the institutions of his country. I have myself contended against, and overcome to a certain extent, the struggles and difficulties which always beset the early and also the after-life of the self-taught aspirant in the walks of science; and fully persuaded that these difficulties frequently overpower the good resolutions of the student at the very threshold of his labours, I am the more anxious to see them removed, and at the same time to see established in this city an industrial museum and institute calculated to meet the wants of the public, and to afford to our successors those advantages of elementary instruction which have unfortunately been denied to ourselves, but which are imperative for securing the ascendency and success of our manufactures in every branch of industry. I will not detain you with further observations on this

*

*Not only in Manchester, the city to which I refer, but in many towns in the kingdom, having a claim to an improved and general system of education.

part of the subject; suffice it to observe, that I entertain hopes that the Great Exhibition, so recently closed, has not only shown what can be done by united efforts, but has imparted a stimulus that has been felt in the remotest parts of the kingdom; and this will, I trust, not only inspire the public mind of this district with a desire to erect, but liberally to endow an institution calculated to promulgate the truths of science, and enlarge the field of observation in every department of industrial pursuit, and which in future ages will speak well for the talent and industry of our times.

I have now to direct your attention to a few remarks on those constructions which have done so much for the country, and which now afford employment to so many thousands of persons in these districts.

V. On the comparative state of our manufacturing industry as applied to cotton, during the last and the present

centuries.

Before entering upon the more immediate objects which I have selected for your consideration in the next lecture, permit me to offer a few observations on a subject exceedingly interesting, and to which I beg to direct your attention. If we take, I will not say a statistical, but a very cursory view of the present position of Manchester, and compare it with what it was at the close of the last and the commencement of the present century, we shall find that at that period the useful and industrial arts were comparatively of little importance. We shall also find that the germs of a new, and above all others, an important branch of manufacturing industry, were springing into existence. I have no correct returns of the state of our manufacturing industry at that period, but the writings of one of the earliest and most intelligent spinners, Mr. John Kennedy, of Ardwick, to whom this country is indebted for many improvements in machinery, inform us that the spinning of cotton-yarn,

antecedent to the year 1768, was of an exceedingly limited description. That gentleman, in his account of the rise and progress of the cotton trade, states that the hand-loom, as a machine, remained stationary for a great number of years without any attempts at improvement, until 1750, when Mr. John Kay, of Bolton, first introduced the fly-shuttle, and that the spinning of cottonyarn, until that period, and for many years previous, was almost entirely performed by the family of the manufacturer at his own home. This united and simple process went on till it was found necessary to divide their labours, and to separate the weaving from the spinning, and that again from the carding and other preparatory processes. This division of labour, as Mr. Kennedy truly says, led to improvements in the carding and spinning, by first introducing simple improvements in the hand instruments with which they performed these operations, till at length they arrived at a machine, which, though rude and illconstructed, enabled them considerably to increase their produce.' Thus it was that improvements and the division of labour first led to the factory system, and to that splendid and extensive process, which, at the present moment, and for many years to come, will effect the destinies of nations, both as regards their political and commercial prosperity.

From 1750 to 1770, when Mr. Hargreaves, of Blackburn, first introduced his spinning jenny, by means of which a young person could work from ten to twenty spindles instead of one, there was little or no change; but a very material alteration took place shortly after the introduction of these improvements, which were immediately followed by Mr. Arkwright's machinery for carding and roving.* These, accompanied by the in

* Through the kindness of my friend Mr. Kennedy, I have now in my possession an account of the trial in the Court of King's Bench to repeal a patent granted on the 16th of December, 1775, to Richard Arkwright,