308 PROCEEDINGS OF PRUYINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



services of lecturers of the first rank in the scientific world : thus 

 reacting, by inducing the subscription of large numbers of respecta- 

 ble adults, whose quarterly payments would be well rewarded by 

 attendance at the lectures and the library. 



The office of President has been filled, during the past year, by 

 Sir E. Eardley Wilmot, Bart., M. P., who has distinguished him- 

 self by his liberality, both in a pecuniary point of view, and in the 

 sentiments he has ever expressed in reference to the Institution : and 

 we have great ])leasure in announcing that the Presidency for the 

 ensuing year is accepted by Chandos Leigh, Esq., of Stoneleigh Abbey, 

 whose enlightened views are well known, and point him out as pe- 

 culiarly eligible for the office he has consented to fill. 



During the last quarter, the following interesting lectures have 

 been delivered, and, in the majority of cases, gratuitously : — Mr. 

 Young two lectures on Astronomy, the conclusion of a course ; 

 Rev. Edward Madeley on the Manners of the Ancient Romans, and 

 on Pneumatics ; Mr. Hawkes Smith on Improved Cultivation — its 

 social and moral tendency ; Mr. James Russell on Respiration, in- 

 cluding a narrative of the discovery of a Toad in a bed of Sand- 

 stone, during the excavation for the Birmingham and London Rail- 

 way, near Coventry; Mr. Watts on Physiology, being the com- 

 mencement of a course on the physical and intellectual powers of 

 man ; Mr. Edward Taylor two lectures on the jMusic of the age of 

 Elizabeth, illustrated by a select number of performers, led by 

 Mr. Munden on the piano-forte. 



Such are the objects which have latterly occupied the attention of 

 the members. During the quarter which is now commencing, the 

 course so liberally afforded and so carefully prepared by Mr. Watts, 

 will be proceeded with ; and a series on the Physiology of Plants 

 will be delivered bv Mr. John JMurray, of London, F. S. A., 

 F. G. S., &c. 



We give this list of subjects to shew that the committee take an 

 enlarged view of the objects of the Institution. They avail them- 

 selves, to the extent of their means and influence, of the information 

 to be gained by lectures on various subjects, generally interesting to 

 the presumed auditory, as members of the great family of mankind, 

 and not as individuals belonging to a class. We make this observa- 

 tion because many persons — not ill-informed or unreflective — in con- 

 versation, express themselves slightly, or half compassionately, on 

 hearing that lectures, other than elementary ^ are delivered to a body 

 of " mechanics ;" and because we find that public functionaries and 

 statistical inquirers, on sending into the country strings of queries 

 relative to the conduct of Mechanics' Institutions, still perpetually 

 fall into the same error — the error of imagining that the informa- 

 tion offered must necessarily relate to the occupation of persons be- 

 longing to the " working class." Now, we conceive this elementary 

 knowledge, that is, elementary knowledge on the simple practi- 

 cal sciences — for that is what is meant — can scarcely be communi- 

 cated in lectures. For such elementary instruction, the schools are 



