15 



and I may venture to hope, that even the female parts of our audi- 

 ences, will not diminish, and that they will honour the plan with 

 an attention which is independent of fashion, or the taste of the 

 moment, and connected with the use, the permanence, and the 

 pleasure of intellectual acquisitions. It is not our intention to invite 

 them to assist in the laboratories, but to partake of that healthy and 

 refined amusement, which results from a perception of the variety, 

 order, and harmony, existuig in all the kingdoms of nature : and to 

 encourage the study of those more elegant departments of Science, 

 which at once tend to exalt the understanding, and purify the heart. 



The leisure of the higher female classes is so great, and their 

 influence in society so strong, that it is almost a duty, that they 

 should endeavour to awaken and keep alive, a love of improvement 

 and instruction. 



Let them make it disgraceful for men to be ignorant, and 

 ignorance will vanish ; and that part of their empire, founded upon 

 mental improvement, will be strengthened and exalted by time, will 

 be untouched by age, will be immortal in its youth. 



Even in the common relations of society, how much must be 

 referred to the conduct of the female mind. The mother gives, or 

 ought to give, most of the early impressions to the child,"and his 

 future habits may depend in some measure upon her influence. It 

 may in some measure depend upon her, whether he become an 

 honour or a disgrace to his country. Her power of enforcing instruc- 

 tion, is the most effectual, as flowing from love. We know, that 

 without feeling, the human being is mere clay, the dust of the earth, 

 without the living soul. Whatever is to be permanently infixed 

 on the understanding, must be associated with hope or with joy, or 

 with passion. How much more efficacious must instruction be, when 

 communicated by an object, beloved and venerated, and in infancy, 

 almost adored ; and when, instead of being afforded with an effort 

 of pain and of labour, it is carried into the heart by kindness, and 

 made delightful by caresses and smiles ! 



As the object of the Royal Institution is to promote the Progress 

 of Science ; so it will not interfere with any other literary bodies, any 

 other Societies : but will rather assist and promote their views. 



It has been supposed by some persons who are little acquainted 

 with the nature of the plan, and the general objects of philosophical 

 Associations, that there is a tendency in them to lessen the import- 

 ance of our elder establishments for education, and to diminish the 

 love of ancient literature. But nothing is further from the truth. 

 The maxim of improvers, is — promote, whatever can tend to assist 

 the progress of the human mind ; and Letters will always be the 

 greatest, the most powerful engine to this effect ; it is one that all 

 can employ, the strong and the weak, in solitude or in the world. 

 That which is beautiful, that which is pathetic, that which is sub- 

 lime, can never lose its effects. There is one course of passion and 



