226 JAMES SHANKS 



gyroscope was a great delight to him. Then 

 he frequently managed to include amongst 

 his guests some one or two who could give 

 special interest to the gathering sometimes 

 a traveller who had come home from some 

 perilous expedition, or a philanthropist full 

 of some new scheme of beneficence. The 

 evenings were seldom dull, and never common- 

 place. Shanks himself was so delightfully 

 unaffected and free from all self-consciousness. 



But his sympathies were far too broad to 

 allow him to confine his social gifts to a mere 

 circle of private friends. 



His connection with the Mechanics' Insti- 

 tute of his native town when he left college, 

 and when mechanics' institutes were a novelty, 

 gave him a life-long interest in those institu- 

 tions, and their motto very truly expressed 

 what Shanks ardently desired and ceaselessly 

 sought to accomplish : " To make the man a 

 better mechanic, and the mechanic a better 

 man." 



For many years he was the president of 

 the Mechanics' Institute at St. Helens, and 

 together with others, amongst whom may be 

 mentioned Messrs. Watson and Wilson, of 

 the Bridgewater Works, and the brothers 

 Lacy, who, for so many years, have done 



