1855. THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM. 287 



" I speak thus not to pay this University a passing com- 

 pliment, for it does not need it ; still less to imply that my 

 case was exceptional, for it was not so at all ; but simply 

 that I may bind myself in your hearing to help the home- 

 less and friendless students who become my pupils, as I 

 was helped by my preceptors when I was homeless and 

 friendless. 



" Lastly, let me commend this new Chair to your good- 

 will and kindly aid. With its associated Industrial Museum, ^ 

 it constitutes a great additional centre of knowledge, from 

 which light will spread over this land and over the world. 

 I can but sow the seed. I have sown it to-day ; I am 

 honoured to do thus much ; but the prediction, : true in 

 reference to all matters, is that * one soweth and another 

 reapeth.' I am not so selfish or so thoughtless as to wish 

 it were otherwise. Institutions, like all other things, grow 

 faster in these days than they did of old ; but perennial 

 things are still slow of growth, and the most enduring the 

 slowest of all. We must be content to pluck the first fruits, 

 and leave the full harvest to be gathered by those who 

 follow. But that its first and last fruits may alike conduce 

 to the glory of God and the good of man, is my prayer ; 

 and, therefore, we will confide it to Him who, eighteen 

 hundred years ago, dignified and made honourable the 

 humblest craft, by permitting Himself to be called the Son 

 of the Carpenter, and who now stretches forth His divine 

 hand to bless all honest, earnest labour." 



Though the House of Commons had, in 1854, voted < 

 7,ooo/. to purchase a site for the Industrial Museum of 

 Scotland, no steps were taken in the erection of buildings 

 for it till some progress had been made in collecting suitable 

 objects. In the spring of 1855, the Independent Chapel in 

 Argyle Square which Dr. Wilson had attended as a place 



