830 General Results of a Gardening Tour : — 



Mechanics' Institutions are also quite new since 1805, though 

 they are now to be found in most of the large towns. The 

 powerful impulse which established them seems in some places 

 to have subsided ; and in Birmingham and in one or two 

 other towns they are said to be falling off. An intelligent 

 lecturer on this subject, in the Birmingham Mechanics' Insti- 

 tution, Mr. W. Pare, has endeavoured to prove that this 

 falling off is owing to a fundamental error in the principles on 

 which they have been established. The promoters of these In- 

 stitutions, he says, " have virtually excluded the more amus- 

 ing and attractive branches of human knowledge, by aim- 

 ing to render them too exclusively and immediately useful." 

 Instead of imparting only such information as was connected 

 with the daily avocations of the working classes, Mr. Pare 

 would endeavour at the same time to excite in them a love of 

 knowledge generally, and the spread of moral refinement. 

 He would endeavour to " awaken the powers of general 

 reflection, and to purify and heighten the moral sensibili- 

 ties ; " to effect, in short, that final object of all education, 

 " the improvement of the moral character and habits, and 

 the diffusion of happiness." * Nothing is more conducive to 

 the happiness of the individual (the means of comfortable 

 existence being first provided for) than the cultivation of the 

 heart and of the affections. To teach man how to pursue 

 this kind of cultivation is one of the most important, though 

 almost wholly neglected, branches of education. 



Cooperative Societies are of still more recent origin than 

 Mechanics' Institutions. Their object has been stated more 

 than once in this Magazine. They are decidedly on the 

 increase in all the large towns, and the most important conse- 

 quences are expected to result from them, by those political 

 economists who seem to have paid much attention to the 

 subject. One thing is clear, that to be a good cooperator it 

 is necessary in the first place to be an intelligent and moral 

 man. The proceedings and prospects of cooperative societies 

 will be found recorded in the Voice of the People, Midland 

 Representative, Chester Courant, and Carlisle Journal ; news- 

 papers which, in point of sound political intelligence, are of 

 the first order. 



Lms and Puhlic-Jiouses ought not to escape observation in a 

 tour to mark the progress of rural and domestic improve- 

 ment. The latter, as far as we have observed them, appear 

 to have greatly improved, but by no means the former. By 

 turning to our letter from Munich (Vol. IV. p. 497.)> an i^i- 



* The Midland Representative, July 9. 1831. 



