296 APPENDIX. [No. XXI. 



great, that more than half the errors of mankind may be traced to this 

 source alone. 



Before you are called into action, also, your mind must be stored with 

 facts and principles properly to guide your designs. The child knows 

 but little, and does scarcely anything ; the boy has more facts, and there- 

 fore effects more ; but the man is in the plenitude of his power till age 

 weakens him, and lessens his capability. The faculty of action is called 

 the DYNAMIC FACULTY ; and to judge of what you may be called upon to 

 do, consider what has been done since the period when I was but a youth. 

 Since that time the railway system has been devised ; and then consider 

 the tunnels, the cuttings, the embankments, the bridges, and the many ela- 

 borate contrivances necessary to be devised before this great revolution in 

 locomotion could be effected. During the same period, also, the electric 

 telegraph has been invented ; and now intelligence is conveyed so rapidly 

 that events are daily transmitted over extensive regions of the globe, and 

 frequently a knowledge of events is received at one part of the globe at an 

 earlier period by the clock than that at which they actually happen. 



Again, the application of electro-metallurgy to the arts has led to 

 great improvements, and most extensive alterations in our processes. 

 Moreover, in the course of the same period, the Thames Tunnel has been 

 constructed under the river Thames ; and also the Britannia Bridge, which 

 crosses over an arm of the sea. The formation of a palace of iron and 

 glass is another example of an extraordinary effort of human intellect. 

 It is impossible for you to tell what may be effected in a similar number 

 of future years ; and if you desire to take part in the rapid course of 

 human improvement, your mind must have been stored beforehand with 

 those units of knowledge which I have already described. 



As youths you are neither expected, nor are you competent, to carry 

 out any great work ; but certain things you can do for yourselves, and 

 you can thus bring your knowledge into play within reasonable limits. 

 You do not require expensive materials for many processes. A few little 

 glasses and a retort will enable you to make analyses, and even to manu- 

 facture many substances. In these employments you will find great 

 amusement in the long evenings of winter, as well as in the dreary wet 

 weather which sometimes occurs in the Christmas holidays. 



At this Institution, during these holidays in the present year, Mr. 

 Malone has arranged to receive a limited number of young persons and to 

 give them laboratory instruction ; and those who take advantage of his 

 teaching, will thus be enabled to conduct many chemical processes for 

 themselves in the laboratory of this building. 



Accurate original research often requires costly apparatus ; but to 

 carry out that which is known, the simplest contrivances will suffice. I am 

 tempted here to show you a little electrical apparatus which I once set up 

 on the spur of the moment. "We had a beautiful garden in one of the 

 London suburbs, and we received information that whilst the family were 

 at dinner a systematic robbery of the fruit was carried on. After ponder- 

 ing over the matter, I got some wire, and connected it at one end with a 

 battery and at the other with a cup of mercury ; and with another wire I 

 connected again the mercury to the other pole of the battery, enclosing in 

 the circuit a magnet, the keeper of which was attached to the alarum of a 

 Dutch clock. I then stretched a delicate piece of thread across the garden, 



