226 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT 



the movement inaugurated by Dr. George Birkbeck 

 returned a full and conclusive answer. It responded, at 

 the proper time, to a national need and to a need of 

 human nature. Not only in the various districts of 

 London, but also in various towns throughout the 

 country, and even beyond the bounds of England, in- 

 stitutions sprang up, founded on the model of the 

 London Mechanics' Institution, which afterwards be- 

 came the famous Birkbeck Institution, the anniversary 

 of which we celebrate to-day. 



Speaking of the opportune beneficence of Dr. Birk- 

 beck's movement reminds me that in the days of 

 my youth, personally and directly, I derived profit from 

 that movement. In 1 842, and thereabouts, it was my 

 privilege to be a member of the Preston Mechanics' 

 Institution to attend its lectures and make use of 

 its library. A learned and accomplished clergyman, 

 named, if I remember aright, John Clay, chaplain of 

 the House of Correction, lectured from time to time 

 on mechanics. A fine earnest old man, named, I think, 

 Moses Holden, lectured on astronomy, while other 

 lecturers took up the subjects of general physics, 

 chemistry, botany, and physiology. My recollection of 

 it is dim, but the instruction then received entered, 

 I doubt not, into the texture of my mind, and influenced 

 me in after-life. One experiment made in these lec- 

 tures I have never forgotten. Surgeon Corless, I think 

 it was, who lectured on respiration, explaining among 

 other things the changes produced by the passage of 

 air through the lungs. What went in as free oxygen 

 came out bound up in carbonic acid. To prove this he 

 took a flask of lime-water and, by means of a glass 

 tube dipped into it, forced his breath through the 

 water. The carbonic acid from the lungs seized upon 

 the dissolved liine, converting it into carbonate of lime, 



