1801.] THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 185 



As soon as this addition to the buildings shall be com- 

 pleted, and not before, there will be room in the house for 

 the accommodation of a certain number of young men, from 

 eighteen to twenty in number, of different mechanical 

 professions, who, at the recommendation of proprietors, 

 will be taken into the house to be instructed ; who will be 

 boarded and lodged in the house and be employed in the 

 workshops, and for whose improvement in drawing, prac- 

 tical geometry, and mathematics an evening school, under 

 the direction of the Clerk of the Works (Mr. Webster), who 

 was formerly a teacher in such a school, will be established 

 in the house in a room adjoining the workshops. As most 

 of the young men who will be admitted to this seminary 

 will probably come from distant parts of the country, and 

 will return home after a residence of three or four months 

 at the Institution, carrying with them a perfect knowledge 

 of such new and useful inventions applicable to the common 

 purposes of life as may be deserving of being generally 

 known and adopted, it is easy to foresee that this arrange- 

 ment will be of great and extensive public utility. It is, 

 perhaps, that part of the establishment precisely which will 

 be the most interesting, and which will contribute the most 

 powerfully to the attainment of the principal object of the 

 Institution the diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the 

 general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and 

 improvements. 



The proprietors, he says, were 325 ; life subscribers, 268 ; 

 and annual subscribers, 527. 



He concludes thus : 



We may safely look forward with confidence to a period 

 not far distant when the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 

 complete in all its details, and in full activity, will become 

 so interesting that every person of liberality and discern- 

 ment who takes pleasure in contemplating the process of 

 human improvement, will be desirous of belonging to it 

 and willing to assist in promoting its permanent prosperity. 



