242 THE EOYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. IV. 



place of a subordinate university to those whose sex or 

 situation in life has denied them the advantage of an 

 academical education in the national seminaries of learning. 



With regard to the special objects of the Institution, 

 the theory of practical mechanics and of manufactures, 

 he said : 



We must be more practical than academies of science and 

 more theoretical than societies for the improvement of arts ; 

 while we endeavour at the same time to give stability to 

 our proceedings by an annual recurrence to the elementary 

 knowledge which is subservient to the purposes of both 

 and, as far as we are able, apply to practice the newest 

 lights which may from time to time be thrown on particular 

 branches of mechanical science. It is thus that we may 

 most effectually perform what the idolised sophists of an- 

 tiquity but verbally professed to bring down philosophy 

 from the heavens and to make her an inhabitant of the 

 earth. 



We may venture to affirm that out of every hundred of 

 fancied improvements in arts or in machines ninety at least, 

 if not ninety-nine, are either old or useless ; the object of 

 our researches is to enable ourselves to distinguish and to 

 adopt the hundredth. But, while we prune the luxuriant 

 shoots of youthful invention, we must remember to perform 

 our task with leniency, and to show that we wish only to 

 give additional vigour to the healthful branches, and not to 

 extirpate the parent plant. 



He spoke of the repository of models as being a 

 supplementary room for apparatus exhibited and de- 

 scribed in the lectures, and i where a few other articles 

 may perhaps deserve admission.' He mentioned the 

 library and the Journals as free from commercial 

 shackles, but made no mention of the workshops nor of 

 the education of artisans. 



