

1810.] THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 297 



we have likewise no inconsiderable claim. The Koyal 

 Institution is able to offer assistance in investigations 

 of great interest connected with public works and the 

 promotion of arts and manufactures. 



' Our doors are to be open to all who wish to profit by 

 knowledge ; and I may venture to hope that even the 

 female part of our audiences may not diminish, and 

 that they will honour the plan with an attention which 

 is independent of fashion or the taste of the moment, 

 and connected with the use, the permanence, and the 

 pleasure of intellectual acquisitions. It is not our 

 intention to invite them to assist in the laboratories, 

 but to partake of that healthy and refined amusement 

 which results from a perception of the variety, order, 

 and harmony existing in all the kingdoms of nature, 

 and to encourage the study of those more elegant 

 departments of science which at once tend to exalt the 

 understanding and purify the heart. 



6 The leisure of the higher female classes is so great, 

 and their influence in society so strong, that it is 

 almost a duty that they should endeavour to awaken 

 and keep alive a love of improvement and instruction. 



' Let them make it disgraceful for men to be ignorant, 

 and ignorance will vanish, and that part of their empire 

 founded upon mental improvement will be strengthened 

 and exalted by time, will be untouched by age, will be 

 immortal in its youth. 



6 Even in the common relations of society how much 

 must be referred to the conduct of the female mind. 

 The mother gives, or ought to give, most of the early 

 impressions to the child, and his future habits may 



