28 SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 



an indefinite extent, modify the practical manifestation 

 of the characters of men in their actions, by supplying 

 them with motives unknown to the ignorant. A pleas- 

 ure-loving character will have pleasure of some sort ; 

 but, if you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures 

 which do not degrade him to those which do. And this 

 choice is offered to every man, who possesses in literary 

 or artistic culture a never-failing source of pleasures, 

 which are neither withered by age, nor staled by cus- 

 tom, nor embittered in the recollection by the pangs of 

 self-reproach. 



If the Institution opened to-day fulfils the intention 

 of its founder, the picked intelligences among all classes 

 of the population of this district will pass through it. 

 No child born in Birmingham, henceforward, if he have 

 the capacity to profit by the opportunities offered to 

 him, first in the primary and other schools, and after- 

 wards in the Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not 

 merely the instruction, but the culture most appropriate 

 to the conditions of his life. 



"Within these walls, the future employer and the 

 future artisan may sojourn together for a while, and 

 carry, through all their lives, the stamp of the influences 

 then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it is not 

 beside the mark to remind you, that the prosperity of 

 industry depends not merely upon the improvement of 

 manufacturing processes, not merely upon the ennobling 

 of the individual character, but upon a third condition, 

 namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of social 



