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the local public in a very able letter addressed by my friend, 

 Mr. Loewenthal, the President of the Linen Merchants' Asso- 

 ciation, to that body, and shortly thereafter brought by deputa- 

 tion from that body before the Chamber of Commerce, that I 

 need not now refer to it at any great length. The importance 

 of the subject has long been recognised in several Continental 

 countries ; the result being that in chemistry, and in the arts 

 as applied to decorative furniture and architecture, room-papers, 

 curtain and other fabrics, whether with designs woven into or 

 printed on them, and to other articles, we are simply beaten. 

 The manufacturing towns in England and Scotland are now 

 fully alive to the importance of not allowing themselves to get 

 further behind ; and, in most cases, without waiting for Govern- 

 ment aid, the want has been supplied either by private libera- 

 lity, as in the case of the Mason College at Birmingham and the 

 intended Baxter College at Dundee, or by public subscription, 

 as in the case of the Yorkshire College at Leeds. The large 

 cities and towns of Glasgow, Bradford, Huddersfield, and others 

 have schools which make weaving and designing a speciality ; 

 while Sheffield has one more devoted to its particular industries, 

 such as metallurgy, &c. Four months ago a new university 

 college was opened at Nottingham, part of the aim of which is 

 the teaching of technology. The instructions in this depart- 

 ment (as I learn from Mr. Loewenthal's letter) will embrace the 

 manufacture of cloth, cotton, silk, lace and hosiery, bleaching, 

 dyeing and printing, mechanics, chemistry, light, heat, steam, 

 electricity and magnetism, machine drawing, principles of 

 mining, and almost as many more subjects, which I do not wish 

 to occupy more of your time in enumerating. I have to thank 

 my friend, Mr. John Marshall, of Leeds, for kindly sending me a 

 copy of the seventh annual report of the Yorkshire College (June, 

 1881); and from this I see that among many general subjects, 

 the following are prominent : — Experimental physics, chemistry, 

 geology and mining, and, separately, coal mining, and civil and 

 mechanical engineering. As might be expected in Leeds, the 

 capital of the immense woollen manufacturing industry of 

 Yorkshire, the textile industries and dyeing departments receive 



