70 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



which no more embrace oral instruction in science than those of the 

 officers of the Library comprehend oral instruction in literature, may 

 lead to the imposition of duties, foreign to their proper business, upon 

 the already overburdened staff of keepers and their assistants. 



In Francis Bacon's apocalypse of science, the " New Atlantis," the 

 Father of Solomon's House — he, whose countenance was " as if he 

 pitied men," — declares that the end of that foundation is " the know- 

 ledge of causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the 

 bounds of human empire to the effecting of all things possible." 



I think that the Chancellor would have acknowledged the New 

 Natural History Museum to be a goodly wing of such a House, devoted 

 to the former of the objects which he mentions ; but, it may be, that 

 his practical mind, looking always to fruit, and caring for light 

 chiefly as something essential to fruit-bearing, would have been even 

 better satisfied with another building hard by, which has been 

 devoted to the encouragement of those applications of science 

 through which human empire is directly extended, by the well- 

 directed munificence of the City and Guilds of London. 



This building, destined for a central institution in which ample 

 provision shall be made for thorough and practical training in so 

 much of the principles and the methods of the physical sciences as is 

 needful for those who aspire to take part in the development of arts 

 and manufactures, has been completed at a cost of more than £70,000, 

 while £20,000 has yet to be spent upon fittings and appliances, and 

 the working expenses, if the scheme is to be fully developed, cannot 

 be estimated at less than £10,000 a year. 



Having already been called upon to take an active part in the 

 deliberations of the committees charged with the carrying out of this 

 great work, I think I am justified in expressing the hope, and indeed 

 the confident expectation, that, before long, this new Technical 

 College will be in full activity ; and that, for the first time in our 

 history, there will be called into existence an institution in which, 

 without leaving this country, masters, managers, and foremen of 

 works will be enabled to obtain thorough instruction not only in 

 scientific theory, but in the essential principles of practice ; and a 

 machinery will be created, by which the poorest working lad in a 

 manufacturing town, if he have ability and perseverance, may be 

 brought within reach of the best technical education that is to be had. 



There can be no doubt that the founders of the Royal Society had 

 prominently before their minds the intention of promoting the useful 

 arts and sciences " that so (in the language of the draft of the 

 preamble to the first charter, which is said to have been drawn up by 

 Sir Christopher Wren) by laying in a stock as it were of several arts 

 and methods of industry, the whole body [of the nation] may be 

 supplied by a mutual commerce of each other's peculiar faculties, and, 



