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proved so successful. Again, so far back as about twenty years ago, 
he inaugurated an agitation by delivering speeches and publishing 
pamphlets on the necessity for the introduction of temperance 
teaching into school books. This proposal was at first treated as too 
Utopian to be seriously entertained; but before he died he was 
privileged to see Dr Benjamin Richardson’s Temperance Manual 
largely introduced into many of the public schools, while temperance 
lessons were being introduced into the school books published by 
Messrs W. & R. Chambers, Collins & Son, Nelson & Sons, and 
other noted publishers. 
The institution which had the benefit of a large share of Mr Knox’s 
interest and effort during the last few years of his life was the 
Watt Institute and School of Arts, the earliest of the Mechanics 
Institutes founded in the United Kingdom. He was appointed 
Hon. Treasurer in November 1876, and since that time a complete 
revolution has been effected in the interesting history of the School. 
The time and labour which he gave in supporting and co-operating 
with Lord Shand, the President of this People’s College, in efforts to 
extend the usefulness of the school amongst the industrial classes it 
would be difficult to overestimate : the result was an accession of 
students in increasing numbers in a degree perhaps unprecedented 
in the history of any educational institution. Having regard to 
the general interest taken in the School at the present time by all 
sections of the citizens, it may be mentioned that the number of 
students in 1875-76 was 1098; in 1876-77, 1404 ; 1877-78, 
1977 ; 1878-79, 2185 ; and 1879-80, 2375. Thus in four years 
the increase was 1280. In that short period the attendance was 
more than double, and nothing tended to this result more powerfully 
than Mr Knox’s constant attendance at the classes in the evening 
when his business labours were over, and his kind words of encourage- 
ment to the students. It is an interesting fact that the last few 
hours of Mr Knox’s life were devoted by him to this institution. 
Before retiring to rest on the night of his death, he wrote out the 
draft of the Annual Report, in which he made an earnest appeal that 
the directors might be supported in their endeavours, by means of 
a union with the Heriot Trust, not only to maintain the School in 
a state of efficiency, but to extend it greatly, so as that it should 
become a People’s College for Technical Education, really worthy of 
