PROVINCIAL INSTITUTIONS; SOCIETIES, ETC, 
229 
Provincial Institutions and Societies. 
The large amount of space which we have deemed it necessary to appro- 
priate to the important subject of Science Schools, allows us to do little 
more than to acknowledge the following Reports, &c. : — • 
The Wigan Mechanics' Institution comprises a library, newsroom, even- 
ing classes, mining and mechanical (science) school, gymnasium, singing 
class, “ Society of Arts” class, public readings and lectures, excursions, a 
chess-club, and a penny savings’-bank. It has been in existence seven 
years, and is supported by the leading gentlemen in Wigan and the 
neighbourhood. 
The Liverpool Chemists' Association, intended chiefly for the improve- 
ment of young chemists and druggists’ apprentices. It commenced its 
operations in 1854 with 73 members and associates, and now numbers 
upwards of 186 members. 
The lectures are all of the most interesting and practical nature, and the 
library contains the most important recent scientific works. 
Southampton Microscopical Society. The President of this institution. 
Dr. J. Bullar, says : — 
“ The social aspect of our society commends it. It is a pleasant way of 
spending an evening where there is a scientific object of natural interest, and, 
at the same time, a social gathering of many having the same tastes and 
objects, and, therefore, the same sympathies. The anatomy of an insect, too, 
is a more harmless occupation than the minute dissection of a neighbour’s 
natural history. Tea and coffee, pleasant chat with those of like tastes, 
and then the table covered with microscopes and the specimens explained 
by one and passed round for each to examine, calling out animated talk on 
subjects worth discussing, or a short paper read and discussed on the subject 
illustrated, are civilizing. For science is a civilizer. It refines the tastes 
and elevates the thoughts, as it is the search after truth for truth’s own 
sake. And in this age, when the progress of the nation and of the world 
is estimated by the money-value of exports and imports (and in this aspect 
the world’s progress is prodigious and annually increasing), the danger 
must lie in estimating all things in reference to money rather than to truth. 
Now, science is a counteracting force. It neither brings wealth to its true 
cultivators, nor can wealth buy scientific tastes or scientific fame. It 
belongs to a higher region than 4 the diggings.’ It must breathe ‘ a purer 
ether, a diviner air.’ And those who are engrossed in commerce would 
often do well, for their own content and happiness, by seeking in the 
recreations of science a complete change of action, thought, and feeling. 
Obviously the eye service which the microscope requires, trains the eye to 
minute and discriminative observation, and the hand to delicate accuracy. 
It leads on, if used scientifically, to the improvement of the scientific 
powers. The memory, the investigation of causes, the estimation of evi- 
dence, the power of distinguishing and of generalizing may be called into 
activity. But the mind has other and deeper needs than these. The senses 
lead to the awakening and culture of deeper powers inherent in the soul 
itself, and the microscope may excite and cultivate, not only the sense of 
the true, but of the beautiful. Constable, the landscape-painter, said that, 
pictorially, nothiug in nature was ugly ; and surely we may say the same 
microscopically. The higher the magnifying powers, the more minutely 
extensive the investigations, the more beauty do we see. Even in the un- 
healthy secretions, — in what look to the unscientific eye like repulsive 
