232 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Moreover, all around us betokens intellectual progress. 
When the Premier of England, during the interval of re¬ 
laxation from liis official duties, not only does not refuse 
hut delights to preside at meetings of ragged schools and 
brigades of shoeblacks, and, in common with others of the 
aristocracy, urges upon the members of mechanics’ institutes 
the necessity of their becoming acquainted with the sciences ; 
not only as they may apply to their particular calling in 
life, hut to extend their investigations to one and all, as 
means and opportunities present themselves; when there 
are collegiate schools for the working classes, and encou¬ 
ragement is given to emulous students to undergo examina¬ 
tion at the Society of Arts; while both middle and upper- 
class competitive examinations are instituted for civil and 
military appointments, and the science certificates for 
teachers in artisan classes are yearly increasing, it is surely 
required of us, as a profession, to be up and doing, lest 
we should be overtaken and distanced in the race of mind. 
Fast are the chilling frost-mists of ignorance being dispelled 
by the bright rising of the sun of science, which in this our 
day seems to have put on the seven-leagued boots of the fairy 
tale, so rapid and so wide are its strides. What has been said 
of Truth, may also be said of her hand-maiden, Knowledge. 
“ It may be obscured, maj' be veiled, may be hidden, but it 
shall nevertheless be ascendant. It shall fill the universe 
with a flood of molten glory. It shall bathe the mountain- 
tops, and - crest the ocean waves, and light up the valleys 
with a glow of heavenly beauty, and ignorance shall flee 
into the depths of fathomless abyss, for it shall not find a 
resting-place for its foot upon the earth.” 
“ Spes magna futuri.” 
