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 DONALDSON 
 
 ON ADULT EDUCATION 
 AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 c. 
 
 V 
 
 ON 
 
 
 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 AND 
 
 SELF-IMrUOVEMENT. 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 YOUNG MEN'S INSTITUTE, 
 
 Of 
 
 BURY ST. EDMUND'S, 
 
 ON 
 
 THEIR SECOND ANNIVERSARY, 
 
 The im Maij, 1852, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON, D. D., 
 
 HEAD MASTER OF BURY SCHOOL, 
 
 BURY ST. EDMUND'S: 
 PRINTED BY W. FULLER, ABBEYGATE STREET.
 
 
 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 AND 
 
 SELF-IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 No one, who is not blind to the signs of the times, 
 can fail to perceive that the future destinies 
 of this country must depend on the success with 
 which we carry out the great undertaking of edu- 
 cating the whole community. But although this 
 is generally admitted, I think it is often sup- 
 posed that this problem is confined to the duty 
 of providing school-training for the children of 
 the lower orders. This supposition, whenever it 
 is productive of any effect on the conduct of indi- 
 viduals, must be regarded as a mischievous error ; 
 for it induces a forgetfulness of the reasons which 
 make it desirable that the mental and moral culti- 
 vation of all classes should be duly regarded, and 
 that the school training of the lower orders, and 
 working classes should be continued and completed. 
 Now we must educate the upper classes, if we 
 would not deprive rank of its only lustre, and 
 wealth of its greatest charm ; we must educate 
 the middle classes, if we would furnish them with 
 the inducements for shaking off the selfishness of 
 indolent respectability, if we would enable them 
 to resist the aggressions of intrusive bigotry, if we 
 would break down the party-walls of class-preju- 
 dices, if we would inspire every one of those who 
 have virtually a large share in the government of 
 England, with an enlightened regard for his own 
 and his country's welfare; and lastly, we must 
 
 1 090«^,01
 
 2 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 educate the lower orders, if we would make the 
 the labouring man feel that he is a responsible and 
 rational being, not a mere tool for doing work, or 
 an echo for propagating opinions which he does 
 not understand ; we must educate the lower orders, 
 if we would give them that reverence for law, 
 that sense of truth and justice, that habit of self- 
 respect and self-control, without which we cannot 
 ensure the gradual amelioration of our institutions 
 from the risk of revolutionary disturbances, and 
 save this country from the alternative so sternly 
 proposed to many nations on the Continent — the al- 
 ternative of choosing between despotism or anarchy. 
 If the man of rank and fortune is not pro- 
 perly educated, we have either the rude sports- 
 man who despises literature, or the voluptuarj'-, 
 who scoffs at morality, or the town dandy, who 
 dawdles away the brief and precious hours of 
 existence in the pursuit of contemptible frivolity. 
 All these, and others more or less like them, are 
 lost to their country and their age. They live 
 and die without having effected anything, except 
 so far as they have succeeded in making their 
 order odious in the eyes of those beneath them. 
 Fortunately the aristocracy of this comitry have 
 always been distinguished, in the majority of 
 instances, by their endowments of mind and cha- 
 racter — no less than by the nobility or opidence 
 to which they are born. In tliis country, as in 
 Greece, the gentleman is an accomplished and 
 good, as well as a rich or highly-connected man : 
 and happily we may often add that he is the true 
 knight, who bears the cross on his shield, on his 
 sword hilt, and in his heart, who exhibits the 
 spirit of Christianity in the unsullied brightness 
 of his honour, m the unselfish devotedness of his 
 person al courage, and in the unaffected benevo-
 
 AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT. O 
 
 lence of his demeanour and conduct. It is for this 
 reason that the English noble is loved, respected, 
 and imitated by his inferiors ; it is for this reason 
 that he is permitted while still a stripling to lead 
 the stern discipline of our embattled array, it is 
 for this reason that his success, in equal competi- 
 tions to which all are admitted, is ahvays greeted 
 with general approbation. It cannot be denied 
 that a great deal has been done of late years to 
 improve the education of the upper classes. Very 
 rarely now-a-days do we meet with those examples 
 of violence, effrontery, shameless profligacy, and 
 brutal stupidity, which some of us remember, and 
 of which we may all read. Public opinion, and 
 its great engine, the press, have done something to 
 abate the scandal ; but a great deal more must be 
 attributed to the improvement of that public edu- 
 cation, by which the minds of the young of the 
 Tipper classes are especially influenced. At first, 
 only some few schools were distinguished by the 
 tone of christian and gentlemanly feeling which 
 they imparted to their pupils ; and I remember, that 
 when I was in residence at Cambridge, T could tell 
 by a young man's manner and conduct from which 
 of the public schools he had come up to College. 
 But now an inattention to education properly so 
 called, is the exception rather than the rule at 
 those places, where the upper classes receive their 
 boyish training, and the effect of this is felt through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land. 
 
 Of the education of the great middle class at 
 the present clay it is somewhat difficult to speak. 
 Divided as it is into a number of different subsec- 
 tions, it is perhaps impossible to say anything 
 which does not require a great deal of special 
 qualification. But if we define the middle class 
 as consisting of those who are engaged in making
 
 4 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 money by some kind of business, and who enjoy 
 by virtue of their exertions all the comforts, 
 and a varying proportion of the luxuries of 
 life, the following picture may be maintained 
 (of course with individual exceptions,) as generally 
 true in its outline and colouring. The man of 
 business as such is generally prone to acquiesce 
 in the consciousness of liis own respectability. If 
 he is ambitious to l>e fashionable or aristocratic, 
 he is found to imitate rather the expensiveness 
 than the accomplishments af the class above him. 
 But when most satisfied with his own position, 
 he seems to care for little beyond his personal and 
 domestic comforts, and the decencies of his out- 
 ward appearance. Abundant meals, and good 
 clothes, and a well furnishecl parlour, are the 
 extent of his wishes. And he measures things 
 without his own circle by the ideas which suffice 
 for his own narrow world. Hence he is^ too often 
 thetool of bigotry, the echo of stereotyped opinions, 
 the victim of class prejudices, the blind or obstinate 
 advocate of measures which have no connexion 
 with his own or his country's better interests. If 
 this is a true description, Englishmen of the middle 
 class must be very difficult to educate. Indeed, 
 I am inclined to regard them as jitactically the 
 great stumbling-block in the way of a general 
 diffusion of higher cultivation in this country ; 
 and while I would take all means to induce them 
 to seek a better kiud of education for their chil- 
 dren, I place my hopes of an improvement in 
 their intellectual condition, an improvement on 
 which, as I have said, the prospects of this coun- 
 try very much depend, in the lateral pressure of 
 the upper and lower classes, when the ameliorated 
 education of the latter shall combine with the 
 daily increasing condescension of the former, and 
 both together break through the crust of comfort-
 
 \>ID SELF-IMPllOVEMENT, O 
 
 able indolence in which our tradesmen and pro- 
 fessional men so often envelope themselves. 
 
 The intellectual improvement of the lower or- 
 der, is the most practicable^ and most influential, 
 though not ultimately the most important de- 
 partment iu this great Ijusiness of national educa- 
 tion. It must result from the increased enlightmcnt 
 and awakened discernment of the higher or- 
 der among us, and will in the end, combined with 
 this, and directed by it, rc-act on the more inert 
 mass of the middle classes. On the present occa- 
 sion, it is my intention not so much to discuss, 
 however briefly, the general question of education, 
 as to indicate the best way of working the 
 machine which you have recently set iu motion, 
 and to which you desire to give the most exten- 
 sively useful application. I shall therefore say 
 nothing about Schools, though of course you will 
 })rcsume that I am an advocate for the establish- 
 ment of Schools iu every nook and corner of this 
 Island. There is scarcely any kind of school, to 
 which I would not extend that amount of support 
 and encouragement which it deserved and required. 
 Ragged schools, and respectable schools, endowed 
 schools.'and self-supporting schools, Sunday schools, 
 and week-day schools, infant schools, and schools 
 for children of a larger growth are all in their 
 different degrees worthy of consideration and as- 
 sistance. But I must take this part of the subject 
 for granted, and apply myself to the case before 
 me. I am addressing a " A Yot xg Men's In- 
 stitute;" I am requested to state my views as to 
 the best way of managing and guiding a society 
 consisting mainly of young persons engaged in 
 some kind of labour, fostered indeed and patron- 
 ized by the highest and most educated class in this 
 tosvn and neighbourhood, but really carried out on
 
 6 ADULT EDUCA.TIOJf 
 
 the principle of mutual instruction and self-im- 
 provement. All of you, Members, have received 
 some sort of elementary school instruction, and you 
 are all supposed to be inspired by the laudable am- 
 bition of improvinc^ to the utmost the faculties and 
 opportunities Avhich God has given you. And the 
 question is — how are we to make this Institute 
 most completely available for the good object 
 which you have in view ? 
 
 In the first place, it is desirable that you should 
 include in yoiir Society as large a number as possi- 
 ble of the young mechanics or intelligent labourers 
 of this Town. The Mechanics' Institute, has, as 
 I think most unwisely, refused to receive you as an 
 integral part of its own composition. I attribute 
 this to the influence of middle class prejudices ; 
 and I see no alternative for you, but to work out 
 by yourselves the problem which you wished to 
 undertake with their frank and active co-operation. 
 The arguments, by which they supported the re • 
 jection of your overtures for amalgamation, were 
 those, which are generally satisfactory to the 
 middle class of Englishmen ; for they merely a- 
 mounted to a declaration of their contentment with 
 an existing state of things. If they have since 
 then endeavoured to widen the basis of their 
 society, they have done so under the pressure of 
 those stimulants which your continued existence 
 seems to supply, and which they call agitation. 
 But even if what they propose weresufficient to meet 
 all the exigencies of the case, they must be aware 
 that it is now too late to check your independent 
 action; and as it is desirable that there should be 
 no division among the young men of Bury who 
 are anxious for self -improvement, it is to be hoped 
 that they will join you in sufficient numbers to se- 
 cure your cfibctual working. So convinced am
 
 AND SELF-IMPKOVEMENT, 7 
 
 I that there is not room for two such societies in 
 Bury, that I must confine what I can do to the 
 particular institute which seems to me most likely 
 to be an effectual agent in the improvement of 
 intellectual culture in this Town, especially if 
 T observe in any other society tendencies which 
 the well- wishers of diffused and generally accessi- 
 ble knowledge must regard as hostile or ob- 
 structive . 
 
 And this leads me to consider, in the second 
 place, the claims which this Institute makes to the 
 support and assistance of the higher classes in the 
 Town and Neighbourhood. You count among 
 your patrons and members all, or nearly all, of the 
 most completely educated and accomplished per- 
 sons in the district. And if they continue to sup- 
 port you, I think you may consider yourselves in 
 a more favourable position in regard to the true 
 sources of your intellectual wealth than any simi- 
 lar society in this Country. 
 
 AVhcn Institutions of this kind were first formed 
 in Great Britain, it was proposed even by those 
 who were most active in their establishment that no 
 persons of the better class — none in fact, except 
 Mechanics and Artizans, should be admitted to 
 any participation in the management or direction, 
 or even be counted among the members. This 
 was soon felt to be a course calculated to keep up 
 those class-prejudices,which education ought to ex- 
 tirpate, and it was well remarked in a Northern 
 Paper that the exclusion of the riche:i^nd more 
 educated would render it impossible to work the 
 machinery with any effect. '^As the most promi- 
 nent feature of this establishment," says a waiter 
 in the Leeds Mercury of 1823, "would be the re- 
 gular Delivery of Lectui'es, we apprehend it 
 would not be easy to find persons in this Town at
 
 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 once qualified and disposed to lecture ; and they 
 cannot be engaged from other places but at a heavy 
 expense. In Edinburgh and Glasgow, where 
 some of the Professors of the Universities have 
 lectured gratuitously, and where scientific men are 
 very abundant, this difficulty is not experienced." 
 Now I think it will be admitted by any one 
 who is acquainted with the present state of Bury 
 St. Edmund's, that the number of persons here 
 who are able to contribute by Lecturing or other- 
 wise to the spread of knowledge in this locality, 
 bears a large, an unusually large proportion to the 
 population of the place, you have here not only 
 the well-bred and accomjjlishcd gentleman, who is 
 found in all parts of England, but you have also 
 literary and scientific men of no ordinary learning 
 and ability, who are but thinly scattered over this 
 Island, and all these have shown a willingness to 
 contribute in different ways to the social and intel- 
 lectual culture of the Town. Whatever plans 
 then you may be able to form for self-education 
 and mutual improvement, you can count upon 
 encouragement and support of the best kind. And 
 if I may assume that your society will include, if 
 not the majority, at least sufficient number of the 
 intelligent and industrious young men of the place, 
 if I may assume that the educated class will as 
 heretofore encourage you with symjjathy, and 
 assist you by the gratuitous outpourings of their 
 own matured and ready knowledge, (and I think 
 
 1 may assume both the one and the other), I can 
 have no doubt as to the niode of action most likely 
 to bring to good effect the intentions with which 
 
 . this society has been formed. 
 
 To begin with yourselves. The first prerequi- 
 site is to take care that you do not sell yourselves 
 to any employment which will be incompatible
 
 AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT. \) 
 
 with a reasonable amount of leisure for self-im- 
 provement. The early closing system, or the 
 limitation of the hours of toil, toward the estab- 
 lishment of which so much has been done of late 
 years, is the essential condition without which the 
 working man or mechanic will be unable to profit 
 by the advantages held out by societies like yours. 
 Our wish is to give every man an individual con- 
 sciousness and independent existence j to let him 
 live, as all responsible beings must live, as a free 
 member of the social body to which he belongs ; 1 o 
 allow him to exercise the untrammelled energies of 
 his nature. Otherwise, as an able writer has said, 
 " he will not be cheered by any idea of the true 
 dignity of his ministry ;" he will become an inse- 
 parable adjunct to some comi)lex machinery of 
 labour, and, losing his distinctive humanity, he 
 will become a tool instead of a man. Therefore do 
 not sell all your hours for wages, but retain some 
 part as a store for duty and a tribute to your 
 immortal nature. 
 
 But supposing that you have secured to your- 
 selves a reasonable amount of leisure, your next 
 business is to see to its right employment. If you 
 bestow your spare time on self-indulgence and 
 dissipation, you'are in a worse condition than if 
 you had no spare time at all. Better far to be a 
 useful tool than to be the bond slave of foolish or 
 degrading inclinations. As far as relaxation is 
 concerned, I think that those, whose work is of a 
 sedentary and indoor description, o,ught always to 
 bestow a certain time dn exercise ^n the open air. 
 Healthful exercise is essential to the development 
 of an unclouded intellect. But when this claim 
 is satisfied, there ought to be no choice between 
 intellectual and other anuisemcnts. The words 
 tedious, dull, dry, unentertaining , when applied
 
 10 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 to such pursuits as elevate the mind, belong only 
 to the vocabulary of a puerile, pampered, and 
 frivolous being. Those who live upon sweetmeats 
 have a distaste for wholesome food ; and the charms 
 of htcrature and science are regarded with loathing 
 by those, whose minds are dissipated, and whose 
 moral tastes are depraved. When the intellect 
 is not weakened and the character vitiated by 
 self-indulgence and indolence, there are no 
 pleasures equal to those which the successful pur- 
 suit of knowledge is sure to bring with it. Every 
 step discloses a fresh landscape, every ascent un- 
 folds a new discovery, and every divergence to the 
 right or left brings with it an enlarged conscious- 
 ness of power, which fills the soul mth reasonable 
 elation. Those v/lio have made the trial, esjiecially 
 those who have made unassisted experiments in 
 the attainment of knowledge, will bear witness to 
 the truth of what I say; to those who have not 
 made trial of the fair fruits of intellectual exertions, 
 1 have only to recommend an early and an earnest 
 commencement of a course of self-discipline in 
 these things, with the confident promise that it 
 will soon lead to self-emancipation. 
 
 As man is by his nature a social being, the 
 business of self-improvement in knowledge is best 
 carried out by co-partnership ; and thus self-im- 
 provement and mutual improvement go hand in 
 hand, or rather converge into one employment. 
 If you cannot form classes under the presidency 
 of a teacher, at least form coteries or little gather- 
 ings for the interchange of ideas on subjects of 
 common interest. Let such meetings, consisting 
 at most of a dozen members, be held once or twice 
 a month, to read in common some portion of an 
 author ; and let each member in turn communi- 
 cate his ideas in writing, as the thesis for a
 
 AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT, 11 
 
 friendly discussion. My own experience at College 
 enables me to assure you that the most educated 
 men can derive information and encouragement 
 from this course, and if so, what must be its effect 
 on those who have to make up for an early defici- 
 ency in their training ? Barthold Niebuhr, 
 who was, take him altogether, the greatest literary 
 man of the present century, belonged to a society 
 of this kind at Berlin, and he has left us a solemn 
 record of the influence which it had upon his 
 labours. " There is," he says, " an inspiration 
 which proceeds from the presence and converse of 
 beloved friends; an immediate acting on our 
 minds, whereby the Muses are revealed to our 
 view, awaking joy and strength in us, and purg- 
 ing our sight : to this my whole life long I have 
 owed whatever was best in me." 
 
 Another step which you may take with a view 
 to yoiu* self-improvement consists in the gradual 
 formation of a class library. I mean of a collection 
 of books, maps, drawings, aud if necessary of 
 models, immediately connected vnth. the objects of 
 your class studies. This will be infinitely more 
 useful and beneficial than if you were to arrange 
 on your shelves, in twice the number of volumes, 
 the miscellaneous contributions of friends, the 
 stray refuse of other libraries. There is indeed 
 no book, or scarcely any book, from which you 
 might not get some good : if you were to read 
 through the contents of those trays which stand at 
 the doors of second-hand book shops in London, 
 all quoted at some uniform price, you would get 
 more good than if you read nothing at all ; and 
 whatever donations you may receive, it will be 
 with you while to accept and use them. But the 
 object of your own contributions should be to buy 
 special books for special work, books bearing ou
 
 12 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 your own efforts to acquire knowledge; and by the 
 help of judicious friends, especially by the counsel 
 of those gentlemen who may be disposed to lecture 
 for you, the selection may be made with a toler- 
 able degree of safety. 
 
 This last remark leads me to the other feature 
 in your prospects of success — the help which you 
 may hope to receive from the educated men whiek o 
 appear among your patrons. To such persons 
 you must look, and I would urge you to look to 
 no others, for direct instructions in the Lecture 
 Room, and for ^counsel when you require their 
 advice. With regard to Lectures, I have often 
 expressed my opinion. Nothing can be less 
 valuable than a got-up lecture, when the lecturer, 
 to use a term of the criicket-ficld, is bowlino; 
 beyond his strength. The only lectures good for 
 anything in an educational point of view, are those 
 which fall from the lips of men where knowledge 
 is thoroughly digested, matured, and methodized, 
 and who pour forth the imconstrained utterances 
 of their superior enlightenment. From such men 
 you may expect clear notions, apt illustrations, 
 fullness of matter, and hinrs suggestive and crea- 
 tive of the studies, which I would have you pursue 
 in classes by yourselves, and without which, the 
 Lecturer will lecture in vain. With regard to 
 the subjects of the Lectures delivered to you, as 
 long as you confine yourselves to men of eminence 
 or to those who hold a recognized position among 
 yourselves, the selection and the mode of treat- 
 ment may safely be left to the gentlemen who arc 
 willing to minister to your information. Under 
 no circumstances should you listen to proposals 
 for the establishment of a censorship, which 
 would pollard all thoughts and opinions accord- 
 ing to the pre-conceptions of individuals. In
 
 AND SELF -IMPROVEMENT. IS 
 
 a free country, public opinion is the only 
 tribunal to which a speaker or writer should be 
 required to appeal, and to say nothing of his 
 own conscience, which must be presumed to be 
 active and influential, until the contrary can be 
 shewn by the evidences of his conduct, an honest 
 and respectable man is always sufficiently guided 
 by a regard for the good opinion of his neigh- 
 bours. As far then as concerns the subjects 
 treated here by Lecturers, you have only to 
 select your men, and you may safely leave all 
 the rest to them and the public. But perhaps 
 I should hardly complete the duty which I 
 have undertaken, if I did not express my opinion 
 briefly in regard to the description of lectures, 
 which I should think most likely to be advantage- 
 ous to you. 
 
 In the first class then I would place those sciences 
 which are generally illustrated by museums, espe- 
 cially geology, chemistry, botany, and zoology. 
 To these descriptive astronomy will of course be 
 added. Microscopic exhibitions and chemical 
 manipulations are not only instructive, but emi- 
 nently entertaining, and they have the great ad- 
 vantage of exciting curiosity, and stimulating a 
 desire to acquire knowledge ; and as wonder is the 
 mother of science, I should estimate very highly 
 every provocative of ignorant admiration.As merely 
 natural science, especially as treated by mere natu- 
 ralists, is apt to fall into materialism, I should be 
 glad if physiological lectures could be occasionally 
 combined or varied with discourses on the moral 
 nature of man, and on the reality of his spiritual 
 instincts ; and this would enable you to gain glimpses 
 occasionally of the greatest of modern sciences — 
 ethnography or the philosophical demonstration of 
 the all important fact that man is essentially one and
 
 14 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 accidentally different. A practical deduction from 
 this science leads to what may be considered as 
 partly a branch of public economy. I mean the 
 question of emigration. The belief in the common 
 origin of mankind presumes an admission ot the 
 fact that man is by his nature, or rather by the 
 condition of his existence, an emigrant and sporadic 
 being. Originating in a particular locality, he 
 could not have peopled those portions of the 
 world which he occupies, if he had not been wil- 
 ling from time to time, to go forth from the land 
 of his parentage, to clear the forest, to drain the 
 swamp, and to colonize the wikl haunts of the un- 
 tameable foes of man. What has been going on 
 from the first beginning of the world is going on 
 still, said this island, more than all other regions, is 
 a manufactory of nations yet unborn. When 
 therefore you feel a want of elbow-room, and 
 groan for wages and employment, you should bear 
 in mind that there are colonies where the skilled 
 workman will ever meet with a hearty welcome, 
 where his narrow means will be turned to opulence, 
 and where his constant complaints will be con- 
 verted into cheerfulness and contentment. With 
 regard to political economy in general, I think it 
 would be for the interest of the working classes, 
 if this were to take a place among the subjects 
 formally brought before them in lectures. Every 
 man ought to know something about the relations 
 between rent, produce, and the profits of the 
 farmer ; between the increase of price and the 
 diminution of supply ; between the rate of wages 
 and the price of provisions ; between the cost of 
 production and the profits of the retailer. Some 
 knowledge on these subjects would prevent the 
 fruitless disputes which are every day arising, and 
 enable the journeyman, the shopkeeper, and the
 
 AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT. 15 
 
 manufacturer to understand the common interests 
 which bind them to each other. Nor is it right 
 that you should always be in the dark on the 
 subject of taxation. You ought at least to know 
 how a direct or indirect tax is calculated to affect 
 you individually ; how far an import or an excise 
 duty alters your special position as a producer or 
 consumer : and you ought to be able to appreciate 
 the axiom that the rate of profit is never affected 
 by taxation. Above all, you should be placed in 
 the way of understanding the absorbing centraliza- 
 tion and monopoly which have resulted from the 
 formation of railroads, and that you may, instead 
 of idly complaining that your position has been 
 affected by this revolution, apply yourselves to the 
 discovery of your best practical course under this 
 change of circumstances. To say nothing of the 
 absorption into one vortex of a hundred little 
 scattered trades, of the drainage of a morass of 
 industry into one great canal leading into the 
 ocean of commerce, the railway affects the social 
 and commercial freedom of every man in the com- 
 munity. Neither for the personal traveller, nor 
 for the transport of goods is there now any free 
 choice or alternative : as a general rule, we become 
 slaves to the necessity of taking the cheapest and 
 most expeditious one. And this feeling has led 
 men to the admission, which they would not 
 otherwise have made ] that when we have once 
 discovered the best way of doing anything, we 
 necessarily sacrifice liberty to equality, and free- 
 dom of action to increased convenience. 
 
 The Great Exhibition in London, was a cele- 
 bration of the triumph of the material interests of 
 man over his moral independence. The world is 
 becoming a great manufactory in which each 
 individualisemployedmcchanically according to his
 
 16 ADULT EDUCATION 
 
 abilities ; and the division of labour seems likely 
 to end by reducing each man to the rank of a tool 
 or the integral part of a machine. Consequently the 
 great moral question of the day is to examine the 
 relation between our material conveniences and our 
 freedom. And education alone, by shewing us 
 the road on which we are travelling, can save us 
 from falling into the pit from which there is no 
 return. The non-independence of the mind of 
 the middle classes, to which I adverted in an 
 earlier part of this address, is attributable mainly 
 to their subjection to the claims of their immediate 
 interests. Men are not free to speak or even to 
 think, if they are oscillating between the thraldom 
 of class-prejudices and commercial gains. 
 
 The lessons which you may derive from political 
 economy will be incomplete if you do not combine 
 that knowledge with the theory of history, espe- 
 cially the history of your own country. Learn 
 this lesson from the past, that England could not 
 have become what she is, had not her citizens en- 
 joyed the greatest of human endowments, that of 
 a self-conscious and independent mind. There 
 ai'e many crises in our national history, especially 
 those which connect themselves with our political 
 and religious revolutions, when if our ancestors 
 had been willing to sell the claims of their 
 duty for the comfort and interests of the present, 
 we should have failed to reach that proud 
 station at which we now stand. And you must by 
 the light of their history guide your own steps, if 
 you would be true to your mission as genuine 
 Englishm;.n — if you would be, what the English- 
 man is, by his essential character , independent, 
 industrious, self-denying, self-conscious, resolute, 
 loyal, and conservative. Let me say that I use this 
 last word, in its proper and ethical sense — not in its
 
 AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT. 17 
 
 political acceptation, least of all as a term of party 
 politics. No man is truly conservative in Church 
 or State who does not adapt the machine to the 
 atmosphere in which it moves ; and the rashest 
 and most revolutionary innovation is not more de- 
 structive than the folly of maintaining as an esacn- 
 tial part of the edifice that which is felt to be false 
 and untenable. It is the business of all true edu- 
 cation, to make man conservative in the proper 
 sense of the terra, to enable him habitually to 
 combine a due respect for the past with a sense of 
 the ever changing exigencies of the present, to 
 unite a becoming reverence for transmitted opinions 
 with that freedom of investigation by which no 
 truth can be a loser. 
 
 Above all, as you are associated for the pursuit 
 of a common object, as you are, by the nature of 
 the case, a brotherhood of men, let me urge you 
 to keep up the feeling of benevolent and con- 
 siderate regard for one another, and for all with 
 whom you may be brought in contact. Then 
 whatever differences of opinions may arise among 
 you or between you and others, still you will never 
 forget that it is the great business of your lives to 
 become and continue to be good citizens, good 
 neighbours, good men, and, to sum up all in one 
 word — good Christians.
 
 BUET ST. EDMUND'S ; 
 PRINTED BY W. FULLEE, ABBEYGATE STBEET.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001 182 572 6 
 
 1