(1852, November 2) The Evening Courant, p. 3.Philosophical Institution Public Lecture—29 October 1852, Segment 3.
with a taste for intellectual pleasures, and desirous of substituting for mere sensual gratifications, enjoyments of a nobler, a more refined and a more enduring character—then, but not till then has genius free scope for the development of her powers, and is enabled to exchange manual toil and servitude of the hand for intellectual activity, and the servitude of the mind—a servitude not less laborious than the other, and certainly more conducive to all the higher interests of humanity. You may thus perceive how industry lies at the very root of human civilisation; how, by providing in an abundant measure for man's lower wants, it affords occasion for the manifestation of the higher exigencies of his nature, which, but for these inferior satisfactions, would lie dormant and inert; how it is, as it were, the lever which originally set in motion the machinery by which society is carried forward from one stage of improvement to another; in a word, how it promotes not only the physical welfare, but also paves the way for the moral and intellectual advancement of mankind. In these remarks, I have endeavoured to acknowledge, although I have done so in very insufficient terms, the debt which literature owes to industry. May I now be permitted to offer a few observations on the spirit in which literature, as personified in this institution, and in other establishments of a similar character, has endeavoured to discharge that obligation, and to fulfill her duty towards those who, on the one hand, are prevented by their active employments from dedicating their lives exclusively to literary and scientific pursuits; and who on the one hand, are unwilling to permit themselves to be wholly engrossed by their professional avocations, or to pass away their existence unilluminated by the light of knowledge, and unadorned by the amenities of learning. The circumstance to which this institution owes its origin, and the objects which it has in view, are the topics on which I shall now have the honour of addressing you. Of late years a large amount of controversy has been expended, and a wide diversity of opinion has prevailed, on the question of education. But whatever views any of us may entertain on that very debateable topic, whatever innovations any of us may be disposed either to advocate or to resist, there is one change which has lately come over the public mind on this important subject, which, I think, cannot fail to command our cordial and united approbation. I allude to the conviction—a conviction which is at every day gaining more and more strength—that a man's education, let it be carried to whatever degree of advancements it may, is a process which never is, and never can be completed. It was formerly thought that when a youth was emancipated from the restraints of school and college, his education was finished—that the discipline of the mind was a thing which naturally came to a stand-still when people had reached a particular period of their lives. That sentiment is no longer entertained. It is now very generally felt and understood that although there may be periods of life better suited than others for the reception of knowledge, there is no season of our earthly sojourn which is shut out from the benefit of her vivifying influences; that if youth be the proper time for kindling the lamp of truth,
