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CHAPTER V

JOHN CASSELL AND LORD BROUGHAM AND OTHERS

Among the many great Englishmen who admired and encouraged Cassell's work Lord Brougham was chief. There was unquestionably a deep natural sympathy between this venerable aristocrat, who had so long been the English champion of education for the masses, and this working man who had become the leading propagator of the means of popular education. Brougham was not only the leader in the movement that led to the establishment of the University of London; in another sphere he was the begetter of that first of "mechanics' institutes," the Birkbeck. He was inevitably drawn to make the acquaintance of the man who had conceived and brought forth the " Popular Educator." They acquired a mutual liking and respect.

Brougham, though he had long retired from political life, and, past seventy years of age, was living mostly in his villa at Cannes, lost no opportunity when in England of praising his friend and advertising his enterprise. Speaking in Liverpool in October, 1858, at a meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, he commended the "Popular Educator," and went on:

"Of one individual, John Cassell, who has taken a leading part—perhaps the most important part—in these proceedings it is fit to mention the name because he was himself a working man, who rose by his industry from a most humble station, has constantly lived with the working classes, and has the most complete knowledge of their habits and their tastes from daily unreserved intercourse with them. The variety of works which he has prepared and published is very great, and their circulation very extraordinary. The prices which he gives to secure the best assistance of literary men and of artists do the

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