eritable coinage of the country, is not to be found in magnificent rnment establishments, at Philadelphia or New Orleans, but in the ble schoolhouse.

On the occasion referred to, one of our most sagacious manufactudeclared, not only in accordance with the conclusions of his own pp, but as the result of an actual experiment, that the best cotton in New England, if worked by operatives so low in the scale of ligence as to be unable to read and write, would never yield the rietor a profit;-that the machinery would be soon worn out, the er impoverished, and the operatives themselves left penniless. her witness, for a long time superintendent of many work people, e the following striking remark: 'So confident am I, that production fected by the intellectual and moral condition of help, that, whena mill or room should fail to give the proper amount of work, my inquiry, after that respecting the condition of the machinery, would as to the character of the help: and if the deficiency remained any t length of time, I am sure I should find many who had made their

greatly disappointed, if I did not find, upon enquiry, a portion of 1 of irregular habits and suspicious character.: "

uch I believe to be the experience of both Europe and America, o the comparative value and profit of the labor of educated and ducated mechanics, even in the humblest position of the manuuring operative. And if such be the difference between the ght and untaught workman in cases where little more is required 1 manual skill in performing the appointed task, what must be magnitude of the difference in this country, where each labourmechanic is to so great an extent his own superintendentre the various trades are for the most part carried on by isolated viduals, or in small shops, rather than in large manufactories, where the success of each mechanic depends more upon intellit enterprise than upon mere operative skill? As each agriculst in Canada should unite in himself the intelligence of the lish overseer and the practical skill of the farm laborer; so ld each Canadian mechanic combine in his own person the ifications and skill of the European manufacturing superinten; and operative.

But the advantage of scientific knowledge to the mechanic must ear from the very nature of his employment, apart from the conrations of the accomplishments and pleasures of learning. To ance a few trades that are already practised in this City and vince, and that are extending every year : In the manufacture he steam engine, for example, (and the same remarks are applie to the manufacture of other kinds of machinery,) is it not of etical use to the mechanic to know the principles upon which engine is constructed--to know so much of the science of hanics as will enable him to understand the reasons of the varimechanical contrivances which his engine exhibits-to know nuch of Chemistry as may acquaint him with the nature and perties of steam, of refrigeration and expansion, of the effects meat and cold; rather than proceeding by rote, as a mechanical ator, to construct the various parts of the wonderful machine, ut up the cylinder, fit the piston to its place, adjust the parallel on and adapt the several rods and wheels, the weights and es, without any knowledge of the principles on which any part he machinery is framed or put in motion, or how a small quanof water is converted into an instrument of immense power in service of man, for driving all kinds of machinery, for propelships across the oceans, and carriages over continents? Nor it be otherwise than advantageous to the coachmaker to underd the principles which determine the proper line of draught, the antage and disadvantage of the several sorts of springs, and the and construction of the axles and wheels; while the architect engineer, the ship-builder and carpenter, the mason and brickr, the millwright and machinist, cannot fail to be essentially fited by a knowledge of the principles of mechanics and dyna, and the departments of hydrostatics and hyd aulics, of electriand pneumatics, as well as of the elements of the mathematical nces. Not to enter into details on a point so obvious, I may ark in the words of an acute practical philosopher

To how many kinds of workmen must a knowledge of mechanical Osophy be useful? To how many others does chemistry prove Ost necessary? Every one must perceive at a glance, that to engi. s, watchmakers, instrument-makers, bleachers and dyers, those ces are most useful, if not necessary. But carpenters and masons surely likely to do their work better for knowing how to measure, eh practical mathematics teaches them, and how to estimate the gth of timber, of walls, and of arches, which they learn from tical mechanics; and they who work in various metals are certain

to be more skilful in their trades for knowing the nature of these substances, and their relations to both heat and other metals, and to the airs and liquids with which they come in contact. Nor is it enough to say, that philosophers may discover all that is wanted and may invent practical methods, which it is sufficient for the working man to learn by rote, without knowing the principles. He never can work so well if he is ignorant of the principles; and for a plain reason: if he only learns his lesson by rote, the least change of circumstances puts him out. Be the method ever so general, cases will always arise in which it must be varied in order to apply; and if the workman only knows the rule without knowing the reason, he must be at fault the moment he is required to make a new application of it."*

And if an appropriate and comprehensive preparatory education contributes to the material interests of the mechanic, will it add less to his intellectual and social enjoyment?

Absence of knowledge is absence of the essential condition and materials for rational enjoyment. There is a pleasure-a great pleasure-in the very consciousness of power which knowledge bestows, as well as in the sensible elevation of mind which it imparts, and the emotions and exercises which it awakens. How different are the pleasures of the mere creature of corporeal senses, of sensitive appeties and passions, from a being of developed mental faculties and intellectual tastes and enjoyments ? How different is the state of mind connected with the exertion of one's physical powers from the necessity of subsistence and the promptings of intelligence? How different are the enjoyments of the man who knows nothing of the world or its inhabitants beyond the limits of his own horizon, from those of the man whose intellectual eye can travel to other lands and to other ages-can survey the varied aspects of the entire globe-the oceans and rivers, the continents and islands which indent and diversify its surface-the animated beings that people them, and that float in the atmosphere which envelops them-the revolutions of empires, and the history of the human race? How different the enjoyments of the untutored mind which looks up to the firmament as the roof of his earthly dwelling, and the stars as taper lights suspended to glimmer upon the path of the nocturnal traveller, from those of the enlightened mind that sees in the magnificent orbs of heaven so many worlds and suns, that contemplates their magnitudes, their distances, their motions, and the sublime purposes of their creation! How different are the feelings connected with the rote labour of the workman who plods through his task without knowing any more of the reasons of a single step of the process adopted, or of any part of the work executed, than the ox which draws the plough knows of the science of tillage, from those feelings connected with the intelligent labour of the educated workman who understands the philosophy of every process required, and the principles involved in each piece of machinery constructed, from the separation of the cotton seed and the carding of the wool to the printing of the calico and the finishing of the broadcloth, from the felling of the timber to the erection of a palace-from the smelting of the ore to the making of a watch or the construction of a steam engine! And must it not impart a noble and unspeakable pleasure to a mechanic to trace to a few elementary principles and substances all the operations of mechanism, and all the materials on which he is depending in the exercise of his trade; and to contemplate the analogy between the most simple facts that come under his every day observation and various beautiful and sublime phenomena of nature to be able to reduce the innumerable combinations and modifications of forces which are often so astonishing and which are so indefinitely varied in all descriptions of machinery, to six mechanical powers, regulated by ascertained and immutable laws -to find the endless productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms consisting of scarcely half-a-dozen simple substances, and some of these invisible gases-to know that the same principle which causes sparks to be emitted by the rubbing of a cat's back, produces the beautiful coruscations of the aurora borealis, the lightnings of heaven, and the sublime phenomena of the thunder storm -to realize the identity between the principle of gravitation which endangers his own safety in the event of his loosing his centre of gravity in an elevated position, and that principle which forms the mechanical powers, which gives solid foundations to the mountains, which determines the march of the river, the rush of the cataract, and the boundaries of the ocean, which directs the planets in their

* Preliminary Treatise to the Library of Useful Knowledge, voli.

systems that people the universe.

Now such knowledge is eminently calculated to produce that activity of mind which is one of the essential conditions of individual happiness, and presents those objects which are happily adapted to gratify the taste, to please the imagination, to enrich the understanding, to elevate- and strengthen the moral feelings. A mechanic possessed in his own person of such materials and resources of enjoyment, will not be likely to sink down into melancholy slothfulness, or resort to places of sensual and intemterate indulgence for relaxation and pleasure. The study of the Chemistry and Mechanics of Nature, which contributes so largely to qualify the artizan for his trade, leads him to the great Architect of the Universe whose works he is investigating, and by whom he himself is fearfully and wonderfully made. In his acquaintance with the geography of the globe and the history of its inhabitants, he will find vivid and affecting illustrations of those Biblical truths which have formed an essential part of his early education. Obedient to such lessons of practical instruction, his moral feelings will harmonize with the conceptions of his enlarged understanding; and while a well-spring of happiness is thus created in his own bosom, he will be qualified not only to participate, but increase the enjoyments of social intercourse with his fellow-men.

2. But secondly, the proper education of the mechanic is important to the interests of society as well as to his own welfare and enjoyment.

1. An educated mechanic may render important service to society by his intelligence and influence. If ignorance is paralyzing and selfish, sound knowledge is enlivening and diffusive. The mechanic's knowledge gives him power with his fellow-citizens, and is of that practical character which is best adapted to promote their common interests. Every such educated member of a community, who makes a proper use of his knowledge, is an enlightened man—a radiating centre-throwing off beams of intelligence and moral influence in every direction. If mutual dependence and influence is the law of the material universe, it is pre-eminently so of the world of mind. Our membership of the common family of mind, apart from positive institutes, divine and human, makes us "every one members one of another;" and the links of the chain which thus connects us together, are the electrical conductors of an intellectual and moral influence to every member of the social circle. The influence which a well-instructed mind-especially among the labouring classes-may send forth into the community, is beyond the arithmetic of human calculation; and the intellectual and moral power with which the knowledge I have above indicated invests the mechanic, possesses amazing advantages over the mechanical forces which he has been accustomed to employ in the pursuit of his trade. By the immutable laws of matter, mechanical forces are enfeebled and ultimately exhausted by action, and can only be maintained in their intensity by constant resort to the source of their power; while the force exerted by mind acquires increased strength by exercise, and awakens in mind after mind its own sympathetic and self-propagating energy, unlimited either by space or duration. Thus the ideas, the sentiments, the feelings of one man, may become those of his family, of his neighbourhood, of his country, of succeeding generations; and what may appear at first but a feeble impulse, reflected from mind to mind, as the faintest accents vibrate along the walls of a vast whispering gallery, will acquire increased power in its progress, until its influence imparts character to the most distant portions of society, and its voice gives law to the remotest ages of mankind.

But if we limit the educated mechanic's influence to the neighbourhood or city of his own personal residence, and to the circle of his own personal association; there is not an interest of that neighbourhood or city which his practical knowledge will not enable him to advance-there is not a rational pleasure of that society which his general intelligence will not enable him to promote. And in the case of the mechanic who acquires affluence by his industry and enterprise and retires from active business, while the absence of education and knowledge makes his leisure days a blank, if not an occasion of restless peevishness or animal indulgence, the possession of such intellectual treasures will indefinitely multiply the value of his material wealth, and make his last days doubly happy

society.

2. I remark, secondly, that an educated me advance the interests of society, by disc improvements in the practical arts. This never done, and what it cannot do. It is tr inventions of the greatest importance to ma by men who had not received an university, education of any kind. But by their indomi they supplied in later of their early years. Their discoveries an the result of ignorance, but the fruits of kno difficulties. Count RUMFORD was a farmer's

powerful native genius,

and he never enjoyed the advantages of a Col he never would have become so eminent a p the principal founder of the Royal Institution he contented himself with the knowledge of walked down to Harvard University to hea philosophy, and, in after years, pursued his i periments with indefatigable industry. A barber's son, and the youngest of thirteen ch travelling barber until he was thirty years of long witnessed the spinning-wheel operation peasantry, he would not have conceived th spinning machine; nor is it likely that he co own conception without the skill and co-oper clockmaker, to whom he applied, and with wh nership. So likewise was FRANKLIN a jour he might have remained so for life, had he not and witnessed the electrical experiments of a Lecturer in Boston, and purchased Dr SPENCE ratus, repeated his experiments in Philadelphi additional facilities, to pursue the researche's daries of electrical science, until he reached has made him the benefactor and admiration

Nor is there reason to believe that WATT, strument Maker to the Glasgow University, ceived his improvements in the use and app the construction of the steam engine, had h youth devoted to mathematical studies, and h the lectures of Dr. BLACK, the theory of la not persevered for years in his philosophical a ments until he produced the most important of

ces.

I will not multiply examples, scores of v well known to many of you as myself. T show that it is to scientific knowledge, whethe taught, and not to illiterate skill, that we are important discoveries and inventions in the pr It was not COLUMBUS the Genoese c Mediterranean, but COLUMBUS the indefatig most accomplished Geographer and Philosop having demonstrated from the rotundity of th of reaching Eastern Asia by sailing a due W America in his voyage, and thus originated t blessings which have resulted, and which ma discovery. It was not FERGUSON the shephe valuable contributions to astronomical and r was FERGUSON the laborious philosophical that numbered royalty among his auditors works on experimental philosophy. Similar in respect to many others who have added tical science and to the comforts of common 1 and inventions. Almost every improvement bution of science-a scientific accession to t matter-a fresh impulse to the vital principl society-an improvement in some part of the mechanical science by which man makes th nature minister to his wants, tastes and ple

*This Institution was founded in the year 1800, ledge and facilitating the general introduction of tions and improvements, and for teaching, by lectures and improvements, the application of sci poses of life."

ent classes of society and even nations and continents into a intimacy of mutual dependence and friendship.

e object of these remarks is to guard against a two-fold error: ne is, that no scientific knowledge is to be attained except in urriculum of a university; the other is, that science has g to do with improvements in the arts; but that accident, or gle freak of native genius, is the parent of all these inventions mprovements in the mechanic arts. The presumption created e fact, that these inventions and improvements have followed vival and enlargement of the natural sciences, is confirmed eir history, and refutes both the errors to which I have alluded. history tells the Canadian mechanic, that he is not to be red from attempting to master, if not to improve the whole ce of his trade because he has not enjoyed the advantages of versity, or even a good Common School education; while it y indicates to him on the other hand, that as every department echanism is the application of certain laws and principles of e, he need not hope thoroughly to understand, much less to ve any branch of his own trade, any further than he acquaints elf with those principles and laws.

-ry few of those who have distinguished themselves as the -rs of discoveries, inventions, and improvements in mechanical ce, have enjoyed greater advantages of leisure and resources, can be commanded by the majority of mechanics in Upper da; and yet what unspeakable benefits have those humble men rred upon the human race! To select only a few illustrations: can conceive the political and social revolutions which have By resulted from the European discoverer of the magnetic e-that sleepless, unerring, faithful little pilot, unblinded by arless midnight, and unmoved by the raging tempest, which ce relieved the mariner from his timid creeping from headland adland, and among its first feats opened the commerce of India, uided COLUMBUS to the discovery of a new world-the most tant event in the history of modern nations and of modern Cation. What mind can imagine the results to mankind, in department of science and knowledge, in every aspect of zation, and in every interest of civil freedom and social advancewhich emanated from the humble inventor of the Art of ng, an art which seems to be but in the mid career of its imments, and whose magic power appears destined at no remote

to penetrate yet unexplored regions of humanity and to Form the institutions and society of every uncivilized nation of obe. The cotton manufacture of Great Britain may almost aid to date its commencement, as a branch of national ry and commerce, with ARKWRIGHT's invention in spinning nery, soon followed, as it was, by CARTWRIGHT's invention of ower-loom; which however was not extensively introduced he commencement of the present century. Before ARKWRIGHT'S ion, the East Indies were superior to Europe, and exhausted hes by their manufacturing products. "Now," as the nt DUPIN "the British navigator travels in quest of the says, of India-brings it from a distance of four thousand leagues ommits it to an operation of the machine of ARKWRIGHT and se that are attached to it-carries back their products to the making them again to travel four thousand leagues ;-and te of the loss of time, in spite of the enormous expense ed by this voyage of eight thousand leagues, the cotton actured by the machinery of England, becomes less costly he cotton of India, spun and woven by hand near the field -oduced it, and sold at the nearest market." Before ARKWRIGHT'S on, the whole annual amount of the cotton manufacture of Britain did not exceed £200,000; now it amounts to forty as of pounds per annum! Then the raw cotton manufactured ted to about four millions of pounds per annum; it now s two hundred millions! Aided by this machinery, one pern now perform the work of two hundred and sixty-six persons its invention. And if ARKWRIGHT'S spinning-machinery

wo centuries since, the tinners of Cornwall threw away the ores of as refuse, under the name of poder; now, says Mr. MACAULEY, in History of England," Cornwall and Wales at present yield annually een thousand tons of copper, worth near a million and a-half sterat is to say, worth about twice as much as the annual produce of all mines of all descriptions in the seventeenh century." "At the close

what is equal to the labour of forty millions of human beingstwice the entire population-WATT's invention and improvements in the steam-engine, in its application to the manufactures alone, adds the power of more than one million of men, and in connexion with other machinery, performs an amount of labour, according to Dr. BUCKLAND's estimate, "equivalent to that of three or four hundred millions of men by direct labour," besides its achievements on the continent of Europe and in the United States, in almost every branch of mechanical and manufacturing industry-and besides its navigation of the rivers and oceans and seas of the whole globe-thus changing the social condition of man. Take another illustration in the bleaching of linens and cottons. Formerly this was a process of six or eight months duration; and so little was it understood in Great Britain, that nearly all the British manufactured linens and cottons were sent to Holland, and bleached upon the fields around Haarlem. But by the application of chlorine, the property of which to destroy vegetable colours was discovered by a Swedish philosopher in 1774, the process of several months is reduced to that of a few hours; and it is said, "that a bleacher in Lancashire received fourteen hundred pieces of grey muslin on Tuesday, which were returned bleached, on the second day after, to the manufacturer, at a distance of sixteen miles, to be packed and sent off that very day to a foreign market."

And what advantages have accrued to mankind from FRANKLIN'S brilliant discovery of the identity of the lightning of the clouds, and the electricity produced by a piece of silk-rubbed sealing wax -in consequence of which the thunder cloud is rendered harmless; and this very electricity is now employed as the medium of thought, with the rapidity of thought, between distant cities and countries. As late as 1789, a hope was expressed by the Southern members of the American Congress, that cotton might be grown in the Southern States, provided good seed could be procured. Shortly after, a Connecticut mechanic by the name of WHITNEY, invented the Cotton-gin, for separating the seed from the fibre-an invention which has trebled the value of all cotton-growing lands in the Southern States, while it has given birth to a most important branch of American commerce and manufacture.* How many thousands of lives have been saved by the safety-lamp of Sir HUMPHRY Davy; and how much are our comforts increased and our interests advanced by the discovery of carburetted hydrogen gas, by which common coal is made the brilliant illuminator of our streets, and shops, and dwellings.

The humble author of any one of these discoveries or inventions, has established infinitely stronger claims to the grateful admiration of mankind, than an ALEXANDER or NAPOLEON; and each discovery or invention is directly or indirectly a contribution of science to the arts and comforts of civilized life-for the most part of science long and diligently pursued under great privations and difficulties. I know not that I can so well conclude these brief illustrations of this part of my subject, as in the authoritative words of two distinguished and patriotic educationists-a philanthropic American, and a philanthropic English nobleman-the Honorable HORACE MANN, and the Right Honorable LORD MAHON. Mr. MANN, in a speech lately delivered in Congress, against the extension of slavery, after having shown that slavery destroys common education, and then the fruits of education-the inventive mind, practical talent, the power of adapting means to ends in the business of life,eloquently proceeds as follows:

-

"Whence have come all those mechanical and scientific improvements and inventions which have enriched the world with so many comforts, and adorned it with so many beauties; which to-day give enjoyments and luxuries to a common family, that neither Queen ELIZABETH, nor any of her court ever dreamed of, but a little more than two centuries ago

of the reign of Charles the Second, a great part of the iron which was used in the country was imported from abroad; and the whole quantity cast here annually seems not to have exceeded ten thousand tons. At present the trade is thought to be in a depressed state if less than eight hundred thousand tons are produced in a year.” Vol. 1., pp. 295, 296.

* Dr. JAMES RENWICK, of New-York, in his Practical Mechanics, published in 1840, says "The quantity of cotton manufactured in the United States is now as great as was consumed in Great Britain in 1814; the Southern planters have found a new market equal to one-fourth of their whole crop, and the Northern wheat-growers receive a price for their product not graduated by the cost of production, but by that of importation from foreign countries." Page 284.

experience affirm that they have come, and must come, from people among whom education is most generous and unconfined. Increase the constituency, if I may so speak, of developed intellect, and you increase in an equal ratio the chances of inventive, creative genius. From what part of our own country has come the application of steam to the propulsion of boats for commercial purposes or of wheels for manufacturing purposes? Where have the various and almost infinite improvements been made, which have resulted in the present perfection of cotton and woollen machinery? Whence came the invention of the cotton-gin, and the improvements in railroads? Where was born the mighty genius who invented the first lightning-rod, which sends the electric fluid harmless into the earth; or that other genius, not less beneficent, who invented the second lightning-rod, which sends the same fluid from city to city on messages of business or affection? These are results which you can no more have without education, without imbuing the public mind with the elements of knowledge, than you can have corn without planting, or harvests without sunshine."

Lord MAHON, in an address at the Annual Soiree of the Manchester Athenæum, the 16th November, as reported in a paper received by me at the beginning of the present week, expresses himself in the following emphatic language:

"If you look around you, if you see the greatness and importance which Manchester has attained, and if you consider within how limited a period, that attainment has been achieved, you cannot I am sure forget that this greatness and this importance are mainly owing to the discoveries of modern science. Consider what rapid advances these discoveries in science have enabled you to make. Little more than a century ago, the young Pretender marched through your town, and lodged at a house standing not many years since in Market Street; I ask you, if it were possible for him to revisit these scenes, do you think he would recognize them again? Do you think he would see any resemblance between the not considerable country town, as this then was, which he so easily marched through, and what it has now become, -this immense capital of our manufacturing enterprise, this vast mart of active wealth, this swarming hive of busy industry? What would he have said to those lines of factories which have arisen on every side, affording honorable employment to hundreds of thousands of our people, and the beneficial effects of whose produce have been felt in the remotest corners of the globe? When I see, then, so much progress made, and know that this progress is due to science-when the discoveries of science form, in fact, the chronicles and annals of your city—can I doubt for a moment that the study of science requires no words of mine to call forth encouragement from you-that you will be desirous to explore the root of your own greatness, the ground work of your own importance ?"

It is now time for us to turn to our own country-to some of us our adopted, to others our native land-to all, our home, and the home of our children. I regret that I cannot refer to the history of Upper Canada as an illustration of the triumphs of mechanical science as an example of its skilful application in every branch of public and manufacturing improvement. As with all the faults

of Upper Canada we love her still, and with all the drawbacks upon her social advancement we still admire her energetic progress; we can scarcely turn to a page of her past history without finding melancholy evidence of the want of scientific knowledge in the management and development of her resources. If we look at the vast sums of money which have been borrowed and laid out on our roads and bridges, what have they all amounted to, with a few recent exceptions, but almost absolute losses, for want of the requisite knowledge and skill on the part of managers and engineers? What immense sums of public money have been wasted in the construction of various of our provincial works, from the same causes? How many private individuals in every District in Upper Canada have been reduced to bankruptcy from the same kind of mechanical incompetency? How many enterprising persons have expended their all in the erection of mills and other kinds of machinery, and have at length found their efforts fruitless and themselves ruined on account of the ignorance of the mechanics on whose supposed knowledge and judgment they relied to execute their plans. We have monumental proofs of this in the broken mill-dams, the decaying mill-frames, and the dilapidated manufacturing buildings which meet us in every part of the Province. The larger portion of these engineer and mechanical pretenders have been foreign adventurers. They came here not to improve Canada, but to make money, and then return whence they came. Native skill has had very little part in the public works of our country-native skill has, for the most part, remained alike unemployed and undeveloped. Had the early Government of Canada commenced

1

artizans, at the time, and with a liberalit which it displayed in establishing Greek and how different would have been the career o improvements? Had one-tenth part of th

in the proper education of Canadian mecha to Canada in consequence of mechanical ig had a school for mechanics, amply. provide ries and able Teachers and Lecturers, fre every District Town in Upper Canada-ten would have been saved to our public debt, a been added to the productiveness of our pub

The remaining practical question then emblem and type of the future? Is adventu

to do our work? or avaricious foreign ig waste or absorb our resources? Is the Can neer to occupy a position of inferiority American engineer or mechanic? Let m By the Canadian mechanic, I mean the Can may have been the country of his birth or the moment a man, placing his foot on Can is my home and the home of my offspring, man, an Irishman, an Englishman, or Amer man or German, and becomes a Canadia feel and act in reference to his local reside immigrant mechanics and manufacturers, country and the United States, I think U indebted for the little mechanical and manu she does possess ; while presuming foreign upon the simplicity of domestic ignorance, country untold injuries and losses. That respect to mechanical science and arts ough It was, to say the least, an inverted pyrami for a preliminary education for the profess endowment for University education, witho for a corresponding preliminary education fo endowment for the common education of the to be perpetuated ? Are the productions of a most considerable branch of the public r vision to be made for the education of th the mechanic arts of a country, but the ve its prosperity and civilization? Not an a bushel of grain floured, or a cottage erected garment worn, without the fruits of mech several respects, of scientific mechanical i mechanical arts-nay even without her coa work them-Great Britain herself would countries of Europe, instead of standing power and civilization. What would the parts of the neighbouring States be, but for mechanical inventions and machinery? Europe were drained as long as she depe manufactures; and so will the resources and the country remain stationary, as long to buy from abroad what it can manufacture ling of money sent out of the country, reduc every article of produce or manufacture, ex

TH

I think it proper to remark here, that the Can peculiar in this course of mistaken policy. Out ment of Europe seems to have thought of pro trades until since the general peace of 1815; nor kind made by the Legislatures in the neghbor but the admirable English High Schools in their and the facilities and practical character of spe furnished in their Colleges and numerous Aca extent, supplied the wants now provided for in and trades. Indeed, viewing public instruction cation of the entire population of a country, is old notions and systems of government. The endowments were created for the Universities, atively wealthy and few, while the Common S comparatively needy and many, were left to the illustrates the real character of the old systems of ment which begins to obtain, and which I wish t the provision for University Education unimpair liberality and in proportion to wants and numbe commercial, mechanical, and labouring classe remains to remedy, as far as possible, the evils care and exertions of the future.

es its wealth. In a country of wood, why should we import icles of wooden manufacture? In a country of iron mines, ould not the shelves of our hardware merchants be furnished anadian hardware ? In a country of sheep and flax, why we not be supplied with Canadian woollens and linens ? And ould we not import the raw-cotton, and manufacture it ouras well as import the manufactured cotton? Why should e skill and industry supply home wants, and thus build up escription of home interests, and indefinitely advance home ity and wealth?

rapid growth and prosperity of the neighbouring States ced and has advanced with the establishment and extension manufactures and mechanical improvements. Though large expenditures have been incurred in Upper Canada, we have commenced the career of internal improvement and national

SS.

The facilities of our internal communications, both by d water, are hardly begun; and but the commencement of ning has been made to develop the vast and yet unknown treasures and manufacturing resources of our country. If ployment of machinery has added to the productive industry at Britain the power of three or four hundred millions of hy may not the use of the same kind of means add to the Live industry of Upper Canada the power of ten or twenty

of men? And is not this a safe, and profitable, and giganem of immigration, remote from the squalidness of poverty infection of disease? But such power cannot be introduced scientific mechanical skill to create and employ it; and ill cannot be acquired without schools to teach its elementary neral principles. I think you will agree with me in the sen= of a practical New-Englander-an accomplished scholar,

diplomatist and governor. The Honourable EDWARD TT, in an admirable Essay on the Importance of Scientific edge to Practical Men, recently published, remarks thate elementary knowledge of science, which is communicated at the s, is, indeed, useful in any and every calling but it does not Sght that none but those intended for the pulpit, the bar, or the on of medicine, should receive instruction in those principles -egulate the operation of the mechanical powers, and lie at the ion of complicated machinery; which relate to the navigation of s, the smelting and refining of metals, the composition and iment of soils, the reduction to a uniform whiteness of the vegeore, the mixture and application of colors, the motion and pressure s in large masses, the nature of light and heat, the laws of ism, electricity, and galvanism. It would seem that this kind of dge was more immediately requisite for those who are to be emin making or using labour-saving machinery, who are to traverse an, to lay out the construction of canals and railroads, to build engines and hydraulic presses, to work in mines, and to conduct gricultural and manufacturing establishments."

y then have we not Schools to secure to our own country the ss benefits of such education for its mechanics? And why the mechanical population entitled to endowments for such a atory education as well as the professional population to sity, and College, and Grammar School endowments? In ncipal Cities and Towns in Great Britain, Institutions have een established, mostly however by municipal authority or liberality and enterprise, where intended architects, and ers, and mechanicians, have acquired the requisite preliminary edge for their respective employments. Mechanics' Institutes ndred associations are doing much, by means of scientific and r lectures for the instruction and benefit of practical mechaho have enjoyed few or no educational advantages in early Latterly the Government has begun to contribute to the same by the establishment of Schools of Arts and Design, which merously attended by mechanics of various trades. Even d, and hitherto immutable universities of Oxford and Camare beginning to imbibe the spirit of progress, and to assitheir statutes and systems to the demands and wants of the In Paris, besides the Polytechnic School of France, or as it ormerly termed, "the Central School of Public Works" ned to educate young men for the military, naval, and civil e) and its appendages the "School of Roads and Bridges," "School of Mines;" you will find-or at least you might ound a year or two since-the "Central School of Arts and actures"-designed for young men, throughout the nation,

intending to become civil engineers, superintendents of manufactories and workshops, architects and machinists, &c., and embracing a three years course of instruction, and comprehending every department of mechanical science. In 1845 several hundred young men were in attendance at this School, and among them not a few foreigners. Every State of Germany has its trade Schools, as well as its elementary and classical schools. Even in Austria, at Vienna, there exists a Polytechnic Institute on the most extensive scale, as a school of mechanic arts, manufactures, and commerce, and with no charge to students but a trifling entrance fee. In each of the twenty regencies of Prussia, there is a School of Arts, supported at the expense of the State-in all cases the Government also supplying the apparatus for the courses of mechananics, physics, and chemistry, and furnishing the requisite engravings for the courses of drawing, text-books for instruction, and the library.

Their educationists They have recently Colleges to meet the

Is it surprising then, that such parts of Europe excel in skill and taste in the mechanic arts of every description (how deficient soever they may be in the art of free government) when they are dotted over with schools of the arts? This fact has not escaped the notice of our far-seeing American neighbours. and philanthropists have called attention to it. established new departments in some of their exigency, while the elements of the natural sciences have long been subjects of instruction in many of their Academies and Common Schools.* In the message of the newly elected Governor, delivered the 2nd of the present month to the Legislature of the State of New-York, I find the following paragraph, a paragraph which speaks to Canadians as well as Americans, and such as I should like to see in the forthcoming vice-regal speech to our own Legislature :—

"I think the time has arrived when the State is called upon to make provision for the advancement of Agricultural science, and of knowledge in the Mechanic arts. Of late years the science of Agriculture has received much attention, and its influence in combination with the practical labors of those engaged in the ennobling pursuits of husbandry, has lessened the toil and increased the returns of the tillers of the soil. Similar influences have produced similar results with respect to the mechanic arts. If the wealth, and power, and independence of a nation, are to be estimated by its ability to supply, from within itself, its most essential wants, and from its abundance to minister to the wants of others, it is both wise and politic for the State to aid the advancement of those particular branches of knowledge, more immediately bearing upon the pursuits of the great producing classes. In this view I cannot too strongly recommend the endowment by the State of an Agricultural School, and a School for instruction in the Mechanic Arts. t

In conclusion, then, I have only to add, is Upper Canada still to remain indifferent to this vital element of domestic prosperity and social progress? Will not the mechanics of Upper Canadaespecially the mechanics of Toronto-adopt some energetic means

The extent to which American genius and enterprise have been employed in mechanical improvements, may be inferred from the number of patents for inventions and designs issued in the United States. A complete list of these, from 1790 to 1847, has recently been published, and curiously illustrates the genius of the Americans, and the effects of education, slavery, and ignorance, in the different quarters of the Union. The number of patents issued to the citizens of Maine was 483; New-Hampshire, 297; Vermont, 310; Massachusetts, 2151; Rhode Island, 234; Connecticut, 1156 New-York, 3382; New-Jersey, 461; Pennsylvania, 2167; Delaware, 51; Maryland, 660; Virginia, 631; North Carolina, 137; South Carolina, 122; Georgia, 80: Alabama, 65; Mississippi, 23; Louisiana, 77; Tennessee, 108; Kentucky, 185; Ohio, 749; Michigan, 51; Indiana. 114; Illinois, 71; Missouri, 40: Florida, 1; Texas, 1; Iowa, 2; Wisconsin, 8; and District of Columbia, 224. During the same time the following number was granted to the principal Cities: Boston, 623; New-York, 1787; Philadelphia, 916; and Baltimore, 430. New-England States, 4,641; Northern States, 11,606; Southern States, 2,409. Total, 14,015.

While these pages are passing through the press, we find the following paragraph in a New-York paper :-

"The Bar is no longer the resort of the ambitious youths of our country. The mechanical departments are being preferred; there are now thirty young gentlemen in this city, who have received liberal education, who are serving their "times" as shipwrights, architects, carpenters, &c. In a few years the United States will have the most accomplished mechanics in the world. A new class is springing up who will put the present race of mechanics in the shade. The union of a substantial education with mechanical skill, will effect this. Indeed already we could name some mechanics who are excellent mathematicians, acquainted with French and German, and able to study the books in those languages connected with their vocations. Heretofore, fond fathers were wont to educate their sons as doctors and lawyers, to insure their respectability and success. That day is passed. Mechanics will take the lead, and in a few years will supply a large portion of the State and Federal Legislature."