PREFACE.

LECTURING is the fashion of the day. Some of our most distinguished public men have become Popular Instructors, and think their time well bestowed, and their dignity not compromised, if they ascend the platform, book in hand, and impart from their acquired stores of knowledge what may be useful to their humbler fellowcitizens. In all probability, the practice will grow. I shall be surprised if, in another year or two, we do not find the number of our Parliamentary Lecturers largely increased, and candidates for Parliamentary honours winning favour from the constituencies of small towns, by addresses to Mechanics' Institutions, at least as interesting and improving as most canvassing orations, or even speeches made from the front of the hustings on Nomination days. English gentlemen have a great tendency to follow their leaders in matters of this sort; and when once it comes to be thought perfectly correct to spend an evening in this way, men wise in their generation will find that a little labour, thus bestowed, is amply rewarded. What is done by the first set with purely benevolent intentions will be followed up, doubtless, by imitators, who will have some regard, as a secondary motive at least, to their personal advancement.

There is another style of lecturing which is not yet fashionable, and which I should like to see prevailing much more extensively. The cases I have spoken of are exceptional cases. There is no difficulty in collecting a crowd together for a show-night, when a nobleman, or a Parliamentary leader, whose name we often read in the newspapers, is duly placarded; and very kind and gracious the act is on their part; and very pleased, commonly, is the audience with seeing and hearing on such terms men who have won a place among England's rulers. But half the persons there congregated, probably, are persons who are rather entertained than instructed,-who have good libraries at home, and leisure for reading, and who would be no great losers if a book of History or Poetry had been read elsewhere during the hour that has been spent in listening. Far more useful lectures might be delivered to audiences of another kind, if gentlemen of fair abilities and of average information, who are scattered through every county, would consent to employ some of their ample leisure in imparting sound and useful knowledge to their neighbours. We have more schools, and far better schools, than we had a few years ago; and readers and books are greatly multiplied; and an impulse has been given to popular education which puts the generation now growing up far in advance of the preceding one as to knowledge and mental activity. But what is school learning, after all, when children are turned out to become workers under twelve? And if lessons for adults, in some form or other, be not superadded, what but an insignificant smattering of knowledge, of the most elementary kind, can be looked for in

the bulk of those who are to live by their hand-labour in our towns and villages?

Having acquired the reading art, of course the more intelligent and inquiring among them may, if they please, improve themselves to any extent; and the country is flooded with cheap literature, evidently intended for the masses. Much of this, however, is positively vicious and corrupting; and of newspaper writers, as a body, who exercise an absolute sway over the opinions of vast numbers, we must say that they need to be far more dispassionate and high principled, less infected with the spirit of partizanship, and less eager for gain at the expense of truth and charity, before they can be safe guides for men who have much reverence for print, and very little power of distinguishing between strong argument and dashing assertion. These influences, bearing with immense power on millions of our countrymen, need a corrective of some kind, or rather many correctives of many kinds; while the less inquiring and more passive sort, among whom cheap periodicals and serials hardly circulate, need to have their minds stirred, their tastes elevated, and their very scanty gifts of learning somewhat enlarged, by occasional week-day instruction in some attractive form. There is another class, too, who have a special claim upon us: the army of youths and maidens, not yet cumbered with the grave responsibilities of life, who till lately were our foremost scholars, and who find a scarcity of books, possibly, in their new homes after the recent plenty. At that age of partial liberty and of strong temptations, quiet pleasures and healthful recreations may prove the best preservative against

ensnaring companions; and yet these are hard to find, often, if they be cast upon their own resources, and have neither help nor counsel from wiser friends.

To these several classes, sensible, judicious Addresses, on subjects well selected and widely varied, will be a precious boon,-Addresses, I mean, not from hired Lecturers, but from persons known and respected in their own neighbourhoods who will undertake the task as a labour of love. It is a great mistake to fancy that this sort of teaching need be confined to towns. In country parishes it is most wanted, and often will be most welcome. I would not wish for a better audience than I have sometimes found crowding a village schoolroom to hear a tale, for an hour and more, about Luther, or Columbus, or Joan of Arc, or Sir Isaac Newton; and if they knew little besides the glorious names before, I have learnt afterwards that their curiosity was excited, and that books were in request to teach them more than the Lecturer had told them. Readings in Poetry would often be found very popular; or a well selected book might supply the place of an original composition, and suggest remarks and conversation which would be yet more instructive. What more easy than for a man of fortune to make his Summer Tour something better than a mere selfish mode of enjoyment, by telling neighbours and dependents in an easy, lively way, when he comes home, some of the wonders which he has seen abroad, and which they can never hope to visit? I have seen a volume by a lady, whose tales have instructed and delighted thousands, containing her Journal of foreign travel in letters to her own school children in the Isle of Wight. To me