ineer and manager of the largest
steamship company in the world.

Although mechanics' institutes are old institutions, they have scarcely
been supported by working men. The public-house is more attractive and
more frequented. And yet mechanics' institutes--even though they are
scarcely known south of Yorkshire and Lancashire--have been the means of
doing a great deal of good. By placing sound mechanical knowledge within
the reach of even the few persons who have been disposed to take
advantage of them, they have elevated many persons into positions of
great social influence. "We have heard a distinguished man say publicly,
that a mechanics' institution had _made him_; that but for the access
which it had afforded him to knowledge of all kinds, he would have
occupied a very different position. In short, the mechanics' institution
had elevated him from the position of a licensed victualler to that of
an engineer.

We have referred to the wise practice of men in humble position
maintaining themselves by their trade until they saw a way towards
maintaining themselves by a higher calling. Thus Herschell maintained
himself by music, while pursuing his discoveries in astronomy. When
playing the oboe in the pump-room at Bath, he would retire while the
dancers were lounging round the room, go out and take a peep at the
heavens through his telescope, and quietly return to his instrument. It
was while he was thus maintaining himself by music, that he discovered
the Georgium Sidus. When the Royal Society recognized his discovery, the
oboe-player suddenly found himself famous.

Franklin long maintained himself by his trade of printing. He was a
hard-working man,--thrifty, frugal and a great saver of time. He worked
for character as much as for wages; and when it was found that he could
be relied on, he prospered. At length he was publicly recognized as a
great statesman, and as one of the most scientific men of his time.

Ferguson, the astronomer, lived by portrait painting, until his merits
as a scientific man were recognized. John Dollond maintained himself as
a silk weaver in Spitalfields. In the course of his studies he made
great improvements in the refracting telescope; and the achromatic
telescope, which he invented, gave him a high rank among the
philosophers of his age. But during the greater part of his life, while
he was carrying on his investigations, he continued, until the age of
forty-six, to carry on his original