le
superiority; being more rapid, more energetic, and more liberal than her more
fashionable neighbours.

A list of a few of the institutions and public establishments will show this.

The Royal Institution in Mosley Street occupies a large building, established
for the encouragement of the Fine Arts by exhibitions of paintings and
sculptures, and the delivery of lectures.

The Philosophical Society was established in 1781, and has numbered among its
members Dr. Dalton, Dr. Henry, and Dr. Percival, and has had its Transactions
translated into French and German.

The Natural History Society has filled a museum in Peter Street with objects
of natural history, and opens it during holiday seasons to the public at a
nominal charge, when thousands of visitors, chiefly operatives, attend.

The Mechanics' Institution, founded in 1824, after surviving many
difficulties, has become one of the most flourishing and useful institutions
of the kind in the kingdom. Its chief activity is displayed in the education
of the operative members in the class-rooms. The library is large, well
selected, and in constant requisition. In one department the School of
Design is carried on, and could not be conducted in a more appropriate
building.

This School of Design, supported by the Government for the purpose of
promoting design as applied to the staple manufactures, and diffusing a
general feeling for art amongst the manufacturing community, was formerly
accommodated within the walls of the Royal Institution as a tenant, paying a
rent, strangely enough, for the use of a building which had ostensibly been
erected for promoting art and science!

It was not until 1836, that, on the recommendation of a Committee of the
House of Commons, active steps were taken to establish in England that class
of artistic instruction applied to manufactures which had been cultivated in
France ever since the time that the great Colbert was the minister of Louis
XIV.

At Manchester, some of the leading men connected with the calico-printing
trade and looms of art, established a School of Design within the Royal
Institution, where two rooms were lent rent-free; but, as soon as Government
apportioned a part of a special grant to the Manchester School, the
Committee, who were also as nearly as possible the Council of the Royal
Institution, with that appetite for public money which seems incident to men
of all nations, all classes, and all politics, voted 10