published in the same year, 1824, Lord
Brougham, an assiduous fellow-labourer in
Dr. Birkbeck's cause, pressed upon the attention
of the working classes and their
employers the extreme importance of giving to
the mechanics themselves the chief control
over these institutions. In this view, Dr.
Birkbeck wholly coincided. So far it was
well, and the work of founding these establishments
for adult education went on very prosperously.
But there was always reason to
lament that they did not descend low enough.
The Mechanics' Institutes gave education,
and the Reading-rooms relaxation, as well as
instruction, to a valuable class of artisans;
but there were mixed with them a large proportion
of clerks, shopkeepers, and small
gentlemen. The artisans, in many instances,
lost the control over their institution; in
many instances they were themselves of a
rank or in circumstances superior to the
common workman. The process of transition
from a true Mechanics' Institution to the
species of establishment which now goes by
that name, is thus described by one of the
working members of the Carlisle Reading-
room Committee:—

"Societies had been commenced of various
kinds, and it had almost invariably happened
that they had fallen out of the hands of the
working men who established them, into the
hands of others who took no part in their
formation. They were not too proud to learn
from experience. They looked at other
societies, and found it had been so. Now,
there was no effect without a cause, and it
was a sad effect if they spent their energies
and perseverance in establishing an institution
of their own, and let it be taken from them.
They said such a state of things should
continue no longer. But not too fast, brother
working men. Whose fault was it if their
institution was taken from them? It was
not the fault of those into whose hands it
fell. The working men of John Street had
established a Reading-room; and that their
efforts had raised it to something like
importance, was evident from the numerous
assembly around him. It was not perfection,
as yet, it was true; but for twenty months
only, out of the pence of working men, it was
really wonderful. Well, such institutions got
on very quietly at first: there was nobody to
interfere with them whilst in their infancy.
But when they got a name, and somebody
dropped in upon them with a better coat on
his back than the members wore, the whisper
was passed round, ' Who is that? ' ' Oh! it
is So-and-so,' was the reply passed back
again; and the gentleman had not been three
months among them till it was proposed to
put him on the committee. He was put on,
and did not feel very comfortable. Being
brought up in a different sphere, he had not
the same feelings that they had; he was
rather more polished, and felt rather
uncomfortable; but in the course of time a
couple of his companions got in by his
influence, and, in their turn, the working men
were left in a minority, and felt uncomfortable.
The gentlemen appointed to look after
the interests of the institution could not do
it; it was only the working men themselves
who knew what they wanted. Each in his
own sphere knew what would suit them;
and it was folly to think that those above
them could know better than themselves
what they wanted. At the commencement—
when they were in the very cradle of existence
—they made this very law. They would not
allow the evil of interference to commence.

* * Some persons urged that it was difficult
to help the people, because they would not
help themselves. And he, too, said it was
impossible to help a community who would
not help themselves. The more they were
helped, the more they wanted help, and the
more they were degraded by the energy and
wealth spent upon them. Therefore, he said,
they must rely upon themselves, if they
wished to rise." Thus speaks a working man
of the John Street Committee in Carlisle, and
let us see now what these John Street
Committee-men have done.

In April, 1848, when every ear was daily
listening for the great tidings which that
period of strange excitement was continually
furnishing—in April, 1848, a few poor men,
most of them handloom weavers, clubbed
their wits together for the means of getting
at a daily newspaper. Obviously it was found
requisite that they should also club their
pennies. The result was, that within the
first week after the suggestion had been
made, fifty persons had come forward as
subscribers of a weekly penny, and a school-room
had been lent to them, wherein to meet and
read their papers. These men were all of the
same class; they had originated their idea,
and they were themselves managing its
execution. Companions multiplied about
them; there was formed quite a prosperous
little society of men contributing their weekly
pennies, and it was resolved, therefore, to
attempt the formation of a permanent reading-
room and a committee was appointed to draw
up a code of rules. The working man's
reading-room in John Street, Botchergate,
became thus one of the institutions of Carlisle,
and flourished for a few months; then news
became less interesting, trade also was bad,
members fell off, funds declined, and the
experiment would have been abandoned, but
for the judicious and well-timed assistance of
Dr. Elliott, and other members of the middle
class. These aided the effort of the working
men to help themselves, with advice, and cash,
and books; their aid was fairly given, fairly
taken, no abandonment of independence on
the part of the workmen being asked or
offered.

We pause here for a minute or two, because
this is a point to which we would direct particular
attention. The working man, however