working classes having been generally conceded, the time has arrived for them to obtain that instruction which shall raise their moral and intellectual condition. The ranks of labourers in professions and mercantile pursuits, have increased their powers of usefulness by their higher literary and scientific attainments, and from them have essentially sprung those who have most adorned the literature of the age. In science, those who have been connected with manufacturing industry are the most practically eminent. Sound education leads to successful industry; and wealth rarely omits to seek for its votaries the highest teaching and training which can be procured. We refer with unbounded pleasure to the preparation for the intended gathering in this city of the treasures of art which our country contains, and we venture to anticipate elevating and important educational results from the teaching thus to be afforded by the fine arts, and by their alliance with trade and commerce. Now, if the labouring classes would trace the advantages to be derived from mental improvement by observing the benefits conferred by the superior education of those in the classes immediately above them, the sober and sensible workman would never cease his efforts to improve himself, and to secure the best teaching and training for his children. Ignorance, computed by our pecuniary standard, has cost this country an amazing sum; but subjected to a moral test, the fatal delinquences, the vicious propensities, and the consequent degradation of some of our fellow-mortals in the humble ranks of life, are harrowing and appalling. Our country has a vital interest in a virtuous, intelligent, and well-conducted people, and, therefore, a wise government will promote the teaching and training of the young amongst us by a system of national education. In this age of progress none but intelligent labour can well reward the workman, or contribute to national advancement. The acquirement of useful knowledge, accompanied by close observation, may now be looked upon

as requisite for every individual who would emerge from the dark dominion in which ignorance reigns. Close attention to, and observation of, everything about us, will benefit both the distinguished and the unknown, as in the memorable instances of Newton, who saw, in the falling apple, the law of gravitation; and of the working lad, Job Potter, who had been employed to open and shut the valves of one of the first steam engines, but whose sagacity and love for leisure taught him to make the engine do its own work, and to supply an agency that Watt had neglected to introduce.

The paramount importance of intelligent and rightly directed labour having now been enforced, we throw the seed of this humble effort upon the fructifying waters of life, in the hope that, as of old, after many days, "it may increase" to our solid advancement; and whilst we forget not the precept, that "wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by labour shall increase," let us individually and collectively associate the extension of civilisation and commerce with the beautiful truths of our common Christianity; always remembering that health and happiness are also identified with labour, and that the ways of Providence are those which lead us to the greatest usefulness here, and to our highest destiny hereafter.

ON WATER.

BY DR. R. ANGUS SMITH. [Delivered to the Members of the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.]

When we reflect long on any of the important substances or laws of nature, we see them so closely connected with all that man wants, as well as with all the economy of nature itself, that we are apt to think for awhile that this one substance or law is really the most important of all that exist. With water, however, we may well make that mistake, as it holds a position in creation of the very highest rank, and yields to none except, perhaps, to air, in the manifold nature of its duties. Simple and despised as it may sometimes come before us, no element has attracted so much of man's attention, no substance has called forth his exertions more universally, and none has received so much of his admiration, or absorbed (I may almost add) so much of his affections. To those who do not study nature, these expressions may appear somewhat too strong; and to those who do not study history or travels, they may almost appear absurd. I shall, however, allude to the manner in which mankind at various times have regarded the subject of this evening. Our earliest book, as well as our best, is from a country where water was much appreciated.

To describe the beauty and value of Canaan, it is called 66 a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills." To signify beauty and abundance, the tents of Israel are แ as cedar trees beside water;" and as a mark of security, it is said, "water shall be sure."

As

a mark of prosperity, "thou shalt be like a watered garden, and as a spring of water whose waters fail not." As an emblem of happiness, "as cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." As an emblem of all our natural wants, "giving water to the weary to drink"; and as a support to us it is called, "the whole stay of water." At the same time it stands as an emblem of weakness, "all knees shall be weak as water," and "unstable as water;" and in another direction as indicative of force, "like the rushing of mighty waters." It is an emblem of fickleness from instability, and an emblem of truth from its transparency, as face answereth to face in water;" and of turbulence, as the troubled sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt;" whilst it readily takes its more usual character of purity, and as water of purification is every where used.

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It would be a long but pleasing occupation to look at it in all its meanings, from the dew to the rainfrom the river to the lake and the sea-from the most wretched condition of the poor when they "seek water and there is none," to the condition intended as an emblem of all material comfort and delight, spring of water whose waters fail not," a "well of living water, and streams from Lebanon," and its use as an emblem of intellectual abundance, "the law of the wise is a fountain of life."

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The oldest civilised people we know of worshipped. the water of the Nile; it was so clear to them that all their wealth came to them with the river. The fountain, well, or river, has played, and always must play, a most important part in the life of those who live in warm climates. With the Greeks, the love of fountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, was a mixed passion and religion, a strange form which their love of the picturesque took, so that when we read their authors we must sink after Thetis to the depths of the sea with the sympathizing Nereids around her, and traverse it with Neptune the great "shaker of the ground." The

Athenians were proud of their springs, and imagined that no other country produced them so fine as Attica did; they were proud too of their little rivers, and sung about them so much that every brook has become like a Mississippi itself in their literature. In Greece and Rome we have fountains and rivers held sacred by the people; the fountains were ornamented with all the power of art, and so firmly has this laid hold of the people that to this day the fountains are sacred, although a saint has taken the place of a nymph. The intense delight of lying down near a murmuring brook in a hot summer-day is the theme of many a poet. The danger of inundations, as well as the horrors of storms on the sea, have an almost equal share of their attention. The water in a landscape has such a large share of the effect upon us that it is no wonder that all poets of scenery should mention it, and a as well as Thomson like "by gelid founts and careless rills to muse." It is interesting to observe how different poets have treated the phenomena that present themselves connected with water. We have here a violent shower and flood:

First, joyless rains obscure

Drive through the mingling fires with vapours foul,
Dash on the mountain's brow and shake the woods
That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain
Lies a brown deluge; as the low bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still,
Combine and deepening into night shut up
The day's fair face.

As a poet of seasons, with which water has much to

do, it is right to quote Thomson.

Then we hear, in

Shelley, of a stream from a mountain

Gliding and springing,
She went ever singing

In murmurs as soft as sleep.

Then we have the shower, from Thomson :

When heaven descends

In universal bounty, shedding herbs,

And fruits, and flowers in nature's ample lap.