on subjects kindred to this branch; 2nd, museums; 3rd,
a collection of mining records; 4th, lectures on general
scientific subjects; 5th, periodical meetings for the reading
and discussion of original communications, upon the
plan of the sections of the British Association; and 6th,
a gallery of fine arts for the reception of examples of
painting and sculpture. The schools are intended to
give systematic instruction in chemistry as applied to
the various manufactures and agriculture, mechanics,
metallurgy, mineralogy, and geology, ventilation of
mines, and mining, engineering, &c. The plan has
already received the support of the Board of Trade
Department of Science and Art, and about £7,000. has
been already subscribed to carry out the project, in
addition to a piece of land which the Town Council have
presented, valued at £10,000. At this meeting many
thousand persons were present. Almost all the principal
manufacturers of the town and surrounding
neighbourhood were present, as well as many of the principals
of the South Staffordshire ironworks. Captain Tindal,
of the Branch Bank of England, presided. After some
remarks from the Chairman, Sir R. Peel addressed the
meeting at great length. The hon. baronet dwelt with
considerable force upon the progress of science and art;
but he pointed out how that progress was impeded by
the want of proper means to convey systematic instruction
to the mechanic and artisan. Much as had been
done by the Society of Arts, the Schools of Design, and
the Mechanics' Institutions, the state of public education
was still deplorably deficient. Look at Holland,
France, Switzerland, and, above all, at the United
States of America, and see how anxious they were to
turn to account their own intellectual resources. Look
at France alone, with its Ecole Polytechnique, its Ecole
des Manufactures, and its Ecole des Beaux Arts—all
institutions directly bearing on the intellectual condition
of the industrial classes; and were they to permit France
and the United States to make greater provision than
themselves? They had hitherto been the foremost in
the march of civilisation, and if they meant to maintain
that position they must unite all their efforts, as by this
alone would they be enabled to keep pace with their
competitors. Look at Lyons with its silks, or Genoa
with its velvets, or Brussels and Valenciennes with their
lace, or Massachusetts with its shoes. Did they suppose
it was a matter of small importance to the special industry
of these places that they should be losing ground in
public estimation? Or look at their own manufacturing
towns: Nottingham, with its lace; Leeds, with its
cloth; and Sheifield, with its cutlery. Did they
suppose that in these towns it was a small matter for them
not to maintain their own special position; So it was
with Birmingham. Look at the lamp-trade, the glass-
trade, the japanning-trade, and the various branches of
hardware manufacture. They had men among them
who at present enjoyed a well-earned reputation fur
improvement in the manufacture of all these things—
the Chances, the Elkingtons, the Jennen and
Bettridges; but unless they gave to the working-classes
opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of mechanical
science, of artistic education, and of the application of
steam power, no matter what their present reputation
was, one generation would suffice to sweep it away.—
The meeting was subsequently addressed by Mr. Scholefield,
M.P., the Rev. G. M. Yorke, the Rev. G. H.
Gifford, the Rev. Chancellor Law, Archdeacon Sandford,
Mr. S. H. Blackwell of Dudley, Mr. Henry Cole,
Mr. P. Hollins, Mr. J. F. Winfield, and a working-man
named Jones, who said that so long as the artisans were
kept so many hours at labour, institutions such as the
one projected would be found useless—the concert-room
and the gin-palace would beat them all. Resolutions
were passed unanimously, thoroughly approving the
plan of the institution.

The half-yearly meeting of the Governesses' Benevolent
Institution, for the election of annuitants, was held on
the 4th inst., when Miss Trash, Miss Carlisle, and Miss
Cragg, were respectively elected to annuities of £20.
One of these annuities bears the name of the "Laing
Testimonial Annuity," and originated under
circumstances which deserve to be made known, as evidencing
such high and honourable feeling on the part of the
reverend gentleman whose name it bears. Some friends
of Mr. Laing, deeply impressed with his invaluable
services, as honorary secretary to the Governesses'
Institution, during the last ten years, some time since
set on foot a subscription, for the purpose of presenting
him with a testimonial, to mark at once their esteem,
and to evince their gratitude for his indefatigable and
most successful labours in the cause of this admirable
institution. On the proceeding becoming known to
Mr. Laing, he respectfully declined receiving any gift of
a pecuniary remunerative kind, or even of a purely
personal nature, in the form of plate or otherwise, and
expressed his desire that the funds so raised should be
devoted in some way to the uses of the charity. They
have been accordingly funded to constitute a perpetual
annuity for a governess, under the above-mentioned title.
The sum hitherto raised only suffices to make an annuity
of the value named, but as the subscription list still remains
open, it is expected that this will be eventually raised
considerably beyond its present amount. By the terms
of the endowment the right of presentation to this
annuity is vested in Mr. and Mrs. Laing during their
life, and to any successor named by them; but on the
present occasion this right was most handsomely waived
by Mr. and Mrs. Laing, and given up to the members
of the society at large.

The necessity and uses of Returns of Agricultural
Statistics, officially digested and published, are clearly
and forcibly stated by Lord Ashburton in the following
letter addressed to a board of Guardians in Hampshire.
Lord Ashburton is a member of the board, and, as may
be seen, the subject of the letter has occupied the
attentions of the guardians—the latter having been
applied to for certain returns by the government, and
misapprehensions having prevailed both as to the exact
nature of the return desired of them, and as to the
motives of the government in desiring it. "Now, with
regard to the first point (writes Lord Ashburton), the
government does not require the amount of each man's
stock, or the extent of each man's cultivation; such a
return would be too cumbrous for use, too expensive for
publication. The government wants the sums total, not
the items of which those sums total are composed. It
seeks no more to mark out and distinguish the
return of each occupier, than we seek to mark out and
distinguish each brick of which our house is built up.
The house must be put together brick by brick, and
the return for the three kingdoms gathered item by
item; but the items which compose the sum total will
be as much lost in the mass and aggregate of the
whole, as the bricks which compose the house are
lost in the mass and magnitude of the building. The
next question is, Why does the government desire
these statistics? What is its motive? It certainly is
not with the view of turning corndealer itself, as some
have supposed, for that would be not only absurd, but
illegal. It assuredly has no notion of taxing our
produce; for no government under a representative system
would dare to propose a tax upon the necessaries of life.
It evidently does not wish to pry into our secret
concerns, for it is provided that we make our returns at
our option, either jointly or severally. It appears to
me that the wonder is, not that the government should
now endeavour to collect agricultural statistics, but that
it should never have sought to do so before. It has
now for many consecutive years spent large sums in
order to collect, digest, and publish the statistics of
trade, shipping, and manufactures, for the use of the
merchants, shipowners, and manufacturers; why should
not some little money have been spared to do as much
for us? Is it consistent with good sense that every
month the public should have paraded before its eyes, and
canvassed in every newspaper, the tons of shipping and
llie pounds of cotton which have entered and quitted
our ports, and that no intimation should be given from
year's end to year's end of the food prepared and
preparing for a people's subsistence? Is our industry
so unimportant, our capital so minute, that no note
should be taken of its condition? This is not the
case in other countries. The United States of America
make an annual return of the number of bushels of
corn grown, the quantity they require for their own
consumption, and the quantity they can spare for
export. The great corn-dealers have long felt the