|
GLASGOW, DECEMBER 28, 1847
[The first Soiree, commemorative of the opening of the Glasgow
Athenaeum took place on the above evening in the City Hall. Mr.
Charles Dickens presided, and made the following speech:]
Ladies and gentlemen--Let me begin by endeavouring to convey to you
the assurance that not even the warmth of your reception can
possibly exceed, in simple earnestness, the cordiality of the
feeling with which I come amongst you. This beautiful scene and
your generous greeting would naturally awaken, under any
circumstances, no common feeling within me; but when I connect them
with the high purpose of this brilliant assembly--when I regard it
as an educational example and encouragement to the rest of
Scotland--when I regard it no less as a recognition on the part of
everybody here of the right, indisputable and inalienable, of all
those who are actively engaged in the work and business of life to
elevate and improve themselves so far as in them lies, by all good
means--I feel as if I stand here to swear brotherhood to all the
young men in Glasgow;--and I may say to all the young women in
Glasgow; being unfortunately in no position to take any tenderer
vows upon myself--and as if we were pledged from this time
henceforth to make common cause together in one of the most
laudable and worthy of human objects.
Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made in such a design
as that which brings us together this night; for without it,
nothing can be done, but with it, everything. It is a common cause
of right, God knows; for it is idle to suppose that the advantages
of such an institution as the Glasgow Athenaeum will stop within
its own walls or be confined to its own members. Through all the
society of this great and important city, upwards to the highest
and downwards to the lowest, it must, I know, be felt for good.
Downward in a clearer perception of, and sympathy with, those
social miseries which can be alleviated, and those wide-open doors
to vice and crime that can be shut and barred; and upward in a
greater intelligence, increased efficiency, and higher knowledge,
of all who partake of its benefits themselves, or who communicate,
as all must do, in a greater or less degree, some portion to the
circle of relatives or friends in which they move.
Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man, however high
his social position, or however great his attainments, that he
might not find something to be learnt even from immediate contact
with such institutions. If he only saw the goddess Knowledge
coming out of her secluded palaces and high places to mingle with
the throng, and to give them shining glimpses of the delights which
were long kept hoarded up, he might learn something. If he only
saw the energy and the courage with which those who earn their
daily bread by the labour of their hands or heads, come night after
night, as to a recreation, to that which was, perhaps, the whole
absorbing business of his youth, there might still be something
very wholesome for him to learn. But when he could see in such
places their genial and reviving influences, their substituting of
the contemplation of the beauties of nature and art, and of the
wisdom of great men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupid idleness-
-at any rate he would learn this--that it is at once the duty and
the interest of all good members of society to encourage and
protect them.
I took occasion to say at an Athenaeum in Yorkshire a few weeks
since, and I think it a point most important to be borne in mind on
such commemorations as these, that when such societies are objected
to, or are decried on the ground that in the views of the
objectors, education among the people has not succeeded, the term
education is used with not the least reference to its real meaning,
and is wholly misunderstood. Mere reading and writing is not
education; it would be quite as reasonable to call bricks and
mortar architecture--oils and colours art--reeds and cat-gut music-
-or the child's spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, or
Bacon--as to call the lowest rudiments of education, education, and
to visit on that most abused and slandered word their failure in
any instance; and precisely because they were not education;
because, generally speaking, the word has been understood in that
sense a great deal too long; because education for the business of
life, and for the due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at least
as important from day to day to the grown person as to the child;
because real education, in the strife and contention for a
livelihood, and the consequent necessity incumbent on a great
number of young persons to go into the world when they are very
young, is extremely difficult. It is because of these things that
I look upon mechanics' institutions and athenaeums as vitally
important to the well-being of society. It is because the
rudiments of education may there be turned to good account in the
acquisition of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope,
faith, and charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because
of that, I take it, that you have met in education's name to-night.
It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf
of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a
vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself
singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope
that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when
it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its
youth. It has already passed through some of the disorders to
which children are liable; it succeeded to an elder brother of a
very meritorious character, but of rather a weak constitution, and
which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is said, a
destructive habit of getting up early in the morning: it succeeded
this elder brother, and has fought manfully through a sea of
troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its
pulse has been exceedingly low, being only 1250, when it was
expected to have been 10,000; several relations and friends have
even gone so far as to walk off once or twice in the melancholy
belief that it was dead. Through all that, assisted by the
indomitable energy of one or two nurses, to whom it can never be
sufficiently grateful, it came triumphantly, and now, of all the
youthful members of its family I ever saw, it has the strongest
attitude, the healthiest look, the brightest and most cheerful air.
I find the institution nobly lodged; I find it with a reading-room,
a coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it with lectures given and
in progress, in sound, useful and well-selected subjects; I find it
with morning and evening classes for mathematics, logic, grammar,
music, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by upwards of
five hundred persons; but, best and first of all and what is to me
more satisfactory than anything else in the history of the
institution, I find that all, this has been mainly achieved by the
young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. And,
ladies and gentlemen, as the axiom, "Heaven helps those who help
themselves," is truer in no case than it is in this, I look to the
young men of Glasgow, from such a past and such a present, to a
noble future. Everything that has been done in any other
athenaeum, I confidently expect to see done here; and when that
shall be the case, and when there shall be great cheap schools in
connexion with the institution, and when it has bound together for
ever all its friends, and brought over to itself all those who look
upon it as an objectionable institution,--then, and not till then,
I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest from their labours, and
think their study done.
If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement in
this wise, they have one beside them in the presence of their fair
townswomen, which is irresistible. It is a most delightful
circumstance to me, and one fraught with inestimable benefits to
institutions of this kind, that at a meeting of this nature those
who in all things are our best examples, encouragers, and friends,
are not excluded. The abstract idea of the Graces was in ancient
times associated with those arts which refine the human
understanding; and it is pleasant to see now, in the rolling of the
world, the Graces popularising the practice of those arts by their
example, and adorning it with their presence.
I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenaeum there is a
peculiar bond of union between the institution and the fairest part
of creation. I understand that the necessary addition to the small
library of books being difficult and expensive to make, the ladies
have generally resolved to hold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the
proceeds to this admirable purpose; and I learn with no less
pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, in a graceful and womanly
sense of the excellence of this design, has consented that the
bazaar shall be held under her royal patronage. I can only say,
that if you do not find something very noble in your books after
this, you are much duller students than I take you to be. The
ladies--the single ladies, at least--however disinterested I know
they are by sex and nature, will, I hope, resolve to have some of
the advantages of these books, by never marrying any but members of
the Athenaeum. It seems to me it ought to be the pleasantest
library in the world.
Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fancies of some
familiar writer of fiction, "How long since I first became
acquainted with these characters; what old-fashioned friends they
seem; and yet I am not tired of them like so many other friends,
nor they of me." In this case the books will not only possess all
the attractions of their own friendships and charms, but also the
manifold--I may say womanfold--associations connected with their
donors. I can imagine how, in fact, from these fanciful
associations, some fair Glasgow widow may be taken for the remoter
one whom Sir Roger de Coverley could not forget; I can imagine how
Sophia's muff may be seen and loved, but not by Tom Jones, going
down the High Street on any winter day; or I can imagine the
student finding in every fair form the exact counterpart of the
Glasgow Athenaeum, and taking into consideration the history of
Europe without the consent of Sheriff Alison. I can imagine, in
short, how through all the facts and fictions of this library,
these ladies will be always active, and that
"Age will not wither them, nor custom stale
Their infinite variety."
It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy chance, that
this meeting has been held at this genial season of the year, when
a new time is, as it were, opening before us, and when we celebrate
the birth of that divine and blessed Teacher, who took the highest
knowledge into the humblest places, and whose great system
comprehended all mankind. I hail it as a most auspicious omen, at
this time of the year, when many scattered friends and families are
re-assembled, for the members of this institution to be calling men
together from all quarters, with a brotherly view to the general
good, and a view to the general improvement; as I consider that
such designs are practically worthy of the faith we hold, and a
practical remembrance of the words, "On earth peace, and good will
toward men." I hope that every year which dawns on your
Institution, will find it richer in its means of usefulness, and
grayer-headed in the honour and respect it has gained. It can
hardly speak for itself more appropriately than in the words of an
English writer, when contemplating the English emblem of this
period of the year, the holly-tree:-
[Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of
Southey's poem, The Holly Tree.
In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald (then
Mr.) Alison, Mr. Dickens said:]
Ladies and Gentlemen,--I am no stranger--and I say it with the
deepest gratitude--to the warmth of Scottish hearts; but the warmth
of your present welcome almost deprives me of any hope of
acknowledging it. I will not detain you any longer at this late
hour; let it suffice to assure you, that for taking the part with
which I have been honoured in this festival, I have been repaid a
thousand-fold by your abundant kindness, and by the unspeakable
gratification it has afforded me. I hope that, before many years
are past, we may have another meeting in public, when we shall
rejoice at the immense progress your institution will have made in
the meantime, and look back upon this night with new pleasure and
satisfaction. I shall now, in conclusion, repeat most heartily and
fervently the quotation of Dr. Ewing, the late Provost of Glasgow,
which Bailie Nicol Jarvie, himself "a Glasgow body," observed was
"elegantly putten round the town's arms."
< BackForward >
|
