On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    most necessary principles on the other side , and , above all , feeble © p inions and irresolute conduct between these two extremes , I look around for some remedy for these intellectual and moral evils , which must end in political evils , and 1 see it in such institutions as I am now addressing . Independently of the large

    means you possess of diffusing truth amongst the people , the mere fact that you afford truth a fair hearing must be alarming- to errors , whose greatest strength is in silence . Nor need I tell you that empty professions will be less likely to be made , when the most intelligent of those to whom they have to be made are known to be aware of their empiiness . Nor will even more sincere

    opinions be able to be held without observing the precept * prove all things / when there are intelligent persons who require opinions to be submitted to this fair test . I must recall to your remembrance once more the main object of my two lectures , from which we have not , indeed , wandered

    a single step , namely , to inquire into the best means of communicating knowledge to such audiences as are generally to be found in small country towns . Have I then been right in recommending our friend , who has succeeded in establishing a Mechanics ' Institution in Marlbro ' , * to commence by employing as good a reader as the Institution can secure , to read such works of genius , as are sure , when well read , to come home to the bosoms and business of all ; namely , by appealing to their consciences and reasons through their imaginations and feelings ? Will our friend be right , secondly , in leading minds not accustomed to physical experiments , nor to synthetical and analvtical

    reasoning's , more gradually than lectures on natural philosophy usually do , into the facts and principles of physical science ? Lastly , will our friend be right in bringing a knowledge of the action of imagination , and of the certainties of science , to bear on opinions which are often held with more vehemence of sincerity than evidence of truth , and which become the groundwork of fanaticism in one state of mind , and of scepticism in another ?

    I have thus endeavoured to point out to the notice of yourselves , and I hope of others , a few steps in a plan of public instruction , which would prove as easy to the teacher , as it would be pleasant to the pupil . The chief advantage of the plan I have proposed is , that , whilst it is plain to be understood , and not difficult of execution , ! even to men of the most moderate talents ; it is capable of any extension which the genius and information

    • The name of Welford will long be remembered with gratitude in Marlbro ' , as hiving given a powerful aid to the exertions of spirited and intelligent individuals ia their endeavours to > inspire thought and feeling into that Hmall country town . t Let me remark , that some of the most successful preachers I have heard in the Church have been readers of other men ' s sermonu . Having taken much pains to "&h out the force of other men ' s thoughts , they have , though very able men thernfelvet , done much more good than they could have done , if they had wasted them * tetoe * in original compotition .

    Untitled Article

    The Ttijfu&on of Knowledge amongst the People . Ht 9

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 279, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/47/