The Duke of Argyll presided at the annual Conference of
the Yorkshire Mechanics' Institutes held at Sheffield on Wednesday, and made a good though rather a dull speech. Its point was that the interference of the State in education had proved beneficial, and he instanced the Factory Acts under which children employed in thewoollen, linen, and flax trades are educated compulsorily. That statementis not correct. as the parents unhappily have only to decline wages for their children in order to decline the education too ; but it is pleasant to see a Whig Duke with courage enough to express boldly a belief as yet so unpopular. It is true he was speaking to working men, and, if ever they are admitted to the suffrage, they will strike down the sectarian middle-class prejudices which now impede education with most beneficial roughness ; but it was bold for all that. Mr. Roebuck was present and made a speech full of fulsome adulation of the Duke, whom he called "a great poten- tate," but otherwise sensible and moderate. Only we do wish members who make speeches did not think themselves bound to praise "working men" by themselves quite so much. One would think they were savages whom it was a wonder to see behave in any reasonable way. Does Mr. Roebuck expect them to break windows, or use the shillelagh, or get universally drunk, or dance corobberies, or what, that he utters a pompous enlogium on thirty thousand men who visited the Crystal Palace "without making any disturbance?" Why should they make a disturbance any more than thirty thousand Mr. Roebucks? They leave that to a class above them, the " gents " who throng to Cremorne, and think false noses fanny.
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