To begin with: the
title did not suggest to me anything in the least like the truth.
I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms,
"Mechanics' Institutions," and "Literary Societies," but they have,
unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body
of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other,
which generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, which
is seldom paid for, and which takes the name of the mechanics most
grievously in vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo
in that place together.
I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this
title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, "Here's the old
story." But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave
me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; in
short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the
old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I
learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one
central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics'
Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no
more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to all how
they can best communicate with and profit by the fountain-head and
one another; keeping their best aims steadily before them; advising
them how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and
object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and
sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes
of excellent books, called "Free Itinerating Libraries.
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