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.
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