Of the importance of the proposed Museum of Industrial Science and Art, it is needless to speak. It would be for the public the central feature of the Institute, and of incalculable value not only to it, but to all engaged in all active industry whatever.
As regards the School of Industrial Science and Art, with its divisions, we see no occasion for material cause of difference between its constitution and that of the excellent Polytechnic College in Philadelphia. New departments of instruction could be added as the means and power of the Institute increased, until it would ultimately form what the world needs but has never yet seen—a thoroughly scientific University, in which every branch of human knowledge should be clearly taught on a positive basis—a school where literature and art would be ennobled and refined by elevation from mysticism, 'rhapsody,' and obscurity, to their true position as historical developments and indices of human progress. We are pleased to see that in the plan proposed, provision would be made for two classes of persons—those who enter the school with the view of a progressive scientific training in applied science, and the far more numerous class who may be expected to resort to its lecture-rooms for such useful knowledge of scientific principles as they can acquire without continually devoted study, and in hours not occupied by active labor.
This whole plan, though in the highest degree practical, has, it will be observed, 'no affinity with that instruction in mere empirical routine which has sometimes been vaunted as the proper education for the industrial classes'—an absurd and shallow system which has been urged by quacks and dabblers in world-bettering, and which has been exhausted without avail in England—the system dear to single-sided Gradgrinds and illiterate men who grasp a twig here and there without knowing of the existence of the trunk and roots. It lays down a perfectly scientific and universal basis, believing that the most insignificant industry, to be perfectly understood and pursued, must proceed from a knowledge of the great principles of science and of all truth.
Under the charge of Professor W.B. Rogers, Messrs. Charles H. Dalton, E.B. Bigelow, James M. Beebee, and other members of a committee embracing some of the most public-spirited men of Boston, this plan has been thus far matured, and now awaits the sympathy, aid, and counsel of the friends of industrial art and general education throughout the community. We have gladly set forth its objects and claims, trusting that it may be fully successful here, and serve as an exemplar for the establishment of similar institutions in every other State.
SLAVERY AND NOBILITY vs. DEMOCRACY.
Few political convulsions have hitherto transpired, which have so much puzzled the world to get at the entire motives of the revolt, as the present insurrection in this country. Were public opinion to be made up from the political literature of Great Britain, or its leading journals, very little certainty would be arrived at as to the merits or demerits of the attempted revolution. The articles of De Bow's Review smack little more of a secession origin than the late dissertations on American politics appearing in the British periodicals. The statements of most of the leading English journals are quite in keeping. Any one accustomed to the 'ear-marks' of secession phraseology and declamation would be at little loss to identify the Southern emissary in connection with the periodicals and press of the British islands. Hence the hypocrisy and studied concealment of those hidden motives necessary to be made apparent, in order to judge of the merits of secession.
The world has known that for thirty years past there has been a feverish and jealous discontent expressed in the cotton States. It had its first ebullition in 1832, when South-Carolina assumed the right to nullify the revenue laws of Congress. Since that time the North has continually been accused of an aggressive policy. Various extravagant pretenses have from time to time been raised up by the South, and urged as causes for dissolving the Union. They have always, until recently, been met by forbearance and compromise.
The extension and perpetuation of slavery has been prominent as the open motive for Southern political activity; and equally prominent as one of the motives for dismembering the Union. There has been another project, however, in connection with the attempted dissolution of the Union, of a most alarming nature: that project was the intended prostration of the democratic principle in Southern politics. While a privileged order in government was made the basis of political ambition by the aspirants or leading spirits, it was also to be made the means of perpetuating the institution of slavery. Whether these adjuncts, slavery perpetuation, and government through a privileged class, were twins of the same birth, is not very material; but whether they existed together as the joint motive to overthrow the national jurisdiction, involves very deeply the present and continuing questions in American politics.
To many gentlemen of intelligence and high standing in the South, the intended establishment of a different order of government, based on privilege of class, has appeared to be the ruling motive. They have set down the expressed apprehension as to the insecurity of slavery as a hypocritical pretext for revolution; believing that the more absorbing motive was to establish an order of nobility, either with or without monarchy. There is some plausibility for giving the ambitious motive the greater prominence; but a more severe analysis of the whole question will, it is believed, place slavery perpetuation in the foreground as the origin of all other motives for the conspiracy.