No. 1.

OUR SAY. If Solomon lived in these days he would not say "There's nothing new"; for the number of new things which daily court our observance can only be expressed by the term "legion. " But amid all the new publications which arrest our gaze, in vain do we look for a "Mechanic's Organ." One, in a highsounding prospectus, professes to write for the people-another, without much profession, panders to the people-but it remains for Melbourne to supply an "Organ" on whose keys the people themselves may play, or in whose pages the brotherhood of humanity may mingle their harmonies.

The people dont want dictation, nor will they listen to it: amechanic, though his pocket be unfurnished, feels that he is a man; and a lesson from a pragmatical pedagogue, or a condescending patron, produces, through the spirit in which it is anounced, no permanent benefit. WE come to the mechanic, not to bestow our literary alms upon him; not to cast him in our mould; not to make him feel our superiority, or minister to him mental modicums of diluted knowledge; but in the open, loving spirit of affection, appreciation, and respect and with an aim to call forth the faculties and sympathies of his better nature. This is our invite to Young Men, aye, and to Young Women too; in our pages they may chronicle their wrongs and defend themselves; here may the van encourage the rear; manifest their faith in each other; shew their confidence in good; and give increased speed to the vessel of Hope as it bounds o'er the billows of prejudice and bigotry to the haven of Mind's supremacy!

A.

PRICE ID.

OUR MECHANICS' INSTITUTE. Like the majority of other Mechanics' Institute, ours originated in a desire for moral and mental improvement. Like them, the hopes of its godfathers and godmothers have been but very partially realized; though it has been beneficial in exciting a passion for knowledge, which, previous to its existence had not a being. A Mechanic is a working-man but the Mechanics' Institutes of the past have been unfitted for him; and those who are sometimes reckoned a degree higher in the social scale have mostly been partakers of their advantages; consequently they were not Mechanics' Institutes. The man with horny hands, labour-liveried, and work-soiled, though strong-headed, could not freely assimilate with his better clad, and perhaps more pretending fellows; silently suffered his interest to decline, and for want of a caste-repudiating spirit, cheated himself of the success which generally follows social combinations in the pursuit of mental riches.

We of Melbourne can rejoice that we have not suffered so much from this as many kindred Institutions. The working-man with us has been the man to reap the mental harvest. With early dawn we have seen him light-footed hastening to the class and tasking his mental energies for an hour or two previous to his engagement in the life-battle. In the evening his daily drudgery done, have we seen him, Employed and Employer on the same bench, engaged in a friendly trial of mental skill-and we may see too the M. A. of the parish, the subscriber to the Thirty-nine Articles, mingling with Non-cons. of all shades, and initating them into the mys

vince of religion in the great work of raising the human mind to its primeval purity and dignity; the immediate design is to furnish you with such hints as may assist you in the cultivation of your own minds and this chiefly in relation to the present life,

Mental cultivation consists in the acquisition of knowledge, and in the right application of knowledge when acquired. It must be confessed that there are some branches of knowledge which scarcely admit of any practical application whatever, and which, if measured by the standard of usefulness, would scarcely seem deserving of attention. Usefulness is, besides, a relative term. The knowledge that may be advantageous and even essential to some, may be useless to others,—or only so far valuable, as it enlarges their general stock of information, and furnishes them with materials for speculative reflection and social converse. He who is employed in one department of labour, whether mental or manual, may, in addition to the information requisite for that particular department, acquire by reading and observation a measure of knowledge as to other branches of intellectual or physical, that shall qualify him to speak of them with intelligence and interest. But he would certainly have a very slender claim to the attribute of wisdom, who should not, in the pursuit of knowledge, give a decided preference to what more directly bears on the profession he has chosen, and in the duties of which he is actually engaged.

No wise man will indulge the Utopian desire of universal information, There must, therefore, be selection; and such selection if judicious, will always be regulated by the consideration of practical utility. I must not, however, dismiss by a single sentence, a subject so important; and the neglect of which has, in innumerable instances, been followed by the most injurious consequences. Many young men cherishing a desire of knowledge, in itself most laudible have for want of judgment on this point, failed in acquiring just, enlightened, extended, or useful views, on any subject whatever. Their course of reading and reflection-if course it could be called

has been so much influenced by caprice and chance as to take no definite direction, and lead to no advantageous result. They have taken up and perused with avidity whatever book or pamphlet may have fallen in their way. They have skimmed the surface of almost every subject, and have become proficient in none. They have acquired a smattering of knowledge; but they have learned nothing. They have become wise in their own conceits; but they are on this account so much the more the just objects of commiseration. A vast number of heterogeneous materials have been deposited in their minds; but there is no arrangement, no order, no apparent regard to advantage either personal or relative. Scraps of information are mingled promiscuously together, in such strange proportions, and in such inextricable confusion, that in surveying their mental furniture, they are, or ought to be, at a loss what name to give to the motley assemblage of ideas, and still more what use to make of them. It would be well if they could at once throw the whole away, and replace lumber by even a few articles of substantial worth. But this is a very difficult task

a task seldom, if ever, undertaken. The habit of chaotic conglomeration being once formed, the mind has lost all sense of simplicity, and taste; and having become so enamoured of confusion can see no beauty in order, no advantage in arrangement

I trust

The habit once acquired continues through life; and its victims become, too late, sensible of their folly in having wasted the energies of their minds, without deriving any advantage to themselves, or communicating any to their fellow-men. my young friends, you will sedulously guard against even the incipent indulgence of a practice by which many minds, once energetic and vigorous, have become enfeebled, paralysed and useless. There is one consideration which should give, in your circumstances, additional weight to this advice. Many, if not most of you, have but a small portion of time to devote to the acquisition of knowledge; and it is, consequently, of the more importance that it should be most studiously economised.

WIVES, MOTHERS, DAUGHTERS,

AND SWEETHEARTS,

We want to see a revolution among you! We want every one of you to be what you should be. How can virtue thrive or intelligence grow where Woman is nothing but a doll or a drudge? You ought, happily some do, but all ought to know something about Grammar, Composition, Geography and History, as well as tea-kettle chemistry, stockingdarning, and tatoe-roasting. You ARE the teachers of the rising generation. From your thoughts, and words, and actions it will rise or fall. Its physical fabric and the composition of its mind depend on the fancies that wing your souls, and the ideas that inhabit your craniums. Poets may harp, preachers be eloquent, and philosophers make discoveries, but they labour almost in vain if you prepare not their way.

"Every man is what his MOTHER makes him." She directs the "young idea❞—she teaches the eye to measure and the ear to listen-she makes impressions which all life's after surges can never obliterate, she teaches an alphabet that never slips the memoryshe fixes the speed at which the mental train is to travel. It is woman's to tutor Wattses, Cowpers, and Doddridges it is woman's to convert unconcious babes into Mary Howitts, and Harriett Martineaus, and Eliza Cooks. Qualify yourselves for your high and holy vocation. We have been dinned long enough about the "rights of man" let us hear something about "woman's rights." Seek hours. Demand them. Fire your ambition with loftier aims than can be satisfied by the latest Book of Fashions or the mysteries of Meg Dodd's Cookery; and let the world see, and make it feel that you are determined to be no longer mere stitchers and embroiderers, but worthy developments of what female hearts and minds can accomplish in pruning, polishing, refining, and sweetening those who come within the magic circle of your influence in the rooms of the factories or the more sacred and unmasked scenes of domestic life.

MINNE.

THE WORKING CLASSES. Considering the important services which are rendered to mankind in a civilized state by those who toil with their hands, the influence they exercise in society is comparatively insignificant, and falls far below what it ought to be. Though the whole constitution of nature bears testimony to the truth that "man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow," yet there seems to be a universal desire to escape from manual labour, as if it were an evil, and not, as it really is, a great and necessary good. No intelligent being is worthy the name of Man, who does not toil either with his hands or his head, either physically or mentally. A judicious combination of these two species of labour tends powerfully to develop and cultivate the human faculties, to endue them with health and vigour, and to fit them for the discharge of the high and important functions which they are designed by the Creator to perform, Without labour, constant and unvarying, the whole world of intelligence would perish, and man himself would cease to be. We cannot therefore, look upon labour without reverence. He who professes to despise it, who seeks to raise himself above it, who thinks that the farther he places it from him the more dignified he becomes, is in reality the most helpless and dependent of all creatures; he is incapable of any true enjoyment without the aid and toil of his fellow-men, whom he professes to regard with contempt, What is it that has tended so much to make labour an object of dislike, a thing to be shunned? It is not difficult to answer this question. Labour has hitherto been too much associated with habits of intemperance, with ignorance and coarseness, with pain and suffering. All do not work, and therefore too much toil falls to the lot of many, Excessive labour tasks the bodily powers so heavily and makes such large draughts upon time, as to disqualify the over-wrought workman for the pursuit of knowledge, for the attainment of those luxuries and refinements, associated with which almost any species of labour becomes dignified. Themost repulsive employment in which the workman can be enga