d for it by voluntary subscription--L.800 of which
was contributed by 20,000 of the working-classes. To their honour be
it recorded! But the inhabitants have done yet more; they have made
over the library to the town-council, that it may become one of their
public institutions, and have agreed to pay a half-penny rate to
provide the necessary funds for its perpetual maintenance. May they
have their reward!

Considering that educational reform or renovation may erelong be
looked for at Oxford, in accordance with the recommendations of the
University Commission, it behoves other parts of the kingdom to be
fully awake to the importance of the subject. 'There is a spreading
conviction, that man was made for a higher purpose than to be a beast
of burden, or a creature of sense;' and it will not do to stifle this
conviction. Comprehensive endeavours must be made to educate and
enlighten; to touch the heart as well as to train the intellect. And
it must not be forgotten, that education involves very much besides
mere book-learning--the mechanical duties, namely, of everyday life.
Something of the latter is to be tried in the City Hospice and
Soup-kitchen just opened near the foot of Holborn Hill. Though fitted
up in an old house, it is a training institute of a new kind, where
individuals of both sexes will acquire useful knowledge in a practical
way, best explained by a passage from the report of the opening:

'In one portion of the educational department is an ironing-table,
provided with the necessary utensils, for the purpose of instructing
the women and girls in that necessary portion of domestic science,
from the finest description of work down to the very coarsest.
Adjoining this is a table laid out _en famille_; this also being
considered, and justly so, no unimportant branch of knowledge. In
another portion is a table prepared for a large party: every variety
of glass likely to be required being properly placed, and every napkin
being differently folded, so as to enable the ambitious neophyte to
suit the taste of all mistresses. Beyond this is a small closet, with
a window resembling those of an ordinary-sized house; and this the men
and women are both taught to clean, while the closet itself serves as
a cover for the simple operation of polishing boots and shoes. To this
succeeds a table, upon which are placed the utensils for cleaning
plate, and on another table the instruments for cleaning lamps.' Such
an establi