dent. By the influence of
the Prince, as President of the Royal Commissioners of 1851, a site for
the proposed central College was granted at a nominal rent, on the
estate at South Kensington. To lay the foundation stone of this
building, the Prince, accompanied by the Princess of Wales, came on the
18th of July, 1881.

An address having been delivered by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Selborne,
Chairman of the Committee of the Institute, the Prince of Wales
delivered the following speech, which more clearly presents the whole
subject, and brings out its national importance:--

"My Lord Chancellor, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,--I thank
you for your address, and beg leave to assure you that it gives
me much satisfaction to attend here to-day to lay the foundation
stone of an institution which gives such forcible expression to
one of the most important needs in the education of persons who
are destined to take part in the productive history of this
country.

"Hitherto English teaching has chiefly relied on training the
intellectual faculties, so as to adapt men to apply their
intelligence in any occupation of life to which they may be
called; and this general discipline of the mind has on the whole
been found sufficient until recent times; but during the last
thirty years the competition of other nations, even in
manufactures which once were exclusively carried on in this
kingdom, has been very severe. The great progress that has been
made in the means of locomotion as well as in the application of
steam for the purposes of life has distributed the raw materials
of industry all over the world, and has economized time and
labour in their conversion to objects of utility. Other nations
which did not possess in such abundance as Great Britain coal,
the source of power, and iron, the essence of strength,
compensated for the want of raw material by the technical
education of their industrial classes, and this country has,
therefore, seen manufactures springing up everywhere, guided by
the trained intelligence thus created. Both in Europe and in
America technical colleges for teaching, not the practice, but
the principles of science and art involved in particular
industries, had been organized in all the leading centres of
industry.

"England is now thoroughly aware of the necessity for
supplementing