As to the bearing of practical side of education on literary culture, Mr. Henry Smith Williams, in an article on the Literature of Science, shows by remarkable examples that some of the greatest masters of literary style have been men of scientific training. I select the following among many:

"Buffon, famed a century ago for his mastery of literary style, was by profession a naturalist. Dante was learned in every phase of the known science of his time. Keats, ' one of the few writers of his time whom critics have ventured to mention in the same breath as Shakespeare,' was trained in the profession of medicine. Goldsmith was a practicing physician; so also was Schiller, the second poet of Germany. Goethe, ' whose genius raised the German language to a new plane as a medium of literary expression,' would be remembered as a discoverer in science had he never penned a page that can be called literature. Darwin's Origin of Species owed much to the form of its presentation, but much more to the greater artist. Huxley, in Man's Place in Nature, and in a score of other essays, brought all the resources of a marvelously flexible literary style to the aid of the equally revolutionary doctrines that Darwin had inaugurated. It is well to remember also among the teachings of history that material prosperity in the true development of civilization must go hand in hand with intellectual culture, and none have more ardently desired the spread of the latter than those who were in their day the great economic pioneers of the former. "

Earl Stanhope said that:

" In Athens the study of the arts and the acquirements of literature were united and made to flourish by the pursuits of commerce. For while these great speculations in philosophy were being pursued in the grooves of the Acadamy, and while Phidias was raising the masterpieces of his art - at that very time ships from every clime then known were crowding the wealthy ports of the Pirams. "

Your own illustrious townsman, William Roscoe, so long ago as 1817, at the opening of the Liverpool Royal Institution, in an eloquent discourse, remarked:

" We find that in every nation where commerce has been cultivated upon great and enlightened principles a considerable proficiency has been made in liberal studies and pursuits. * * * Under the influence of commerce the barren islands of Venice, and the unhealthy swamps of Holland, became not only the seats of opulence and splendor but the abodes of literature, of science and the fine arts, and vied with each other not less in the number and celebrity of eminent men and distinguished scholars than in the extent of their mercantile concerns."

Lord Beaconsfield, in an address to the students of the Atheneum at Manchester, sixty years ago, declared:

" It is knowledge that equalizes the social condition of man, that gives to all, whatever may be their political position, passions which are in common and enjoyments which are universal. "

Here is the testimony of the great Lancashire man, who was described by Mr. Gladstone as the "inspired bagman. " In 1844 Er. Richard Cobden said:

"There will be one test for the future greatness of Manchester, and that will be a mental test and not a material test - that our destiny will be decided, not by the expanse of bricks and mortar, not by the mulipli-cation of steam engines, nor by the accumulation of wealth, but just in proportion as mental development goes forward, and in proportion to the development of wealth and mental resources, just in the same proportion will our destiny be exalted or the very reverse. "

At Manchester also, in 1847, the second great apostle of the "Manchester School," Mr. John Bright, spoke in a similar strain. After enumerating some of the examples of the commercial progress of the country, he asked:

"With these increased comforts and advantages that we enjoy, shall we neglect that which is most noble because it is the indestructable portion of our being? Shall we be victors in the material world only and gain no laurels in the intellectual ? Or shall we dive to the deepest depths and soar to the loftiest heights; growing in mental stature and adding to all those outward blessings that surround us - yet neglect those which are purer and more lasting and which spring up as a rich harvest from the culture of the mind ?"

Here we have the loftiest and most eloquent tributes to culture from the most eminent promoters of trade and commerce that this country has produced. I could give many others, but I will content myself with a brief appreciation of this same culture by the greatest industrial leader and the most generous friend of technical education of our time - nay, of all time - Mr. Andrew Carnegie. In his rectorial address to the students of St. Andrews he said:

"Of what value is material compared with moral and intellectual supremacy - supremacy not in things of the body, but in those of the spirit ? What the barbarous triumphs of the sword compared with those of the pen? What the action of the thews and sinews against that of godlike reason, the murdering savage armies of brutal force against the peaceful armies of literature, poetry, art, science, law, government, medicine, and all the agencies which refine and civilize man, and help him onward and upward? "

An so, to sum up, I rejoice in the assurance that the technical and scientific training which this great school is imparting to you is not only providing each of you with working capital that can be utilized in the development of the industries of Liverpool, but is " leading your human souls to what is best" in the cultivation of your higher intellectual faculties. We sometimes speak of Britain as the "old country, " as if it had seen its best days and was entering upon its period of decay. It is venerable in years, and perhaps it clings rather tenaciously to some of its old-fashioned customs and ways; but it retains its vigorous strength, its love of freedom, its unbounded energy, its doggedness of purpose, and there has been no falling away in the breed and stamina of its people. It is when we see the young men and maidens of our country gathered together as they are here tonight that, as Burns says, " Hope springs eternal on triumphant wings, " and we feel assured of the enduring qualities of our race and of the perpetual youth of our country.