MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIV, Issue 1021, 10 April 1857, Page 3

MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.

While the needs of the body are being cared for in one direction, those of the mind are being no less actively provided for in another. In the last number of our journal we gave a series of suggestions, made by Dr. Fischer to the Committee of the Mechanics' Institute, which meet with our most hearty concurrence. By inviting members of the Institute to become candidates for the production of models, plans, or essays, in the different departments of mechanical arts and commercial enterprise ;—; — and by raising a fund for the purpose of awarding prizes to the suceessful candidates, emulation, the highest passion of the mind and the least liable to abuse, will be brought into play, as a stimulus to investigation, and to activity of thought. * Nor will this be confined to the working classes alone, for our Mechanics' Institute is of far more general composition than its name, if strictly interpreted, would imply. We rejoice in being able to state that it has combined together every class in the community — that it has become what we hoped and propliecied it would, neutral ground, where men of all giades, and of all political opinions, are content to meet. Its members are increasing in number, almost day by day, and its finances were never before in so flourishing a condition. A debt of public gratitude is due to that knot of active-minded men who have made the Auckland Mechanics' Institute what it has now become.