Royal Institution

“ The Royal Institution will, I hope, be of some utility to society. It has undoubtedly the capability of becoming a great instrument of moral and intellectual improvement. Its funds are very great. It has attached to it the feelings of a great number of people of fashion and property, and consequently may be the means of employing to useful purposes money which would otherwise be squandered in luxury and in the production of unnecessary labour. ”

“ Whereas several of our loving subjects are desirous of forming a Public Institution for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of Useful Mechanical Inventions and Improvements; and for teaching, by Courses of Philosophical Lectures and Experiments, the Application of Science to the Common Purposes of Life, we do hereby give and grant"—multifarious things which need not here be quoted. Such are the opening words of the charter with which, a little more than a century ago, the Royal Institution of Great Britain came into existence and received its legal christening. ”

“ So that the foundation and original arrangements of the Royal Institution were not only calculated to extend the boundaries of science, but to increase its applications, and to promote and improve those arts of life on which the subsistence of all, and the comfort and enjoyment of the great majority of mankind absolutely depend. ”

“ As you are fully informed with respect to the nature and objects of the Royal Institution and are acquainted with the respectable character of those distinguished persons with whom I have the honour to act in the management of its concerns, you cannot, I think, entertain the smallest doubt of their constant protection and of their readiness on all occasions to do full justice to the zeal and abilities you may display in the situation in which they have placed you. ”

“ The Royal Institution is able to offer assistance in investigations of great interest connected with public works and the promotion of arts and manufactures.
‘Our doors are to be open to all who wish to profit by knowledge; and I may venture to hope that even the female part of our audiences may not diminish, and that they will honour the plan with an attention which is independent of fashion or the taste of the moment, and connected with the use, the permanence, and the pleasure of intellectual acquisitions. ”

“ The Royal Institution was founded for the cultivation of the more popular and elementary branches of scientific knowledge, and has risen, partly from the splendid discoveries of Davy, and partly from the decline of the Royal Society, to a more prominent station than it would otherwise have occupied in the science of England. Its general effects in diffusing knowledge among the more educated classes of the metropolis, have been, and continue to be, valuable. ”

“ The Royal Institution is more the ton than anything and Ladies of all ages submit to a squeeze of an hundred people in a morning, to hear lectures on the Human Understanding, Experimental Philosophy, Painting, Music or Geology. ”

“ But the discoveries made in such a place as the Royal Institution of Great Britain have had a vastly greater beneficial effect upon civilization than that of any technical institution which has ever existed. ”

“ Being desirous of becoming a member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, I request that Count Rumford would propose me to the managers of the said Institution as a candidate for election in the class pointed out in the column below, in which my name is subscribed.
1st class proprietors, who up to May 1802 pay seventy guineas; 2nd class life subscribers, who pay twenty guineas; 3rd class annual subscribers, three guineas. ”

“ The letter states that, as the Institution will certainly become more interesting and more useful in proportion as it is made more complete and more extensive in all its numerous details, it is very desirable that as great a number as possible of respectable individuals should be induced to unite in its support and interest themselves in its prosperity ”

“ Thus by degrees a laudable zeal was created amongst various classes of society, even the highest, for acquiring useful knowledge and diffusing it by their several exertions. Never was there a period when this was felt in a stronger degree, and the establishment of the Royal Institution ought to be considered as the commencement of a new era in the history of science in this country. I should not here forget to mention the then existing Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, composed of men of the highest rank, such as the Bishop of Durham, &c. ”

“ SIR JOSEPH BANKS TO COUNT RUMFORD.
April 1804.
I am very glad to find by your letter that you are well and happy where you now are. In truth, you seem so much so that your friends here begin to suppose you will take root in the soil where you now grow. I cannot, however, disguise that your not appearing in England last year, as I had reason to expect you would have done, has been a material disappointment to me and a great detriment to the Royal Institution. ”

“ But, after remaining some time in suspense, I found some reason to be apprehensive that those who are at the head of an Institution which professes to be a grand and national establishment were not altogether possessed of that liberality of sentiment and knowledge of the subject necessary for carrying into effect plans which can only be accomplished by those whose industry has made them acquainted with the arts and sciences taught. ”

“ Each original subscriber and proprietor of the Institution to be an hereditary governor of the Institution—to have a perpetual transferable share in all the property belonging to it—to have a voice in the election of the managers of the Institution, as also in the election of the Committee of Visitors—to have, moreover, two transferable tickets of perpetual admission into the establishment, and into every part of it, and two transferable tickets of admission to all the public philosophical lectures and experiments. ”

“ The proprietors must decide what it will be prudent and practical to adopt for the support of the Institution.
‘If the support of scientific men is to be obtained, something must be done to give the Institution more the form of a public establishment than of private and hereditary property. ”

“ The Royal Council of Commerce, in France, and the subordinate Chambers in each province, form an excellent institution, and may, in many respects, serve as a model. Congress have too long neglected to organize a good scheme of administration, and throw public business into proper executive departments. For Commerce, I prefer a Board; but for most other things, single men. We want a Minister of War, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, a Minister of Finance, and a Minister of Marine. ”

“ When all the advantages which may reasonably be expected from this Institution shall be fully understood and impartially considered, it is to be hoped that few persons of liberal minds will be indifferent to its success or unwilling to contribute to it and to participate in it. ”

“ For three years. The Earl Spencer. Count Rumford. Richard Clark, Esq. For two years. The Earl of Egremont. Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks. Rich. Joseph Sulivan, Esq. For one year. The Earl of Morton. The Rt. Hon. Thomas Pelham. Thomas Bernard, Esq.
V.—That the said managers be desired to solicit a charter for the Institution, upon principles conformable to the Proposals which have been printed and distributed, and (as soon as the charter is obtained) to publish the plan for the benefit of the public, in such manner as they shall deem most expedient ”

“ But, on the general central meetings of Presidents and Committee in London, would devolve the primary measures for the permanent establishment of the Institution; the general system of finance, the formation of rules and regulations, and the plans for giving activity and effect to the whole. ”

“ We have—I name it first, though, I am sorry to say, it is last in influence—the body consisting of the Royal Academy, with the Institute of Architects, and the schools at Kensington, and their branches; teaching various styles of fine or mechanical art. We have, in the second place, the Royal Society, as a central body; and, as its satellites, separate companies of men devoted to each several science: investigating, classing, and describing facts with unwearied industry. ”

“ And, that the Doctors, Licentiates, Bachelors, students, and dependents of the aforesaid university, and their households and domestic servants, may be able the more freely and quietly to devote themselves to letters and scholastic deeds, we will, by our royal authority and plenary power, bestow upon these same Doctors, Licentiates, Bachelors, students, dependents, households, and domestic servitors, such and similar privileges, franchises, and liberties as have been granted, given, and bestowed by our predecessors the kings of France upon the rest of the universities of our kingdom. ”

“ To uphold the weak, to put down lawless force, to lighten the chain of the slave, to sustain the honour of the British arms and British good faith; to promote the arts, sciences, and literature, to establish humane institutions, are duties of government which have been most conspicuously performed during your Royal Highness's regency. ”

“ The categories from which appointments are made—including high ecclesiastics, ministers of state, ambassadors, deputies of prolonged service, legal and administrative officials, men who during as much as seven years have been members of the Royal Academy of Sciences or of the Superior Council of Public Instruction—may be reduced, broadly, to three: (1) high officials of church and state; (2) persons of fame in science or literature, or who by any kind of services or merit have brought distinction to the country ”

“ At last, just as the kingdom had become the personal property of the king, so the officials—dukes, counts, royal vicars, tribunes, centenarii—who had for the most part bought their unpaid offices by means of presents to the monarch, came to look upon the public service rather as a mine of official wealth than as an administrative organization for furthering the interests, material or moral, of the whole nation. ”

“ An institution which did not exist in the times, of the Plantagenets, of the Tudors or of the Stuarts, an institution not known to the law, an institution not mentioned in any statute, an institution of which such writers as De Lolme and Blackstone take no notice, began to exist a few years after the Revolution, grew rapidly into importance, became firmly established, and is now almost as essential a part of our polity as the Parliament itself. ”

“ There are certain duties which the Royal Society owes to its own character as well as to the public, which, having been on some occasions apparently neglected, it may be here the proper place to mention, since it is reasonable to suppose that attention to them is within the province of its Secretaries. ”

“ An institution on a much more moderate scale than even the one above mentioned, and such as would be within the reach of many English gentlemen, would be a very great advantage, and the patron would immortalize himself by it. ”

“ To the English nation belongs the great honour of having invented local self-government and the complete co-ordination of the three departments of government the executive, the judiciary, and the legislative. ”

“ It is still doubtful whether the Royal Society, in the present advanced state of science, can derive advantage from possessing in its President, a philosopher actively engaged in any one branch of experimental enquiry. ”

“ The British Government, advised by the Royal Society, and a committee formed of the most eminent mechanicians and practical engineers, determined on constructing the projected mechanism at the expense of the nation, to be held as national property. ”

“ This is quite wrong: any preference of the Royal to another Society is the work of the contributor himself. But it shows how well hafted is the Royal Society's claim, that a President should acquire the notion that it is acknowledged and acted upon by the other Societies, in their joint and corporate capacities. ”

“ The institution is the most aristocratic in principle which now remains in England; far more so than the House of Lords, for it grants public money and disposes of important public interests, not in conjunction with a popular assembly, but alone. ”

“ The Institute for Government Research is an association of citizens for co-operating with public officials in the scientific study of government with a view to promoting efficiency and economy in its operations and advancing the science of administration. ”

“ The university officers whom they appoint seem to have exactly the same duties of upholding the credit of the institution, of securing funds to meet its pressing needs, of organizing the administrative machinery, which their corporation officers would have. ”

“ Our fathers, therefore, preferred, that the nation should be represented, in its simplicity and strength, by men of long heads, strong hearts, and short purses. They considered a regular, thorough, and polished education, literary attainments of a very high order, a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the law of nations, and an extensive store of general information, absolutely essential, in a minister plenipotentiary, from this Republic, to the Court of Great Britain; for our state and dignity were to be represented there, not less than our commercial relations. ”

“ For he was a servant of that intricate and extremely complicated machinery for civilization, progress, and the blessed average decencies called the British Empire, that world-flung organization which spreads like a fine-mesh net over the whole globe and in which, through logical consequence, there are many currents and undercurrents, often one government department giving orders or recommendations completely at variance with those of another, every bit as important, department. ”

“ The determination of these functions and privileges by regulation; the keeping of regular books, inventories, journals, and ledgers; the institution of a system of finance which would avoid the necessity of employing credit; the prohibition of the hiring-out of Revels stuff; these are amongst the improvements in organization which suggested themselves to practical men who were not in the least likely to suggest the transference of the duties of their own rather superfluous Office to the Office of Works or the Wardrobe. ”