PACK 
 
 THE BEAUMONT TKUST. 
 
 071 
 410 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED liV 
 
 THE REV. J. M. WILSON, M.A., 
 
 UK. AD MASTER, CLIFTON COLLEGE, CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LONDON, 
 
 On SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 21st, 1886, 
 
 Slbbxrr, 
 
 'THE CHURCH AND THE LABOURING CLASSES," 
 
 WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE 
 
 TO THE BEAUMONT TRUST SCHEME 
 
 F01{ THE PEOPLE'S PALACE 
 
 IN EAST LONDON. 
 
 X M.K-flon.1],! Lilh'?to tli.- Our,',,
 
 THE BEAUMONT TKUST. 
 
 A SEKMON 
 
 PBEACHED BY 
 
 THE KEV. J. M. WILSON, M.A., 
 
 HEAD MASTER, CLIFTON COLLEGE, CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LONDON, 
 
 On SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 21st, 1886, 
 
 AT 
 
 M^immsler 
 
 ON 
 
 " THE CHURCH AND THE LABOURING CLASSES," 
 
 WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE BEAUMONT TRUST SCHEME 
 FOR THE PEOPLE'S PALACE IN EAST LONDON. 
 
 LONDON : 
 MACLURE AND MACDONALD, 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET.
 
 A SEEMON. 
 
 MATTHEW vi 33. 
 
 "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness ; and all these 
 things shall be added unto you." 
 
 You are probably all aware that to-day's offertory in this 
 Abbey will be, by the wish of the Dean, given to the People's 
 Palace in East London. Probably also there are few here 
 present who do not know what this People's Palace is to 
 contain. Speaking very briefly, it includes the gift of 
 technical schools, library, concert hall, recreation ground, 
 gymnasium, and baths, to occupy a site of about five acres 
 in the Mile End Road, in East London. It is for this 
 object that I am asked to preach. 
 
 I do not intend to go into any further details or history of 
 the scheme. These are given in the papers that have been 
 supplied you. But I propose to offer a few remarks on the 
 significance of the fact that an offertory in this ancient 
 Abbey of Westminster, consecrated to the worship of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, is to be given to objects which a few years 
 ago would have been thought so secular and so remote from 
 the worship and service of Christ as baths and gymnasium 
 and technical schools. It is within the memory of most 
 people that collections were made in church for little else 
 than church expenses and missionary and Bible societies and 
 
 2097345
 
 relief of the poor. What is the meaning of this extension 
 and alteration of the range of our religious almsgiving ? Is 
 it an upward step or a downward ? Are our aspirations 
 deserting heaven for earth ? Are we giving up eternal 
 hopes, and saying that we must make the best of this world 
 for ourselves and others ? Or is it that we better understand 
 how the physical, the artistic, the intellectual sides of human 
 nature react on the spiritual ; and that if we would aim at 
 real progress in virtue and godliness, we cannot neglect, as a 
 nation, any side of this many-sided creature, man ? It marks 
 a real change. It is a step upward or downward. Which 
 is it? 
 
 I believe the answer to this is perfectly clear. It is an 
 upward step. This development of the undying spirit of 
 "Christianity which we are witnessing marks an onward step 
 in what we may call the application of the principle of 
 Christianity to the national and world problems which press 
 on us now so heavily. I have not forgotten my text, " Seek 
 ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." These 
 are our Lord's words, and they stand eternally true. And 
 we do not at once associate the kingdom of God with techni- 
 cal schools and winter gardens. Nevertheless, we must face 
 the questions What is the kingdom of God ? What is 
 righteousness? How are we to seek it? What are the 
 paths toward it ? Are we quite satisfied that we, as a nation 
 and as a Church, have sought it, and are seeking it, as wisely 
 as we might ? Have we grasped the whole problem which 
 the Church of Christ has to face ? It represents that 
 element in man which touches on the ideal, the eternal, the 
 divine, and it is therefore concerned with all that elevates 
 and refines and purifies. Whole populations among us are 
 dragged down by dulness, by the mere absence of healthy 
 interests and inspiring emotions. Is it not the duty of the 
 Church to attack this cause of moral deterioration ? \ 
 
 The truth is we are face to face with a problem greater in 
 some respects than any which the Church has had to face 
 before. It is not one of to-day, or of this year : it is one of
 
 the century, or of several centuries how to promote real 
 worthiness of life under new conditions among the millions 
 of whom our nation consists ; how to prevent the formation 
 of the vast " residuum," the failures of our civilisation and our 
 Christianity. Our national wealth has increased, our politi- 
 cal liberty has increased, our knowledge of natural laws has 
 increased enormously ; but our national virtue and intelligence 
 have not increased pari passu. Can it be said that the 
 worthiness of life, either among rich or poor, is greater among 
 us than it was? And what progress, except progress in 
 character and worthiness, is worth calling progress? 
 
 The meaning of such a phenomenon as the Beaumont 
 Trust is that a conviction is forcing itself home on us as a 
 nation that all attempts to make life freer and happier 
 without elevating character are worthless and even mis-,, 
 chievous. Side by side with this conviction is growing 
 another that character is the slow result of many conditions, 
 of which religion is only one, though an indispensable one. 
 There will of course be Secularists who will point to the 
 failure of religion to grapple alone with these new and great 
 problems, and will discard it in their enthusiasm for other 
 means. We are certain that they are wrong in this, though 
 their error is but the exaggeration, as error commonly is, of 
 an overlooked truth. Their error is that they would ignore 
 man's highest nature. But we Christians, on our part, are 
 forced to recognise that there are other conditions necessary 
 to tne development of character besides religion. The 
 education of the human spirit is the nurture of a living 
 germ : there must be a soil and climate in which it can 
 grow ; it requires light and food, and it requires many-sided 
 culture. Thank God that the highest spiritual gifts and 
 virtue can exist sometimes even under desperately un- 
 favourable conditions, whether of luxury or want ; God has 
 His witnesses everywhere. But such exceptions do not dis- / 
 
 prove the rule. The aim of a Christian nation must be that 
 all lives shall have the blessing of industry and of sympathy 
 with others ; and that no man shall be so debarred from the
 
 6 
 
 possibility of getting an education in body, mind, and spirit, 
 as to prevent him from rising to the highest spiritual level 
 of which he is capable; and this is less possible in the 
 England of to-day than it was in the England of three 
 centuries ago. 
 
 Therefore our Christian Church of to-day, which ought to 
 be the very soul of the nation, the impulse and the guide 
 towards all that is good, must give itself to these problems, 
 and must work at the causes of these evils, and not only at 
 their symptoms : it must prevent, and not only palliate. 
 Where are the causes ? 
 
 The ultimate cause is not in our laws. Naturally to the 
 Revolutionary Social Democrat, who is not profound enough 
 to see that the existing relations of society are the outcome 
 and product of national character, these relations are the 
 cause of all evils, including the defective standard of human 
 virtue ; and he clamours for a social and political revolution, 
 as if that would alter human nature. " It is not OUT morality, 
 or want of morality," says the latest and most systematic 
 exponent of modern Revolutionary Socialism, " which makes 
 our economic relations what they are, but our economic 
 system which makes our morality what it is." This is 
 but a superficial philosophy. 
 
 The causes lie deeper than this in human nature, and its 
 lusts and passions, in the meanness, the selfishness, the un- 
 trustworthiness, the ungodliness of men and women, and our 
 resulting national habits as seen in London, west and east. 
 These causes, stamped on the race by the terrible law of 
 heredity, can be but slowly affected, and that only by a still 
 mightier power, the Holy Spirit of God, inspiring men and 
 women with Christ-like devotion and love to their Master 
 and their brethren. For this power can affect human nature 
 itself can transform national character ; and this is the root 
 of the whole matter. This alone will make men fit to live 
 under better laws. Of course the Christian Church takes as 
 its ideal a Christian Socialism, in which all reap the fruit of 
 their labour, and all labour for the good of others, as well as
 
 for themselves. Of course the Christian Church looks with 
 hopefulness on co-operation as a training in virtue and 
 brotherhood, and as a step towards a higher society. Bu 
 it knows very well that the obstacle to co-operation is the 
 lack of national virtue, of common honesty, prudence, tem- 
 perance, brotherliness ; and that as national virtue grows it 
 will register itself in national institutions and national 
 happiness. 
 
 You may remember that John Wesley regarded at one time 
 with much alarm the increasing prosperity of the poorer 
 members of the Methodist Churches. He feared that it 
 showed too great an attention to their worldly interests. It 
 did not occur to him at first that prosperity is the natural 
 result of the self-denying care for their own families, the 
 temperance, the self-respect, that are the Gospel's first 
 practical lesson. What more practical, more convincing 
 comment can be made on any text, " Seek ye first the 
 kingdom, of God and His righteousness, and all these things 
 shall be added unto you " ? 
 
 I have made these remarks, because the inaction of the 
 Church in promoting social reforming legislation in the in- 
 terest of the labouring classes is often pointed at scornfully 
 by Socialists. But her true work is in reforming people, not 
 laws. The laws are the result of the people. And hence it 
 is plain that if the People's Palace is a scheme likely to raise 
 the tone and character of our people, it is a legitimate and 
 rightful work for our Church to advocate. 
 
 There is one parallel in history to the present problem, 
 from which the Church may get much guidance, and hope, 
 and non-Church people may get much instruction. It is the 
 dealing of the Primitive Church with domestic slavery under 
 the Roman Empire. Here were masses of men similarly 
 condemned to a lower level of life by an institution as uni- 
 versally accepted as are our present social relations, or want 
 of relations, of rich and poor, of capital and labour. True, 
 that there were among the slaves brilliant instances of virtue 
 and godliness. Virtue and godliness were not confined to the
 
 8 
 
 politically free. The Gospel was the inheritance of the poor 
 then as it is now. Nevertheless, slavery degraded man then, 
 as the conditions of labour degrade myriads now. But 
 Christianity did not proclaim war against the institution of 
 slavery, any more than it does now against the conditions of 
 modern labour, free competition and the iron law of wages. 
 That would have been to preach a revolution, and to have 
 thrown the world back. It preached to all men equality and 
 brotherhood. It proclaimed to all ranks that in the kingdom 
 of God was neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free : it 
 educated the slaves, gave them cultivation and personal 
 dignity, and prepared them for freedom ; and so the fetters 
 disappeared, without a revolution, as snow melts before the 
 sun. And our work in these centuries is the same ; now that 
 political equality is won, we have to make social equality 
 possible ; to melt away barbarism and ignorance, and passion 
 for wealth, and all vulgarity and vice, by the light and warmth 
 of culture and Christian love and Christian faith, and we do 
 not play our part if we neglect this work. 
 
 A well-known writer has told us that our upper classes are 
 materialised, our middle classes vulgarised, and our lower 
 classes brutalised. If he had lived in the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies he might perhaps have made a still bitterer pessimistic 
 epigram ; for he would have ignored then, as he ignores now, 
 the mightiest influence of all, the power of those in a society, 
 be they many or few, whose eyes are not fixed on earth but 
 on the kingdom of God. It was they who abolished the slave 
 and gave the world freemen ; and it is they who shall abolish 
 the outcast and the rough, and the idlers whether of Belgravia 
 or Bethnal Green, and shall give the world men of whom 
 Christian England shall not be ashamed. Shall not the 
 leaven work till the whole be leavened ? 
 
 I said it was Christian faith : and so it was. It was the 
 profound faith in the Incarnation of God in Christ, in the 
 divine nature and destiny of man, and his sonship to God, 
 that taught Christians then the worth of a human soul, 
 whether of slave or free, and tipped with steel the spear of
 
 9 
 
 the spirit that slew Paganism and the all-powerful institution 
 of slavery. And it is faith now. If we believe, and just so 
 far as we believe and are sure that the unlovely and un- 
 gracious ones of earth, yes, these London mobs that im-M 
 peril our very civilisation, are our brothers and sisters before! j 
 God, and that we cannot, and shall not in any sense enter the 
 Kingdom of God in selfish isolation from them ; if we be- 
 lieve as they did in the certainty of a righteous retribution ; 
 then life puts on a new meaning, and offers a new work 
 and a new hope. And which of us does not in some fashion 
 believe this ? We believe it, but as it were in a dream ; spell- 
 bound by custom and society, and distracted by tangible 
 comforts and dissuaded by tangible disappointments, from the 
 duty of realising in practice the eternal ideal of Christian 
 brotherhood. 
 
 As Christians, then, we know that the first thing to work 
 at is character, and all that affects character. This is the 
 way in which Christianity contributed to the solution of the 
 first great labour problem that the world presented ; and this 
 is the way in which it must solve the present problem. 
 
 But let us come back to the particular object for which I 
 am pleading. Why does London so stint its gifts to the 
 Beaumont Trust ? How slowly do the required thousands 
 come in ! Why is it so ? 
 
 Is it because the scheme does not directly relieve distress 
 among the worthy poor, and encourage thrift directly ? Then 
 learn what the Charity Organisation Society are doing and 
 strengthen their hands. Or is it because it is not a directly 
 religious object ? Then give to the Bishop of London's Fund. 
 But listen first to what the Bishop of London says of this 
 scheme. He writes to me : " I am very glad you are going 
 to preach for the Beaumont Trust. The scheme is an 
 admirable one, and deserves the heartiest support." Or 
 listen to what the Archbishop of Canterbury says : " You 
 did not need my assurance that I believe the scheme and 
 its details to be the fruit of a true-hearted enthusiasm, and 
 that the need is worthy of all the enthusiasm which can be
 
 10 
 
 raised for it. Good and wholesome recreation and amuse- I 
 ment and ' entertaining knowledge/ as it used to be called, | 
 is to half the world essential to the healthful production of 
 their work, and the enjoyment of it, as against the natural 
 unwillingness to work. And half the world have none at all 
 of it : and I cannot help thinking that the absence of it has 
 no little to do with the abhorrence of work (of which we 
 hear so much) in that very class. The Beaumont Trust 
 seems to me to be a contribution towards remedying that, as 
 well as a most blessed boon, if it can only be carried out, to 
 the lively and industrious workers and among them the 
 boys of London." Or listen to the Bishop of Bedford : " I 
 cannot but take a very real interest in a scheme having for 
 its object the moral and intellectual welfare of the working 
 classes of East London, and I am looking forward with much 
 hope to the accomplishment of the great project of the 
 Beaumont Trust. Or listen to the wise and tender! words 
 of Dean Church : " I sent my small contribution to the 
 Beaumont Trust because it seemed to me a reasonable and 
 wholesome plan for furthering an object which we must all 
 feel to be of great importance that is to diminish the wide 
 gap between the many and the few in what cheers and 
 brightens life and raises men out of what is dreary and 
 coarse and hard in it. There are, I believe, still greater 
 gifts of God than these, in which poverty and riches make 
 no difference, and which are indeed the inheritance of the 
 poorest. But ease and refined enjoyment, and the power 
 of understanding what is delightful and elevating, are 
 God's very precious gifts too, and it is part of Christian 
 duty and of the law of Charity on the part of those who 
 value them to make it possible for their brethren to share 
 them." 
 
 No 1 Men do not hold their hands because they disapprove. \ 
 It is partly from the mere habit of not giving ; partly from 
 ignorance ; partly because they fancy that these evils are \, 
 incurable, and that they are throwing money into a sink. 
 " These evils," they say, " that you would cure by Beaumont
 
 11 
 
 Trusts and People's Palaces are the necessary outcome of 
 economical laws, and economical laws are as unalterable as 
 gravitation." It is [false. Economical laws do but tell us 
 what will happen if we don't prevent it. Economical laws 
 are the expression of human character, and the character of 
 the nation can be profoundly affected by education, by 
 religion, by example, by the self-sacrificing gifts and labour 
 and influence of the noble and the wise and the good. Why 
 do we not do a thousand times more, we who have " offered 
 and presented unto God ourselves, our souls and bodies, for 
 His reasonable service " ? This, the service of our fellow- 
 countrymen, is the service of God. If only our good people 
 dared to be as good as it is in their hearts to be, how much 
 they might do ! 
 
 The most remarkable example of the effect of providing 
 healthy amusements for the people, is, I believe, at Cleve- 
 land in the United States. I would refer you to the 
 Century of January, 1885, for an account of it. The 
 scheme might be reproduced by some of our philanthropic 
 capitalists in scores of our great towns with excellent 
 results. 
 
 But if you wish, to see with your own eyes the value of 
 work of this kind, if any shadow or pretence of doubt exists 
 as to its value, go some evening to the Young Men's 
 Christian Institute for artisans and apprentices at the 
 Polytechnic in Regent Street, a place which, perhaps, so 
 little do we know what is going on before our eyes most of 
 us still only associate with a Diving Bell and Pepper's Ghost. 
 That Institute began elsewhere in 1873. In 1877 it was 
 two hundred strong ; in 1882 it was five hundred, and then 
 it was moved to the Polytechnic. Now the regular members 
 are between four and five thousand, besides some thousands 
 who attend lectures. Work of this class, all social ameliora- 
 tion, is experimental. But it is wilful closing of the eyes to 
 refuse to see that social education, such as is given by 
 libraries, gymnasiums, concert halls and technical schools, 
 combines naturally with higher influences and is of very
 
 12 
 
 great service in doing the only thing really worth doing 
 developing and improving the character of the people. 
 Such institutions provide recreation, employment, amusement, 
 instruction; they provide healthy outlets for the energies 
 that will be drawn to vice when vice is the only opening 
 provided for them. To minister to vice pays well in cash : 
 there will be no lack of its ministers for the present. Why 
 do we, not minister to virtue ? It will pay well though not 
 in cash. It is for this we hold our wealth as trustees. 
 
 If one individual, one faithful trustee of wealth, has 
 conferred this gift of the Polytechnic on West London, 
 and has reaped from it a harvest of happiness and the 
 blessings of thousands, why do not others do the same in 
 different spots all over the city? There might well be 
 thirty or forty such institutions. Are rich men and women 
 with Christian love and faith and public spirit and clear 
 insight so rare in our country ? or is wealth so dear to them ? 
 so indispensable to their children ? 
 
 Quite as sad a thought as that these places do not exist 
 when there is such a need for them, is that those who could 
 give them are so insensible to their opportunities and their 
 trusteeship. They could rise to such a higher level of life 
 and interests, if, instead of vying with others in joyless 
 expenditure, and frittering away, or storing up their 
 thousands, they had but the conception of the use of what 
 God has given them, and of their own falling short of 
 perfection by its misuse. " If thou wilt be perfect," said our 
 Lord not if thou wilt be saved, but "if thou wilt be 
 perfect " and you know what He told us to do. 
 
 But you may ask have I any right at all to speak to you 
 on this matter ? May I very briefly refer to my own 
 experience ? On a smaller scale, we of Clifton College have 
 linked ourselves to a working man's quarter of Bristol. 
 During the last four years we have with the assistance 
 of friends built a mission room, and library, and games-room, 
 and class-rooms ; we are now completing the laying out of two 
 or three acres of pleasure ground in the heart of the district :
 
 13 
 
 we have clubs and societies of all kinds gathering round this 
 nucleus. The general contributions of Bristolians, combined 
 with our own, have built a fine church for six hundred 
 people, which will be consecrated next week. Further plans 
 are afloat delayed for want of money only. No one can 
 doubt for an instant that such institutions as I have 
 mentioned are a strong influence for self-respect and 
 mutual respect, for temperance a greater influence perhaps 
 indirectly for temperance than if restricted by rules of total 
 abstinence for education, for association in all good works, 
 for good manners, and good fellowship, for all refining 
 influences. They are moreover distinctly a strong influence 
 that makes for true religion and godliness. They accustom 
 people to act together harmoniously, they introduce a 
 spirit of regulated order and courtesy that affects all social 
 relations. Our rooms were described to me by one of 
 the men as " the drawing-room of the district." The 
 People's Palace might become the drawing-room of East 
 London. 
 
 " Reason tempered with ' music,' " said Plato, " is the only 
 guardian angel of virtue." You do not all know what Plato 
 meant. " Music," in Plato, means at once literature and art 
 and science ; it means the elements of a liberal and refining 
 education, and when he says it is the only guardian "angel of 
 virtue, he means that when no scope is given foremen's 
 higher nature and faculties, then the lower faculties become 
 distorted and corrupt ; he would tell us that the hideous 
 monotony of labour and the low standard of education of our 
 labouring classes involve the certainty of widespread disso- 
 luteness and devildom ; and that we fight " the appetitive 
 element," " the many-headed beast," in human nature, not 
 directly, by imposing restraints, but indirectly, by fostering 
 the nobler elements, and thus implanting a self-controlling 
 self-respect. There is a depth of wisdom here. Think of it 
 well. 
 
 In gifts like these, gifts of " music," in the Platonic sense, 
 there is scope for splendid and wise munificence. We should
 
 14 
 
 always aim at sharing our enjoyments and our refinements. 
 I do not desire that people should strip themselves bare for 
 the sake of others, but that they should feel it contemptible 
 to grasp at pleasure in which others have no share. To 
 spend hundreds on flowers and not send a share to the 
 hospitals, both in money and flowers ; to spend thousands on 
 music and art and books and elegancies, and not think of 
 sharing them with others who cannot buy them ; to rent 
 cushioned pews in fashionable churches, to fill this Abbey, the 
 gift of the great dead, and yet not to dream of providing 
 places of worship and clergy for our ever-growing suburbs ; 
 stupidly to shut eyes and ears and hearts, and let the world 
 wag on as best it may, this is indeed alike pagan and con- 
 temptible. When once a man's eyes are opened, a new world 
 of life dawns on him ; he sees something worth living for, 
 and life seems all too short, and his purse all too shallow for 
 him to do all he would like. Truly to the thoughtful and 
 far-seeing the West gives more anxiety than the East. It is 
 there that our unrepented national sins are thriving and 
 festering. A " black assize " may yet be at hand. Wealth 
 is poisoning the wealthy. We foul our Thames with what 
 would fertilise our fields ; and we foul our West with what 
 would fertilise our East. 
 
 Are we still afraid of trusting ourselves to the deep cur- 
 rent that is bearing on England's noblest men and women 
 towards a religion of righteousness, which prophets and 
 apostles and the very Christ Himself proclaimed ? Do we 
 think it will bury us in secularisms and socialisms ; tear us 
 from our ancient landmarks ; destroy our Church ? perhaps 
 dissolve our belief in the Rock of Ages ? No ! it will fill 
 our creeds and hymns and prayers with new meaning ; fill our 
 abbeys and cathedrals and churches with new life ; make 
 them the fountains and inspiration to righteousness, the 
 parade ground of armies where they hear the words of the 
 Master whom they would die to serve, and whence they issue 
 prompt to do His bidding. 
 
 Oh ! for more faith in the God of righteousness, and more
 
 15 
 
 obedience to His word ; now in the time of national distress 
 and anxiety let us turn to Him. Our heavenly Father 
 knoweth our necessities ; but He has bidden us to " seek first 
 the kingdom of God and His righteousness ; " and then it is 
 no mystery it is no miracle it is the natural inevitable 
 result, " all we need shall be added unto us."
 
 A 000133937 3 
 THE BEAUMONT TRUST SCHEME 
 
 FOE THE 
 
 PEOPLE'S PALACE IN EAST LONDON, 
 
 PATRON iirr tflost Orations glajrstn the Qnttn. 
 
 Chairman SIR EDMUND HAY CUERIE. 
 Bankers LONDON AND WESTMINSTER BANK (WHITECHAPEL BRANCH). 
 
 The following statement explains the objects of the Beaumont 
 Trustees and the position of the fund : 
 
 The Trustees appeal for funds to establish what they propose 
 to term the " People's Palace for East London," which will 
 comprise : Approximate 
 
 Cost. 
 
 The Site five acres in Mile End Road .20,000 
 
 Technical Schools for all trades (promised by 
 
 the Drapers' Company) 20,000 
 
 Library and Reading Rooms (3,000 given by 
 
 Mr. Dyer Edwardes) .*. 20,000 
 
 Winter Garden and Concert Hall 15,000 
 
 Recreation Ground 3,000 
 
 Gymnasia ... ... ... ... ... ... 2,500 
 
 SwimmingBath (given by Lord Rosebery) ... 2,500 
 Furniture and other expenses ... ... ... 17,000 
 
 TOTAL 100,000 
 
 To complete the scheme it is desirable to have additional 
 swimming baths for women, at a cost of .'2,500 ; also an art 
 school, costing 10,000, and an organ. 
 
 General The Trustees desire to see the whole institution so framed 
 
 Objects. that whether in science, art, or literature, any student may be 
 able to follow up his education to the highest point in fact, 
 that the Palace may become the University for East London. 
 But whilst affording such facilities for education, the trustees 
 also desire to provide for those who wish simply for social 
 enjoyment, and to this end, propose to establish the winter 
 garden, concert hall, recreation ground. &c. 
 
 Site. The site which the trustees propose to acquire is in the Mile 
 
 End Road, and is known as il The Bancroft Hospital." It is in 
 the very heart of the East End, and is easily accessible from 
 all parts. Tramcars running between Aldgate and Stratford 
 pass the site, and within a few minutes' walk there is another 
 tramcar line communicating with Hackney on the north, and 
 Limehouse on the south. There are also five railway stations 
 within easy walking distance of the site.
 
 Technical 
 Schools. 
 
 Reading 
 Rooms and 
 Library. 
 
 Winter Gar- 
 den and 
 Concert 
 Hall. 
 
 Recreation 
 Ground. 
 
 Gymnasia 
 
 and 
 
 Swimming 
 Baths. 
 
 Promotion 
 of Thrift. 
 
 In the district of which this site is the centre, there are more 
 than 100 large public elementary schools. The lads who are 
 educated at these schools, a good number of whom pass through 
 the highest standards, unwisely aim at being clerks, rather than 
 following trades, and the object of the trustees is (and this will 
 be provided by the noble gift of the 1 >ra.pers' Company) to p'. 
 technical schools within an easy reach of every East End lad, 
 and to instil into his mind the idea that to have a trade at his 
 back is better than to become a clerk. The trustees prop 
 therefore', to have ranges of workshops for teaching the 
 principal trades carried on in the Mast Knd of London. The 
 tuition will be conducted by practical artisans, and if it should 
 any lads to be unable to obtain employment in 
 this country, they could at least go abroad with a knowledge ot 
 some trade. The buildings are designed to accommodate nearly 
 '20,000 students. This number may appear large, but when it 
 is remembered that the Polytechnic, which stands upon ;i 
 only one -fifth as large as that which the trustees propose 
 to acquire, has more than 8.000 students, it will be readily 
 that no difficulty will be experienced in providing for '20.01 '0. 
 If the Trii successful in raising the amount of I' 10, '.('00 
 
 they contemplate the possibility of building, at some future 
 time, an art school on t he 1 >est models of the provincial towns, pro- 
 A iding facilities not only for the education of those who may wish 
 to acquire a knowledge of the elementary principles of art. but 
 also for those who require the highest grade of art teaching. 
 
 The reading rooms and library will be somewhat on the 
 model of those at the British Museum, and will pr<> 
 ive accommodation for readers and students. 
 
 The winter garden, which will be a large buildi 
 with glass, will afford accommodation for between 4.0CO and 
 f>,000 persons. Communicating with, the winter garden will 1 e 
 a concert hall, where concerts and other entertainments will lie 
 provided. 
 
 The plans provide for a large open space facing south, capable 
 of accommodating about ."i.COO people. This space will be laid 
 out as a recreation ground and garden. Eflicieiit bands will be 
 provided, and the space will be available on summer evenings 
 for workmen, their wives and children. Here, after the day's 
 work, it is proposed that they should find, amidst clue'ful 
 surroundings, a pleasant resort for social intercom 
 
 Swimming baihs for both sexes, gymnasia, and rooms for 
 indoor games will also be provided. The palace will be a 
 centre where will be formed cricket, football, cyclim.' and 
 other clubs, and in the early future the trustees will take 
 steps to iitable ground for tin- use of such clul 
 
 order that those who live in the JKast Knd may not be v 
 off in these matters than m : similar clubs in . 
 
 parts of London. 
 
 In addition to providing facilities for physical and mental 
 culture a:id enjoyment, the trustees will endeavour to pro- 
 mote habits of thrift by establishing provideni and 
 savings hanks. 
 
 A. r.KOWXLOW, 
 
 TEMPORARY OFFICES 
 
 COM MERCl i. STIM;]: i . 1 '.. 
 
 II<>iio/'/i r/i