LECTURES ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABOURING PORTION OF THE COMMUNITY. BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING. FIFTH EDITION. 1840. LONDON: JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET. PRICE FOUR-PENCE. Dear Sir, BOSTON, January 27th, 1840. At a meeting of the Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association, holden last Saturday Evening, the undersigned were appointed to present to you the sincere thanks of the Association for your very able Lectures on "The Elevation of the Labouring Portion of the Community," delivered before the Institution, at the Masonic Temple, on the evenings of the 9th and 16th inst., and to request copies of the same for publication. Very respectfully yours, GEORGE L. CURRY, To DR. WM. E. CHANNING. To GEO. L. CURRY, THOS. DREW, JR. and ANDRE CUSHING. Gentlemen, thank you for your communication of the 27th inst., and I place at your disposal the Lectures which have been requested for publication. Very truly your friend, WILLIAM E. CHANNING. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE following Lectures were prepared for two meetings of Mechanics, one of them consisting of Apprentices, the other of adults. For want of strength they were delivered only to the former, though, in preparing them, I had kept the latter also in view. "The Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association," at whose request the Lectures are published, is an institution of much promise, not only furnishing considerable means of intellectual improvement, but increasing the self-respect and conducing to the moral safety of the members. When I entered on this task, I thought of preparing only one lecture of the usual length. But I soon found that I could not do justice to my views in so narrow a compass. I therefore determined to write at large, and to communicate through the press the results of my labour, if they should be thought worthy of publication. With this purpose, I introduced topics which I did not deliver, and which I thought might be usefully presented to some who might not hear me. I make this statement to prevent the objection, that the Lectures are not, in all things, adapted to those to whom they were delivered. Whilst written chiefly for a class, they were also intended for the community. As the same general subject is discussed in these Lectures as in the "Lecture on Self-Culture," published last winter, there will, of course, be found in them that coincidence of thoughts, which always take place in the writings of a man |