A WISE YOUNG PRINCE.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3220, 14 June 1879, Page 4

A WISE YOUNG PRINCE.

The public were gratified by the very thoughtful arid ' liberal speech which Prince Leopold delivered lately at the Mansion house, but that effort was only the utterance of a student when compared: with the remarks on popular education and its uses, the same speaker has uttered this week in the Birkbeck Literary and; Scientific Institution—lbe occassion being the fifty-first anniversary of this first of mechanics' institutions, and the distribution of prizes to the successful students. A more thoughtful series of remarks on the value of education we cannot call to; mind. Thejr recall to our pind the philosophical orations which it was the pleasure j of Prince Leopold's illustrious father, to. prepare, when he was, begged to preside; on similar occasions., Haying dwelt on the high importance of technical education to the British artisan-rnrmed with which he may defy competition from any part of the world—the wise young Prince remarked:— "'■■■• ■ ' ■ ■: ■" 'I!'' ■"'"" ; " But I need not go at length into the advantages to be derived from each of the subjects your curriculum embraces. There is not one which may not be of service to the practical career or to the mental development of the zealous student. And there is so much similarity in the conditions of all effort and success, that even the studies which seem most remote from active life may always furnish a moral which life can adopt and employ." ;■■■::. ■■•: This is not only true, but it is a pregnant idea happily put. Then again, the following, on the moral strength derivable from study, is admirable: — »I am sure (said the .Prince) that among the bright young faces which I see around me, there areraar.y whohave known what it is to labor against the grain^to begin a lesson when they would rather We gone tb the theatre; to finish it when they would rather, have gone to bed. t And I am sure that such efforts of self-denial form at least half of the real benefit of education, for it would do us little good if we could wake up and find our heads magically stocked with all manner of facts, in comparison y^itk the gqod which it does vs 4 to fight for Knowledge, to suffer fdr her, and to make her at last our own." ;, . , .Ip this sentiment we distinctly wac« the parentage of the speaker; and we are sure that the country rwill give a hearty welcome to the 1 student-prince, who -appears ready to carry forward the noble work on which the Prince Consort was bent throughout his life. Prince Leopold shows also, his kinship with the gifted and knowledge-loving race, to whvjh the author of " Levana" belonged. —Lloyd's. .