TO HENRY BROUGHAM, ESQ. OF BROUGHAM HALL, M. P., F. R. S. THE UNWEARIED ADVOCATE OF POPULAR EDUCATION, WITH PERMISSION THE CONDUCTORS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. OF PROFESSOR ANDERSON. THERE is a natural desire in man to know all which can be known of those who have proved benefactors of the human race; to obtain, as it were, personal intercourse with them; and, as spectators, to view their private life. Yet of one who has devoted himself to the advancement of Science or the Arts, there is often but little known, and though all were known, little to relate which can afford general interest, except the benefits his labours have conferred on man, or the studies in which the brief period of his existence was spent. When we have told the one or two great acts which it was the business of his life to accomplish when we have said of Watt, that he was the improver of the steam engine-rendering that which had hitherto been comparatively powerless and of little value, an engine of inexhaustible power and incalculable value : that Arkwright invented a machine, by which one man is enabled to do the work which formerly required hundreds to perform: that Professor Anderson, perceiving, in the imperishable mind of man, a moral engine of hitherto untried, but almost infinite power, opened the way to its improvement, thus giving that impulse to the present age which it has received, and which nothing can ever retard or destroy: when we have said these things, we have indeed said nearly all that is important-and we have said sufficient to make their fame boundless as the earth, imperishable as time. Still, however, it is advantageous to relate their private life; to give the world the lesson of their moral worth-their many virtues. The biography of kings and conquerors, or those who have led more active lives, may excite greater curiosity, and involve a more intense interest; but never can be so truly, so extensively useful. Like the flower, which not only gives out its fragrance whilst it spreads its beauty to the sun, but even after it is withered and that beauty gone, the philosopher benefits the world by his discoveries during his life, and by the influence of his example after his death. But besides this general reason, there is yet another for writing the life of Professor Anderson-the extension, if not the preservation of his fame. Mankind does not always reward great actions with the fame which they deserve; and the names of the greatest benefactors of the human race, are sometimes allowed to perish in the tide of time, or to be remembered only in the traditions of those grateful hearts, who have been immediately benefitted by their goodness. Fame is indeed much oftener the effect of adventitious circumstances, than of real merit; and thus, whilst one name is lauded above measure, and held up for public admiration, another, probably that of one far more deserving, is either quite unheeded, or but partially known. We cannot help thinking this has been the case, in a very great degree, with Professor Anderson. Without wishing to detract, in the smallest degree, from the merits of Dr. Birkbeck, for whom we have every feeling of respect and esteem bis exertions in the cause of popular education are calculated to excite, it is impossible we think to dispute, that Professor Anderson, at a time when education, all but the mere elements of reading and writing, was confined to those who had the means of going through the regular course of a College education, broke through existing prejudices, and opened the Temple of Science to the hard labouring mechanic, and the hitherto despised artificer-that he is entitled to the appellation of the father of Mechanics' Institutions. Yet of this valuable man, how little is known to the world! how very little is known to the inhabitants even of the City in which he spent his life where he made all his exertions in behalf of science and for the benefit of the inhabitants of which, he left the bulk of his ample fortune, that, even after his death, her citizens, particularly her mechanics and her artizans, might have the means of scientific education, without being subject to the monastic trammels in which our Colleges are still invested! It will hardly be believed, we suspect, but it is a fact, that, notwithstanding nearly thirty years have elapsed since the period of his death, no biography of him has ever been published; and that in the most popular and extensive Biographical Dictionaries, there is not even mention of his name. In stating this, it is impossible not to recollect, that when Professor Anderson founded his University, he appointed eighty-one Trustees from the different professions and public bodies of the City; that from these Trustees are selected twelve Directors to manage the affairs of the Institution; and that these Directors, besides their other duties, were evidently, in an especial manner, entrusted with the preservation of his fame: and yet, we would ask these gentlemen, what they have ever done to insure either its preservation or its extension? To supply their culpable neglect, and to do tardy justice to the dead, we have felt ourselves called upon to draw up this short biography of his life; and we have peculiar pleasure in being able, (notwithstanding the opposition and difficulties thrown in our way by those who would have acted very differently, had they been as anxious for the honour of Professor Anderson as they were to oppose us,) through the kindness and liberality of a gentleman, to whom we return our sincere thanks, to present our readers with a beautiful engraving of the Professor, from the hands of Mr. Swan. JOHN ANDERSON, M. A., F. R. S. Lond. & Edin., F. A. S. Scot., M. N. His. S. Lond., M. Soc. Agr., and Econ. Emp. of Russia, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, was born in the Parish of Roseneath in Dumbartonshire, in the year 1726. His father, the Rev. James Anderson, who was Minister of that Parish, died whilst the subject of this Memoir, his eldest son, was yet young. He was, however, carefully brought up by, and received a very liberal education from, his aunt, Mrs. Turner, the widow of one of the Ministers of the High Church of Stirling. The early part of his education he received at Stirling, the more advanced part of it in the University of Glasgow, of which he was destined to prove so distinguished an ornament. In the year 1745, when Stirling was besieged by the Pretender, those of the inhabitants who were friends to the existing Government, formed themselves into a Regiment for the defence of the city, and Mr. Anderson, with all the ardour and enthusiasm of youth, joined this body, and, as one of its officers, assisted in the defence. The carabine which he then carried, is still among the property bequeathed to the Institution which he afterwards founded. In 1756, he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages in the Col |