"My Lord Chancellor, my Lords, and Gentlemen,--I have listened with attention to your address, and I assure you it gives me great pleasure to be able to preside at the opening of this important institution, the first pillar of which, in company with her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, I set nearly three years since. I thank you for your very feeling reference to the severe loss which the Queen, and each member of Her Majesty's family, has sustained by the untimely death of my late brother. His interest in every movement calculated to humanize and to elevate the people of this country will, I am quite sure, cause his loss to be felt far beyond the circle of his immediate friends. "I have been gratified that the City and the Livery Companies of London have so generously responded to the letter which, as President of the Institute, I addressed some few months since to the Lord Mayor and to the Worshipful Masters of the Livery Companies of London. This Institute, which owes its origin to the liberality of the City and of the Guilds of London, is an illustration of the excellent work that may be done by united action, which could not possibly be accomplished by individual efforts. Conformably with the traditions of these ancient Guilds, there is, perhaps, no purpose to which they could more appropriately devote their surplus funds, and none which would be of more practical advantage to the country at large than the promotion of technical education. The altered conditions of apprenticeship, and the almost general substitution of machine for hand labour have made the teaching of science, in its application to productive industry, a necessary part of the training of all classes of persons engaged in manufacturing pursuits. "There never was a time, perhaps, when the importance of technical education was more generally recognized than now, and I am gratified to learn from the report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject to which your lordship has referred, that, although we are still behind many of our foreign neighbours in the provision of technical schools of different grades, the encouragement afforded by the State to the teaching of science and of art, supplemented as it now is by the Institute's assistance to the teaching of technology, has placed within reach of our artizan population facilities for technical instruction which have already influenced, and which promise to influence still more in the future, the progress of our manufacturing industry.