The motives which were strong enough to persuade a working lad to work on, over hours, may he partly understood by considering one of these Institutions—­the largest and the most popular—­the Polytechnic of Regent Street, called familiarly the Regent Street ‘Poly,’ with its thirteen thousand members.  Take first its social side, as offering naturally greater attractions than its educational side.  It contained about forty clubs.  The new member on joining was asked in a pamphlet these three questions: 

1.  ‘Do you wish to make friends?’

2.  ‘Are you anxious to improve yourself?’

3.  ’Do you seek the best opportunities of recreation in your leisure hours?’

Observe that the serious object is placed between the other two.  What the Poly lads said to the new member was:  ’Come in and have a good old time with us.’  It was for the good old time that the new member joined.  Once in he could look about him and choose.  The Gymnasium, the Boxing Club, the Swimming Club, the Roller-skating Club, the Cricket, Football, Lawn Tennis, Athletic, Rowing, Cycling, Ramblers and Harriers Clubs all invited him to join.  Surely, among so many clubs there must be one that he would like.  Of course they had their showy uniform, their envied Captains and other officers, their field days, their public days, and their prizes.  Or there was the Volunteer Corps, with its Artillery Brigade, and its Volunteer Medical Staff Corps.  There was the Parliament, conducted on the same rules as that of the House of Commons.  For the quieter lads there were Sketching, Natural History, Photographic, Orchestral, and Choral Societies.  There was a Natural History Society and an Electrical Engineering Society.  There were also associations for religious and moral objects; a Christian Workers’ Union, a Temperance Society, a Social League, a Polytechnic Mission, and a Bible Class.  There were reading-rooms and refreshment-rooms; in the suburbs there were playing-fields for them.  Up the river was a house-boat for the Rowing Club, the largest on the Thames.  Add to all this an intense ‘College feeling’; an ardent enthusiasm for the Poly; friendships the most faithful; a wholesome, invigorating, stimulating atmosphere; the encouragement always felt of bravo endeavour and noble effort, and high principle—­in one word the gift to the young fellows of the working class of all that the public schools and universities could offer that was best and most precious.  Such an institution as the Polytechnic—­mother and sister of so many others—­was a revolution in itself.

But for the second question:  ‘Are you anxious to improve yourself?’ What answer was given?  Strange to say the answer was also very decidedly in the affirmative.