At the luncheon similar sentiments were uttered by the Dean of Durham, the Marquess of Ripon, Canon Robinson, Sir Edward Baines, and Mr. W. E. Forster. It was, however, at the evening meeting that the real success of the day was achieved. The Victoria Hall was filled with a typical Yorkshire crowd—alert, receptive, keenly interested, alternately critical and tolerant, yet ready to be swayed by those who knew how to reach their intelligence and rouse their enthusiasm. The Duke of Devonshire opened the proceedings with a dignified and impressive address, worthy of his high position as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and as President of the College in the neighbouring city of Manchester. He gave a broad and comprehensive account of the general state of educational activity in the country and indicated the directions in which it was tending. He pointed to the creation of institutions for secondary and higher education in our large centres of industry as a sign that the country was awakening to the fact that all our great branches of industry were founded on a scientific basis. Although the education—however indispensable it might be—of the eye and the hand could only be acquired by actual practice, it could be nothing short of prejudice to deny that the education of the intellect was also a matter of primary importance. The Duke affected no flights of eloquence. His diction was simple and unaffected, and a vein of strong, practical common sense ran through the whole of his remarks. His presence was not unfamiliar to a Leeds audience, but they never heard him to greater effect, or, it may be added, at greater length. His speech was said to be the longest he had ever made.
The late Lord Playfair, who as Dr. Lyon Playfair then represented a Leeds constituency, followed on the same theme. He recalled the fact that more than a generation had passed since standing on a Leeds platform he had acted as interpreter to his friend Liebig in warning his audience not to pride itself too much upon its industrial achievements, explaining how impossible it was for England permanently to preserve her manufacturing supremacy among nations, unless she bestowed more attention upon the sciences which formed the groundwork of her industries. Then, in one of those hortatory discourses with which he occasionally astonished and delighted an ill-informed House of Commons, he poured forth a wealth of facts in illustration of the movement in the industrial world which had rendered these modern colleges an imperative necessity.