Excerpt from George Birkbeck: The Pioneer of Popular Education; A Memoir and a Review Although the popular education movement is one of the most important outgrowths of a most progressive era, probably little is known at the present time concerning him who was its pioneer. No biographer has, I believe, narrated the career of the founder of Mechanics' Institutions. Repeated reference to his work is made in the publications of his own time; encyclopaedias accord him an honoured place amongst the names of Britain's worthies essayists on educa tion bestow upon him their meed of praise but a volume devoted to him alone does not appear to have been ever written by the modern world he is appreciated to a very limited degree - a new generation has arisen which knows him not. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.