I. [A] host of new educational devices ranging from lantern lectures to the Mechanics' Institutes set up in many towns propagated the ideology essential to the creation of that new and viable class society which was progressively ousting the old aristocratic ethos. Thomas Dick of Methven, Secession clergyman, popular author, pioneer of Mechanics' Institutes, saint and astronomer, summed up in himself many of the strengths of the new society.†