838 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One day he had led me into the vestibule where there were 

 two large cases running to the ceiling. They contained number- 

 less boxes of notes, all labeled. Here were all the subjects M. 

 Figuier treated. At a moment's notice he could have under his 

 eye all that he had accumulated on any subject which interested 

 him. While listening to his enthusiastic explanations I noticed 

 on one shelf a number of neat manuscripts. 



" What are these ? " I asked. 



"My theater/' he said, with a tender regard. "There are the 

 plays, mademoiselle, which are going to teach the world science 

 as it was never taught before. There," he continued, warming, 

 " is the greatest of all methods of scientific popularization. No- 

 body understands it ; nobody supports it. The press will not 

 recognize it. New ideas are choked to death in Paris by the jeal- 

 ousy of journalists. These plays have been represented before 

 audiences which were wild with delight. Ah ! but they are beau- 

 tiful ! But jealousy keeps them back." 



" There is one on your countryman Franklin and electricity ; 

 here is another on how Morse got his appropriation bill through ; 

 here is one Bernhardt has read and promised me to play. She 

 says it is superb, superb. It is on Catharine of Russia." 



" And some of them have been given ? " 



"Nearly all, at my expense, understand. I believe it is one 

 way to teach science to the people, and I mean to do all I can to 

 push it. Here are two volumes of plays which I have put on at 

 much cost. One season I hired a theater for a series of scientific 

 matinees. Again I made a tour of the provinces with a troupe. I 

 have given ten years of my life and spent my fortune for this 

 idea. Once I lived in a hotel in the Champs Elys^es, now I am 

 here." And he looked scornfully around the modest room with 

 its faded air. " I have given it all for my theater." 



The pain of the man was too intense, his earnestness too pro- 

 found, for me to probe deeper into this defeated passion of his old 

 age, and I waited until a free hour in the Bibliotheque Nationale 

 gave me leisure to discover just what M. Figuier's theater was. 

 I found it was just what he said an attempt to teach science by 

 means of the drama. He argued in this way : 



" Works of popular science contribute to dissipating the popu- 

 lar superstitions, concerning thunder, for example; but the book 

 is silent and cold. A theatrical representation which shows the 

 spectator the physical phenomena connected with thunder and 

 lightning, under a striking and material form, will impress much 

 more deeply. 



" Besides teaching the laws of the physical and natural sci- 

 ences, scenes from the lives of celebrated savants should be repre- 

 sented. Instead of taking, for the hero of a play, Cromwell, Riche- 



