340 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



point out to ordinary minds the extent and bearings of the numer- 

 ous details which it has required very many explorers to bring to light. 

 This was strikingly true of Mr. Lovering. He was not, as he him- 

 self would be the first to avow, a born investigator, although, as his 

 successor will doubtless tell you, he did very substantial work as an 

 original student ; but he was a great teacher, and I am persuaded 

 that the experiences of his education to which I have referred had an 

 important influence on the result. He came to the study of physics 

 as a ripe literary scholar ; and he dwelt on its various fields, with their 

 intricate relations, until he had acquired clear conceptions of the 

 whole ground, and it was thus that he gained the power of presenting 

 all the details with such clearness and force. 



So called " original research " is now a fad in education, and we are 

 in danger of overlooking the fact that the scholar and teacher is no 

 less important to the community than the investigator. It is absurd 

 to contend which is the more important member of the body politic. 

 No one has pressed on this community more persistently than myself 

 the importance of scientific investigation, not primarily for the results 

 it may yield, but chiefly as a great influence towards sustaining the 

 higher life of the nation, and yet I feel assured that the explorers 

 would soon lose their reckoning were not there also a class of scholars 

 to co-ordinate their results and supervise their work. It is easy to 

 sneer at popular lectures, and I have as great a contempt as any one 

 for mere glitter and froth ; but the lecturer who can raise men to a 

 higher intellectual level confers a benefit on the community which is 

 none the less real because its effects may not be at once apparent. 



Faraday was one of the very few men who was at the same time 

 a great teacher and a great investigator. I never was more impressed 

 by any intellectual achievement than by the popular, even juvenile, 

 lectures which I once had the privilege of attending at the Royal 

 Institution in London. And, however great the bequests of knowledge 

 this investigator left to mankind, I greatly doubt whether, when the 

 final account is closed, the greatest contribution of Faraday to human 

 welfare will not be found to be his popular lectures. It has been 

 well said that the greatest discovery of Sir Humphry Davy was 

 Faraday, — a mere bookbinder's apprentice when he was fascinated 

 by Davy's brilliant lectures, — and who can number the intellectual 

 offspring of the still greater teacher ? It is the misfortune of a col- 

 lege teacher that the successive classes pass on long before the fruits 

 of his influence have time to mature ; but the influence lives, and could 

 we trace the effects of our associate's work I am sure that we should 



