THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



The result was that I was one of the men invited to go to 

 Vassar the next year. I knew that it was a chance that I should 

 not avoid, and that I must learn to talk to an audience without 

 manuscript. So I thought that I would begin in a gradual way 

 at Poughkeepsie. I prepared a manuscript that would take about 

 a half-hour to read and then planned to use the remaining half- 

 hour in talking with lantern slides. When I reached the college 

 it was about dinner time, and I dined with Dr. Taylor and 

 some of the professors at a table in the big college dining-room. 

 I asked the President in an offhand way what kind of an 

 audience I could expect, and my fears were not at all appeased 

 by his reply, which was to the effect that it was either the best 

 audience in the world or the worst — that it all depended on 

 whether you caught their interest at the start. 



Then we went into the big chapel, and I was introduced to the 

 amazingly attractive roomful of girls. I placed my manuscript 

 on the reading desk — a temporary sort of thing. It was apparently 

 an old music stand that screwed up somewhere near its middle. 

 I made a few opening remarks, leaning my elbow on the tricky 

 pedestal, and as I did so, the darned old thing gave way and the 

 manuscript fluttered all over the place. Here accidentally was an 

 incident sure to attract the interest of those girls, and how they 

 did laugh! I looked at the manuscript in sheer despair and 

 remarked that, after all, I imagined that was the best place for it. 

 I went on with the lecture, and the audience was very apprecia- 

 tive. The best of it was that I gained great confidence in myself 

 and have never used a manuscript in any public talk since. I 

 have always felt very kindly toward Vassar, and many years 

 later my youngest daughter graduated there. She was not born 

 at the time of this incident. 



After that chances to give lectures multiplied, and during the 

 next thirty or more years I gave a large number, some of them 



[83] 



