63 The Scottish Naturalist. 



having long survived his youthful or mature vigour and accom- 

 plishments, and from his being nevertheless compelled, by lack 

 of adequate superannuation arrangements, to stick to office long 

 after his services could be of any real use. Under such cir- 

 cumstances, a septuagenarian or octogenarian Professor is apt to 

 become a mere driveller: unable to see to read his old MSS, 

 written perhaps twenty or even fifty years ago : scarcely able to 

 articulate or enunciate distinctly : disturbed, in his efforts at 

 public speaking, by cough or faintness, or other forms of bodily 

 debility — the fruits of age. In such cases, a lecture becomes a 

 mere farce — painful in the extreme, equally to student and Pro- 

 fessor. So far from commanding respect, or maintaining necessary 

 discipline, the old man and his peculiarities serve only as a butt 

 for the amusement or ridicule of his waggish students. There 

 is an utter and mischievous waste of the student's time, and a 

 pitiable sacrifice of the Professor's dignity and reputation. 



So far from possessing the requisite qualifications for Teaching, 

 our Professors are sometimes scarcely able to speak extempore 

 at all : even their Readings from notes are repulsive on account 

 of the tone of voice, or other peculiarities : occasionally there 

 is some organic or functional defect in the organs of speech. 

 There may be utter want of clearness in exposition — inability 

 to place abstruse or abstract facts or laws in an attractive and in- 

 telligible style before a student: there may be much talk and 

 few facts — great verbosity,* but little impression left on the 

 student's mind, less by far than would be the result of his study- 

 ing a good text-book at his own fire-side. t Frequently there is 

 none of the enthusiasm — the ingenium perfervidum — of the true 



•What Shakespeare says in " Love's Labour Lost " is too apt to be true of a 

 so-called "eloquent" Professor: — 



" He draweth out the thread of his verbosity 

 Finer than the staple of his argument , v 



To a Dr. Elder we owe the following Recipe for "a Popular Lecture " : — " Take 

 one drop of thought, beat it up to a bushel of bubble, and throw rainbows on it 

 for one hour ! " 



+ The teaching of a frothy, imaginative, superficial Professor has been said to 

 produce in the student's mind some such result as that — 



" In describing our earth, he is apt to conjecture her, 

 As one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure Lecturer ! " 



