11 



It was in this way that the Lite Professor Henslow acted in 

 his parish of Hiteham in Suffolk, where, on first coming to reside, 

 he found a large population of agricultural poor, not merely 

 wholly uneducated but debased in morals, a large portion of 

 them living in idleness and crime, or, if not joining in the 

 misdemeanours of others, indulging together in the coarsest 

 amusements. Where religious lessons would have utterly failed 

 and have been thrown away, he worked an amendment hj his 

 resources as a naturalist. After talking to them kindly for 

 some time, he persuaded them to come and see some of tlxe 

 natural and artificial curiosities which he had brought out of his 

 Museum for them to look at. Of course, in the first instance, 

 they stared not a little, as all ignorant and uneducated persons 

 would, at the strange things set before them, such as they had 

 never seen before. But this did not last long. The vacant stare 

 gradually gave M\ay to something better. After a few inspections 

 of the Rector's curiosities, they began to take more interest in . 

 them, and felt a desire to know something about their history 

 and uses. Thus the first difficulty was got over. From that 

 time his people grew to be ameliorated in their habits as well as 

 morals. In a few years these same poor not only became orderly, 

 and alive to every kind of intellectual entertainment which the 

 Professor served uj) for them, but they accompanied him in 

 crowds in his parochial excursions to the Ipswich Museum (of 

 which more presently), listened with eagerness to his " Lecturets," 

 or short lectures of a few minutes each, which here, as on other 

 occasions, he would deliver from time to time in explanation 

 of what Avas shown them, until he received from their own 

 months testimony as to tlie good effects wrought on them by 

 such exhibitions, by their saying that their " heads would not be so 

 full of drink, if they oftener had such things as these to occupy 

 their minds." 



Now these facts supply us with a useful hint. They suggest to 

 us that in the first forming of our Museums we need not be over 



