54 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



of its benches would be occupied on these occasions. It 

 is, moreover, worthy of remark that the lectures are but 

 rarely of a character which could help the working man 

 in his daily pursuits. The information acquired is 

 hardly ever of a nature which admits of being turned 

 into money. It is, therefore, a pure desire for know- 

 ledge, as a thing good in itself, and without regard to 

 its practical application, which animates the hearers of 

 these lectures. 



It is also my privilege to lecture to another audience 

 in London, composed in part of the aristocracy of rank, 

 while the audience just referred to is composed wholly 

 of the aristocracy of labour. As regards attention and 

 courtesy to the lecturer, neither of these audiences has 

 anything to learn of the other ; neither can claim supe- 

 riority over the other. It would not, perhaps, be quite 

 correct to take those persons who flock to the School of 

 Mines as average samples of their class ; they are prob- 

 ably picked men the aristocracy of labour, as I have 

 just called them. At all events, their conduct demon- 

 strates that the essential qualities of what we in England 

 understand by a gentleman are confined to no class ; and 

 they have often raised in my mind the wish that the 

 gentlemen of all classes, artisans as well as lords, could, by 

 some process of selection, be sifted from the general mass 

 of the community, and caused to know each other better. 



When pressed some months ago by the Council of 

 the British Association to give an evening lecture to 

 the working men of Dundee, my experience of the 

 working men of London naturally rose to my mind ; 

 and, though heavily weighted with other duties, I could 

 not bring myself to decline the request of the Council. 

 Hitherto, the evening discourses of the Association have 

 been delivered before its members and associates alone. 

 But after the meeting at Nottingham, last year, where 



