HOW TO STUDY NATURAL HISTORY/ 



LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I speak to you to-night as 

 to persons assembled, somewhat, no doubt, for amuse- 

 ment, but still more for instruction. Institutions such 

 as this were originally founded for the purpose of 

 instruction ; to supply to those who wish to educate 

 themselves some of the advantages of a regular course 

 of scholastic or scientific training, by means of classes- 

 and of lectures. 



I myself prize classes far higher than I do lectures. 

 From my own experience, a lecture is often a very 

 dangerous method of teaching; it is apt to engender in 

 the mind of men ungrounded conceit and sciolism, or 

 the bad habit of knowing about subjects without really 

 knowing the subject itself. A young man hears an 

 interesting lecture, and carries away from it doubtless a 

 great many new facts and results : but he really must 

 not go home fancying himself a much wiser man ; and 

 why ? Because he has only heard the lecturer's side of 

 the story. He has been forced to take the facts and 

 the results on trust. He has not examined the facts for 

 * Lecture delivered at Reading, 184.6. 



