172 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch.xxxv 



there. I sat between M. Meyer of Paris and 

 J. Morley. Proposed the University." 



He gave an address to the African Society 

 on November 5. He had that year been elected 

 President of the Society in succession to Lord 

 Ripon. On the 15th he was at Swindon, unveil- 

 ing a memorial tablet to Richard Jefferies. The 

 address which he gave on that occasion is pub- 

 lished in his Essays and Addresses. 



He received the compliment this year of the 

 Prussian Order of Merit, presented by the German 

 Emperor. The other Englishmen of distinction 

 in science who were already members of the 

 Order were Sir J. Hooker, Lord Kelvin, Lord 

 Lister, and Sir G. Stokes. 



His diary of this time records that his youngest 

 son began to give precocious evidence of a 

 hereditary disposition to speculation on the 

 phenomena of the Universe, asking " Who made 

 the sky ? " A day or two later, having burnt 

 his hand slightly, but sufficiently to hurt him 

 more than a little, in the library fire, the child 

 was taken up to the nursery and there left 

 with the injured finger wrapped in cotton- wool. 

 When his mother went up shortly afterwards to 

 see how he was getting on she was surprised and 

 vexed to find that he had burnt his other hand 

 also. When asked how he had done it, he replied 

 that he had " wanted to see whether the nursery 

 fire burned too." 



