74 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



London, composed in part of the aristocracy of rank, 

 while the audience just referred to is composed wholly of 

 the aristocracy of labor. As regards attention and cour- 

 tesy to the lecturer, neither of these audiences has any 

 thing to learn of the other ; neither can claim superiority 

 over the other. I do not, however, think that it would 

 be quite correct to take those persons who flock to the 

 School of Mines as average samples of their class ; they 

 are probably picked men — the aristocracy of labor, as I have 

 just called them. At all events, their conduct demonstrates 

 that the essential qualities of 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 work- 

 ing-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 de- 

 cline 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 the working-men, at their 

 own request, were addressed by our late President, Mr. 

 Grove, and by my excellent friend Professor Huxley, the 

 idea rose of incorporating with all subsequent meetings of 

 the Association an address to the working-men of the town 

 in which the meeting is held. A resolution to that effect 

 was sent to the Committee of Recommendations ; the com- 

 mittee supported the resolution ; the Council of the Asso- 

 ciation ratified the decision of the committee ; and here I 

 am to carry out to the best of my ability their united 

 wishes. 



