PUBLIC LECTURES 101 



years earlier. But the dispute, as such, faded out, 

 and the Council's objection finally disappeared by 

 default : at length, in 1913, Miss Ethel Sargant took 

 her seat as the first sectional president of her sex (in 

 the Botanical Section), and in the following year the 

 Council welcomed Miss E. E. Saunders, of Newnham 

 College, as one of its members. 



PUBLIC LECTUKES 



The British Association has in no department 

 of its labours more clearly carried out its founders' 

 charge ' to obtain more general attention for the 

 objects of science,' than by the endeavours it has made 

 to bring those objects, in successive places of meet- 

 ing, before the classes of citizens whose interests 

 or circumstances do not permit of their becom- 

 ing members of the Association. Long before any 

 systematic arrangements of ' public ' lectures were 

 brought into being, we find distinguished members 

 of the Association taking advantage of its meetings 

 to widen the appeal of science. For example, Sir 

 John Herschel, in a letter to Lady Herschel from 

 which quotation has previously been made (p. 99), 

 writes of Sedgwick's activities at the Newcastle 

 meeting in 1838 : 



' All the show here is over. It has been by far 

 the most brilliant meeting of the Association, and in 

 all the public proceedings perfect good taste has 

 reigned. Sedgwick wound up on Saturday with a 

 burst of eloquence (something in the way of a sermon), 

 of astonishing beauty and grandeur. 



' But this, I am told, was nothing compared to 

 an out-of-door speech, address, or lecture, which he 



