Science and the Press’ 
> VER since I read the newspaper account of my first public 
scientific lecture I have looked forward to an opportunity 
of addressing journalists on the subject of science and the 
Press. Now that the opportunity has come, I find that time 
and experience have so mellowed my feelings as to rob the 
occasion of the dramatic interest that it at one time seemed to 
promise, and if I do not come to praise, I have at least no 
longer a concealed desire to bury. 
I have certainly come to understand how exorbitant are the 
claims which are made upon the journalist. He belongs to a 
class of men who ought to know everything. Journalists are 
something like architects or housewives. An architect should 
be an artist; a surveyor; an engineer, civil, mechanical and 
sanitary ; a man who knows all about wood, metal, brick and 
stone; a financier; a manager of men; and I know not what 
beside. Well, you know an architect is never all this, and 
rarely any part of it to perfection; yet he is often a wonder- 
fully good architect. I have not time to enumerate the quali- 
fications of a good housewife. Perfection in them <all is 
unattainable, but Heaven be praised, there are still excellent 
housewives, 
A journalist’sequipment would, I imagine, be even larger than 
that of either of the two classes I have named, if he were to be 
fully qualified to understand the things with which he has to 
deal. I realize now, therefore, quite clearly, that if a journalist 
were sufficiently scientific to be able to report my lectures with 
the fullness and appreciation of which I at one time thought 
? Address to the West Riding District of the Institute of Journalists, 
delivered at Leeds February 9, 1910. 
