NATURE 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1871 


THE ORGANISATION OF LOCAL SCIENTIFIC 
EPFORD, 
MONG the many topics of national importance 
which have been discussed at the recent meeting 
of the British Association, there is none which promises 
to bear more fruit, or which we more gladly bring before 
the notice of our readers, than ascheme already suggested 
in these columns, which has been discussed and adopted 
at a full and influential meeting of representatives of all 
branches of Science, the President of the Association, 
Sir William Thomson, being in the chair. 
This scheme is essentially as follows :—It is proposed 
in the first instance, to make an attempt to extend and 
improve the present system of giving scientific lectures to 
the people, and by this means to awaken an interest in 
science and scientific progress in places where otherwise 
there would be little probability of such good work being 
done. 
There is little need that we should expatiate on the 
extreme importance of this object, and on the value of 
the results which are certain to follow from an energetic 
carrying out of the proposal. With the example of Man- 
chester and other large towns before us, it is not too much to 
hope that as soon as the scheme is properly developed, 
the beneficial effects already experienced in these places 
wlll become general throughout the country. In Man- 
chester, to take one instance, we find that each Science 
Lecture has, on an average, been attended by upwards 
of one thousand persons, and that the interest excited by 
the lectures has not been a mere temporary amusement 
is evidenced by the fact that the lectures when reprinted 
have sold by tens of thousands. In Belfast, also, Science 
Lectures to working-men have been most successfully 
given for more than ten years. In this way it is clear 
that not merely the auditors, but a very large outside 
public, have benefited by this method of bringing science 
and its teachings home to everyone. A project, which 
has been so successful over limited areas, and which 
must be as successful if tried on a larger scale, is well 
deserving of being adopted and extended by so impor- 
tant a body as the British Association. 
There is another consideration which renders the adop- 
tion of this scheme by the British Association doubly 
valuable. The danger attending the delivery of popular 
lectures has always been that true scientific method may 
be lost sight of in the desire of the lecturer to merely 
please the eye, or to keep up interest in the auditory by 
mere sensational display. It is to be hoped that we 
shall now have a guarantee at any rate against this evil. 
It is not possible always to make science amusing, but 
we now possess ample experience which goes to show 
that a scientific lecture delivered by a competent man, 
fully impressed himself with the dignity of what he is 
doing, is able to awake the interest and rivet the atten- 
tion of those classes for whom the lectures are specially 
intended. 
This, however, after all, is only one side of the project. 
We do not for one moment wish to undervalue the ex- 
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281 
treme importance of science lectures, but we must not 
forget that they will have missed their mark if they have 
not engendered the desire for something more durable 
(because more useful) in the way of scientific instruction, 
which can be obtained in a variety of ways, as, for in- 
stance, in Mechanics’ Institutions, in the science classes 
of the Science and Art Department, or in other organisa- 
tions which may be subsequently developed. 
It is not, however, merely a question of scientific in- 
struction. Throughout the country we find societies, field 
clubs, local museums, &c., all of which are more or less 
actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, local in- 
quiries, or exploration, and all of which are working, more 
or less, at a disadvantage, in consequence of the chaotic 
state of our scientific arrangements, and from their lack of 
that power which springs from unity. 
Now is it too much to expect that under the best pos- 
sible conditions such engines of scientific advancement 
would be more useful than they are at present, or that 
there would be more of them? We have only to look at 
what has beendone in some of the higher schools even, to 
satisfy ourselves upon this point. At Rugby, Clifton, Marl- 
borough, not to mention other schools, we have museums 
and natural history societies existing side by side with 
the work of the school, and the masters testify in the 
most definite manner to the extreme importance of the 
culture obtained by such means. Now, if this is im- 
portant for a limited number of schoolboys, how much 
more important must it be throughout the length and 
breadth of the land; where at present we find teaching 
going on without museums, museums existing in locali- 
ties where there is no one to look after them, field clubs 
examining every inch of the ground, while a much richer 
region elsewhere is entirely unexplored, each worker, 
as it were, away from his support, and the workers 
few. Itis as if an army were moving through a hostile 
country without commander, without plan, without any 
power of combination, and without either vanguard, 
Uhlan, or second line. 
Here then we have plainly before us the ground tobe 
viewed by the Committee to which we have referred, a Com- 
mittee which we doubt not will be appointed by the British 
Association with full power to reportupon, and, if necessary, 
to carry out at once, any measures which itmay be desirable 
to take in the directions we have indicated. Whenonce such 
a body is established, and its existence generally known, 
its work will soon take the most concrete form, a more 
concrete one than we have ventured to assign to it in this 
article ; but it is clear that if limited in its functions in 
the first instance to the lecture arrangements to which we 
have referred, and to inquiries into the actual geographical 
position of and condition of our local societies, museums, 
field clubs, and the like, so that the committee should 
become the head-quarters of information on these sub- 
jects to those who wish to establish similar institutions in 
new districts, or to expand an existing one, the greatest 
possible good ‘to science will follow. But it is not too 
much to hope that such a body would in time become the 
centre of influence as well as of information, would be 
able to mould actual and potential institutions into the 
best form for effective work, and would be able to econo- 
mise their resources, and to increase the utility of each of 
them. 
