November 17, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



695 



of the country, the average loss is about £10 

 a lecture and is met by a grant from the 

 Gilchrist Trustees. At Stockport 

 the hall has been hired, with charges for admission. 

 The greatest profit in the early years was approxi- 

 mately £20. In recent years there has been a loss. 

 A number of local gentlemen guaranteed a guinea 

 each in case of loss. No call has been made upon 

 them. 



At University College, Nottingham, the 

 loss per lecture is from £2 to £5, but no al- 

 lowance is made for the services of the lec- 

 turer and his assistant, or for the use of 

 apparatus. In such cases the loss is met 

 out of college funds. Lectures are like- 

 wise given in many places as part of the 

 educational work of museums and the cost 

 is paid out of the incomes of the institu- 

 tions. When the museum is a municipal 

 institution, or lectures are arranged by a 

 Free Public Library Committee, any loss 

 comes out of the rates. Thus the secretary 

 of the Albert Institute, Dundee, says : 



As the lectures are all delivered within the 

 premises of the Tree Library Committee, any 

 charge for admission is prohibited by the Public 

 Libraries Acts. The Albert Institute Lectures 

 have proved so popular that they are regarded as a 

 branch of the work of the Free Library Com- 

 mittee. A sum of about £25 is usually taken in the 

 estimates of that committee for expenses — lantern 

 operator, making slides, arranging halls, etc. All 

 my lectures are gratuitous. 



Similarly, the chief librarian of the Liv- 

 erpool Public Libraries remarks: 



The public libraries are rate-supported, and lec- 

 tures are part of the public library work. This 

 library was established by special Act of Parlia- 

 ment, and not under Ewart's Library Act. Au- 

 thority was included in our Act to pay for lectures. 

 The vote by our council for lectures during the 

 past few years has been about £1,100 per year. 



In other cases the cost of popular lectures 

 is paid by the legal education committee 

 or out of the grant made to the institution 

 by the board of education. 



Very few localities have special funds 

 available for the expenses of public lec- 



tures. The secretary of the Kilmarnock 

 Glenfield Kamblers' Society says, however: 

 " The Kilmarnock Philosophical Society 

 has considerable funds for providing lec- 

 tures, but has not done so for many years. ' ' 

 At Dundee, 



the late Lord Armitstead gave, about twenty-five 

 years ago, a sum to establish "The Armitstead 

 Lectures. " No local lecturers are engaged. A 

 nominal charge for admission is made. These were 

 formerly well attended, but latterly the attendance 

 has fallen off. The Albert Institute Lectures now 

 tax the full accommodation of the Albert Hall. 

 They are absolutely free to the public. 



There is at Perth a local trust fund, 

 called the Duncan Bequest, for lectures; 

 and at Maidstone the popular lectures are 

 provided out of the Bentlif Wing Trust 

 Fund of the museum, free library, and 

 Bentlif Art Gallery. The Midland Insti- 

 tute, Birmingham, has a small endowment 

 of about £30 a year for science lectures; 

 and the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, 

 has an endowment fund for popular lec- 

 tures on astronomy. The Gilchrist Educa- 

 tional Trust is referred to in detail later. 

 One of the purposes of the Chadwick Trust 

 (40 Queen Anne Chambers, Westminster, 

 S.W.) is to provide for " the delivery by 

 competent persons of lectures on Sanitary 

 Science," and a number of successful lec- 

 tures have been given in pursuance of it, 

 particularly during the war. Among the 

 subjects of these recent lectures are : Racial 

 Hygiene and the Wastage of War; War 

 and Disease; Food in War-time; Typhus 

 in Serbia ; Prevention of Disease and Frost- 

 bite in the Army. The Trust pays all ex- 

 penses of fees, hall, lantern, advertising 

 and printing, though halls and lanterns 

 are often lent. 



10. Has public interest in popular sci- 

 ence lectures increased or decreased in your 

 district during the past ten or twenty 

 years? 



The analysis of replies to this question is 



