148 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, 
societies, and everywhere I find the same thing—dreary papers, 
thoughts clothed in most scientific technical phraseology,a scanty 
audience which soon looks weary and grows restless and inatten- 
tive; the result being that the public in each town care little or no- 
thing for science. When in England I have frequently attended 
lectures at the Royal, the London, and other institutions,and there 
I saw quite a different plan adopted. For instance, suppose that 
Prof. Huxley is the lecturer, the theatre is crowded with an 
audience very little better scientifically educated than those 
at our Philosophical meetings ; yet instead of seeing weary, list- 
less faces and yawning featurss, with the clearest signs of 
blankest bewilderment written on their faces, we there see an 
audience listening eagerly, and evidently deeply interested from 
start to finish. The cause of the difference is simple. The Pro- 
fessor’s plan is easy and successful. He works for months or 
years before making some discovery. The result achieved, he 
writes a most learned monograph, couched in the most sesqui- 
pedalian words, and the most technical of technical phraseology 
to ensure scientific exactness; and this monograph, incomprehen- 
sible everywhere except to similar skilled workers, is printed in 
the Transactions of the Royal Society for future reference and 
guidance. It is acceptable to all specialists, and there fulfils one 
of its missions. When, however, the Professor lectures to a mixed 
audience, he prepares very different material. He drapes his 
discovery in plain yet eloquent words, he leaves out all the 
dreary details, and all the unintelligible phraseology ; he lightens 
his subject by various pleasant methods, and at the end of his 
lecture the audience understands a vast deal more than it would 
have done had he read through every word of his lengthy essay. 
All the people go away pleased, they feel they have learnt some- 
thing, they think and talk over the subject, they tell the dis- 
coveries to their friends, and they go to the next lecture. Many 
workers in this colony seem to despise this plan, and sneeringly 
suggest that it is merely a phase of hinting, and fiercely maintain 
that it is contemptible and calculated to ruin science. The 
public hate to sit listening to a prosy stammering man, who 
reads in dullest tones a paper couched in such terms that they 
really do not understand three consecutive sentences. People 
loathe these dull unintelligible monographs, but very many 
thoroughly enjoy hearing “the fairy tales of science and the 
long results of time.” Ina New Zealand audience the number 
of people who know anything of a special science is very limited, 
yet in one evening they hear a paper on the “Fossils of the 
Amuri,” on the “ Botany of Ruapehu,” on the “Simplest Con- 
tinuous Manifoldness of Finite Space of Two Dimensions,” and 
an article on the “ Hydration of Silicates.” All this hotch-potch 
is served up to them in the rawest terms; it is not cooked to 
make it easy for their digestion, and the result is disgust and 
WeCariness. 
If the Association is to be a success it must be managed on 
broad grounds. It must be governed by a committee of workers, 
. 
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