Walter Frank Eapliael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
11 
description. The latter gave a full account of their anatomy and added a careful 
discussion on the affinities of the genus, expressing his belief that while it is 
"related on the one hand to Archiannelida, it retains on the other many features 
characteristic of the ancestor common to those groups (especially Chaetopods, 
Gephyreans, Mollusca, Rotifers and Crustacea) which possess a more or less 
modified trochosphere larva." 
The next few years of Weldon's life were — if it be possible to make any com- 
parative where all were intense — more active than ever. He had now given up 
coaching, and as he only needed to be in Cambridge two terms of the year, travel 
and research could occupy the time from the beginning of June to January. On 
May 8, 1885, Weldon gave his first Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution 
on " Adaptation to surroundings as a factor in Animal Development." No report 
is published in the Proceedingsi of this lecture, but there are those who still 
remember the impression caused by the youthful lecturer of 25 years of age. And 
here may be a fitting place to say something of Weldon's lecturing power. There 
are two distinct sides to lecture work ; the instruction of small or large classes of 
students and the public oration. Success in the one field does not necessarily 
connote success in the other. In the former case the eye must be kept on the 
average student, the lecturer miist realise what the individual auditor is feeling, 
he must expand his exposition or must contract it to meet the carefully observed 
needs of his audience, for he knows that he can take up the subject again on the 
next occasion exactly where he has left off. In this form of lecturing Weldon 
was an adept, it brought out all his force and enthusiasm as a teacher. As a 
writer in the Times (April 18, 1906), says: 
" Seldom is it given to a man to teach as Weldon taught. He lectured 
almost as one inspired. His extreme earnestness was only equalled by his lucidity. 
He awoke enthusiasm even in the dullest, and he had the divine gift of compelling 
interest." 
In public lecturing on the other hand, with a time limit and an unknown 
audience, the personal touch with individuals is impossible. There is no time to 
elaborate points, the whole matter must be a priori fitted to the time, and if the 
audience is not grasping an idea, then the lecturer must put both explanation and 
disappointment on one side; he must make his audience jump gladly, and trust 
to better luck in his exposition of the next stage of his thesis. Shortly, he 
must feel his audience with him as a whole and pay no regard to the individual. 
Weldon's own intense thoroughness made him only too conscious when a 
portion of his audience were not following him ; his highly nervous temperament 
made it a necessity that he should have a sympathetic grip on the individual. 
This made for success in his lectures to students ; but it brought also a factor of 
uncertainty into his public lectures. The most carefully prepared discourse, and 
no man gave more time and energy than Weldon to preparation*, might be 
* Drafts and re-drafts were written, elaborate diagrams painted, or lantern slides made and 
coloured by Weldon himself. 
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