THE ENTOMOLOGIST'S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER, 
No. 63.] 
LECTURES. 
“ Lectures — so called because they 
are not read, but spokeu — are among 
the phenomena of the day. 
“ These lectures or speeches upon 
set subjects appear to be popular; the 
rooms are crowded, and the speaker is 
listened to with interest. 
“ All persons have not leisure or 
good libraries; their stock of informa- 
tion is not superabundant, and there- 
fore they have no objection to take 
advantage of pleasant, lively, cheerful 
means of increasing it. A large room 
full of well-dressed people, and bril- 
liantly lighted is a convenient accom- 
paniment of instruction, — a pleasant 
disguise for mental improvement to 
adopt. If you get tired of the lesson 
you have your neighbours to look at, 
there is the diversion of mutual recog- 
nition in case the mind should feel 
itself filling too fast, and, above all, 
there is no examination at the end to 
be undergone.” 
Thus wrote ‘ The Times,’ of Novem- 
ber 24th; and if the statement be cor- 
rect, it may well be doubted whether 
so much information is obtained from 
“going to a lecture” as some would 
wish us to believe : if the great luxury 
[Price 1 d. 
of listening to a lecture arises from 
the fact that the listening is perfectly 
optional and that no examination is 
to follow, and if everything is forgotten 
in the course of a day or two, one may 
well ask, Cui bono ? 
We called attention, a short time 
ago, to the subject of papers read before 
“ Local Associations,” and concluded 
with the observation that “ a series of 
systematically progressive papers upon 
one subject would have a more bene- 
ficial result than a greater number of 
unconnected papers on all manner of 
subjects.” Those who go to these in- 
structive reunions simply for the sake 
of novelty, and without any especial 
desire for information, may of course 
be inclined to demur to their being 
made too instructive, to their being 
converted into a species of hydraulic- 
engine for compressing valuable infor- 
mation into the mind. The sensation 
of being overpowered with knowledge 
is very oppressive. 
Still it is one of the evils of the 
present day that every one knows a 
smattering of every thing, and no one 
knows anything thoroughly; the infor- 
mation given at a lecture frequently 
induces the hearer to think he has 
heard all about that subject, and of 
course having mastered Astronomy iu 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1857. 
M 
