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Alerander Winchell. 
matter or its author, amounted essentially to a mere amusement 
or a spectacle. Though never devoting any portion of his time 
expressly to the business of lecturing, he gave annually twenty, 
thirty, or more such lectures and his voice was heard in nearly all 
the cities of the West and Northwest where literary societies or 
lecture courses are maintained. 
In October, 1875, when in Boston, he met Prof. R. A. Proctor, 
and attended two of the lectures in the course which he was then 
delivering before the Lowell Institute. In conversation he re- 
marked to Prof. Proctor the difference in the methods pursued 
by Proctor and himself to gain the attention of popular audiences. 
Proctor took a special theme of limited scope, and brought out 
all the details and personal and biographical history connected 
with it. This appeared to him the method of the story-teller. 
Winchell took a grand chapter of cosmical history, and pre- 
sented synthetically the grand conclusions attained by science, 
ranging them in logical rather than chronological order—appeal- 
ing to the understanding of his auditors for interest, and to their 
imagination for illustrative pictures. In later years it was eyi- 
dent that Proctor’s lectures more and more adopted Winchell’s 
method, at the same time also approximating more closely to the 
same themes. During his American tour of 1879-80 he made his 
lecture entitled ‘‘The Life of a World” the staple entertainment 
for the public. His other lectures, ‘‘The Moon,” ‘‘Death of 
Worlds,’ were simply amplified chapters in a general cosmic 
history. 
Dr. Winchell was perhaps the very first scientist in America 
who descended before popular audiences, from that high-caste and 
stately, but dry and unpopular, style in which the older scientists 
had thought it fit to cloak the dignity of science. Certainly no one 
but the elder Agassiz had previously attempted a true populariza- 
tion of science, but his lectures were never heard by the plain 
people in the smaller cities throughout the country. He simpli- 
fied zoological themes, rather than popularized them, and lifted 
up his voice only in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Mobile, San 
Francisco, or other large cities where the select appreciators of 
science were numerous enough to constitute an audience. Since 
1868 the popular platform has been occupied by a considerable 
number of lecturers of scientific repute, among whom may be 
named Waterhouse Hawkins, Richard A. Proctor and Kdward 3. 
