AS FRIEND AND LECTURER.
"I thought these men will carry hence
Promptings their former life above,
And something of a finer reverence
For beauty, truth, and love."
LOWELL.
At various periods of Faraday's life his genial good-nature and
kindliness have been brought home to us in different ways. From that
early time when he used to take care of his little sister Margaret in
Manchester Square, up to the very latest course of Juvenile Lectures
which he delivered at the Royal Institution in 1863, he had always the
same love for young people; and, as is usual with persons of such a
disposition, he was ever a great favourite of the children, whether of
those who used to hear his Christmas lectures, or with those happier
ones who met him more intimately. Intimate seems perhaps a curious word
to use with regard to the relations of young children and an old man;
but yet it is the only word that really expresses what is meant; that
really indicates that instant bond of sympathy that seems to connect
children with men and women who possess the power of attracting and
delighting them by becoming from the first as one of themselves. This
quality, this delightful quality, belonged to Michael Faraday in an
eminent degree.
Fortunate indeed were those children who listened to his Christmas
Lectures to Juveniles, and fortunate also were those older people
who were present on the same occasions. Many people who enjoyed the
pleasure and privilege of hearing him at such a time recorded their
impressions, and pleasant reading is the result. Lady Pollock, for
instance, wrote: "When he lectured to children he was careful to
be perfectly distinct, and never allowed his ideas to outrun their
intelligence. He took great delight in talking to them, and easily won
their confidence. The vivacity of his manner and of his countenance,
his pleasant laugh, the frankness of his whole bearing, attracted them
to him. They felt as if he belonged to them; and indeed he sometimes,
in his joyous enthusiasm, appeared like an inspired child. He was not
at all a man for evening parties; he was nothing of a ladies' man; but
he was the true man for the juveniles, and would go to see a domestic
charade when the boys acted in it, and suddenly appear behind the scene
to offer a little help or suggest a new arrangement; and then, while he
was in front, he would laugh and applaud so loudly, that his presence
was the best encouragement which the young performers could have. Or he
would help the young people to wonder at the feats of a conjuror, or he
would join in a round game, and romp quite noisily. But all was done
with a natural impulse. There was no assumption of kindness, no air of
condescension."
Another writer, who had the rare privilege of meeting the great man
socially, said: "Nothing indeed pleased him better than to be a boy
again, and to mingle in the sports of the young, especially if they
took a turn congenial at all to his own pursuits. He has been known to
join a youthful party on a November evening to assist in a display
of fireworks. There he might be seen running to and fro in a garden
at night, with his pockets crammed with combustibles--now kindling
lycopodium or burning potassium--then letting off blue fires, green
fires, purple fires--sometimes dropping ignited crackers at the feet of
the boys with an air of affected astonishment, or probably chasing the
girls in order to streak their cheeks with phosphorus."
As a lecturer to children Faraday was indeed particularly successful
and especially interesting. His first course of Christmas Juvenile
Lectures was given in 1827--his last, on "The Chemical History of
a Candle," was given in 1863, and during that time he gave in all
nineteen of these courses. The first consisted of six lectures on
chemistry, and the first lecture of the course was illustrated with no
fewer than eighty-six experiments, which were, it is scarcely necessary
to say, carried out on the platform. In his note-book Faraday made the
following entry with regard to this course, "The six juvenile lectures
were just what they ought to have been, both in matter and manner; but
it would not answer to give an extended course in the same spirit."
One secret of Faraday's success as a lecturer, both to juveniles and
others, was the carefulness with which he always tried to ascertain
what was the best method. In early years he would have a friend
(Magrath, or some other) among the audience, who was to tell him
afterwards of any peculiarities, either of manner or style, that
wanted correcting; and Miss Reid tells us that in the early years of
the Juvenile Lectures her uncle used to encourage her to tell him
everything that struck her; and, when she did not fully understand him,
where her difficulties lay. He would then enlarge upon those points in
the next lecture, and thus he made a child's remark serve him in making
things clear to children. He used also, at first, to have a card, on
which was distinctly written the word _Slow_, before him; and if he
forgot it and became rapid, his assistant Anderson had orders to place
it before him. Sometimes also when his lecture hour was nearly expired,
he would arrange to have a card with the word _Time_ on it, placed
within his view.
One of his early courses for children treated of that subject which
always possessed a great fascination for him, and in which he did
much of his greatest work--electricity. The slight notes which he
made for the first lecture of this course are interesting. "An
extraordinary power that I have to explain; not fear boldly entering
into its consideration, because I think it ought to be understood
by children--not minutely, but so as to think reasonably about it,
and such effects as children can produce, or observe to take place
in nature--simple instances of its power." This first lecture was
illustrated by eighty experiments.
We have dwelt upon his kindliness and sympathy with children; but, it
may be noted, he had none of his own, though from almost the earliest
year of his married life he always liked to have one or other of his
nieces with him. His love for children is well shown in an anecdote
which Dr. Gladstone tells of his later life. He was at a soirée at
the house of Mr. Justice Grove; the eldest daughter having heard him
express himself disappointed at being too late to see any of the
younger members of the family, brought down the little ones in their
nightgowns to the foot of the stairs, when Faraday showed how gratified
he was by saying to her, "Ah! that's the best thing you've done
to-night."
Sometimes he would indulge in some slight practical jokes with the
young people. For instance, a nephew visiting him in his study one
morning, Faraday said to him, "Why, Frank, what a tall boy you are
growing; you can almost touch that brass ball--just try." Nothing loth,
the boy standing on tiptoe reached up and touched the ball with his
fingers, when his playful uncle gave a turn to a wheel and the boy
received a slight shock, and with it a first, and somewhat unexpected,
lesson on the nature of electricity.
[Illustration:
FARADAY LECTURING BEFORE THE PRINCE CONSORT,
PRINCE OF WALES AND DUKE OF EDINBURGH.
_Reduction of the picture painted_] [_in 1856 by Alexander Blaikley_.]
The Prince Consort was a constant patron of the Royal Institution, and
the young princes also were present at many of the Juvenile Lectures.
After attending such a course H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, then a lad
of fifteen, and his brother, H.R.H. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh,
wrote from Windsor Castle the following letters to Professor Faraday:--
"Dear Sir,--I am anxious to thank you for the advantage I have derived
from attending your most interesting lectures. Their subject, I know
very well, is of great importance, and I hope to follow the advice
you gave us of pursuing it beyond the lecture-room; and I can assure
you that I shall always cherish with great pleasure the recollection
of having been assisted in my early studies in chemistry by so
distinguished a man.
"Believe me, dear Sir, yours truly,
"ALBERT EDWARD."
Prince Alfred's letter was as follows:--
"Dear Sir,--I write to thank you very much for the pleasure you have
given me by your lectures, and I cannot help hoping they will not be
the last I shall hear from you. Their subject was very interesting,
and your clear explanations made it doubly so.
"Believe me, dear Sir, yours truly,
"ALFRED."
It is interesting to learn Faraday's own views with regard to popular
lectures, for never yet was there a truly scientific lecturer who was
more truly popular; perhaps, indeed, there is no other single man who,
without in any degree lowering his work for the purpose, succeeded so
well in popularising scientific knowledge. These are his own words on
the subject: "As to popular lectures (which at the same time are to be
_respectable_ and _sound_) none are more difficult to find. Lectures
which _really teach_ will never be popular; lectures which are popular
will never _really teach_." His own success as a lecturer was owing
largely to the power he had of adapting himself to all minds, from the
deepest thinkers to the liveliest youth; this power gave him a "wide
range of influence, and his sympathy with the young among his listeners
imparted more life and colour to his discourses than they might
otherwise have possessed. He had the art of making philosophy charming,
and this was due in no little measure to the fact that to grey-headed
wisdom, he united wonderful juvenility of spirit."
"He was," to quote once more from Lady Pollock's recollections of the
illustrious lecturer, "completely master of the situation; he had his
audience at his command, as he had himself and all his belongings; he
had nothing to fret him, and he could give his eloquence full sway. It
was an irresistible eloquence, which compelled attention and insisted
upon sympathy. It waked the young from their visions and the old from
their dreams. There was a gleaming in his eye which no painter could
copy, and which no poet could describe.... His enthusiasm sometimes
carried him to the point of ecstasy when he expatiated on the beauty of
nature, and when he lifted the veil from her deep mysteries. His body
then took motion from his mind; his hair streamed out from his head,
his hands were full of nervous action, his light, lithe body seemed to
quiver with its eager life. His audience took fire with him, and every
face was flushed.... A pleasant vein of humour accompanied his ardent
imagination, and occasionally, not too often, relieved the tension of
thought imposed upon his pupils. He would play with his subject now and
then, but very delicately; his sport was only just enough to enliven
the effort of attention. He never suffered an experiment to allure him
away from his theme. Every touch of his hand was a true illustration
of his argument." As he once remarked in giving advice to a young
lecturer: "If I said to my audience, 'This stone will fall to the
ground if I open my hand,' I should open my hand and let it fall. Take
nothing for granted as known; inform the eye at the same time as you
address the ear."
It is of interest here--after seeing how Faraday as a lecturer
impressed others--to note some of the remarks which he made on
the subject of lectures, lecturers, and lecturing in his early
correspondence with his friend, Benjamin Abbott. Several long letters
on this matter passed between the friends, and Faraday (he was
twenty-one at the time) not only speaks in a discriminating manner with
regard to lectures, but he also treats with his native good sense of
lecture rooms, apparatus, etc. All his remarks, he says in his earliest
letter to Abbott on the subject, are the result of his own personal
observation. The most necessary quality for a lecturer, says the
youthful Faraday, is a good delivery; he then dwells upon the necessity
of illustrating a lecture with experiments wherever possible. (How well
he carried this rule into practice has been seen in an earlier part
of this chapter, where we learned of some of his Juvenile Lectures
being illustrated by upwards of eighty experiments.) "A lecturer,"
he goes on to say, "should appear easy and collected, undaunted and
unconcerned,[10] his thoughts about him, and his mind clear and free
for the contemplation and description of his subject." He then says,
and we instantly think of the "time" card he had placed before him
later, "I disapprove of long lectures; one hour is long enough for
anyone, nor should they be allowed to exceed that time."
The last of this series of letters on lectures commences in a style of
genial banter, which, as it illustrates the lighter side of Faraday's
character, merits quotation. "Dear Abbott," he writes, "As when on some
secluded branch in forest far and wide sits perched an owl, who, full
of self-conceit and self-created wisdom, explains, comments, condemns,
ordains, and orders things not understood, yet full of his importance
still holds forth to stocks and stones around--so sits and scribbles
Mike; so he declaims to walls, stones, tables, chairs, hats, books,
pens, shoes, and all the things inert that be around him, and so he
will to the end of the chapter."
This playful mood comes out, also, in one or two anecdotes which are
told of him, when his fame was established. For instance, an old lady
friend being much troubled by some rancid butter, thought that she had
hit upon a method of improving it, which she did by mixing with it a
quantity of soda, she having a somewhat high opinion of the purifying
virtues of that alkali, although, it is to be presumed, she little
suspected the uses to which it was applied in the manufactures. By this
addition of soda, she triumphantly claimed that her butter "was greatly
improved." One evening, when Professor Faraday called upon her, the old
lady produced a sample of her "improved" butter. A merry laugh rang out
from the philosopher's lips as he exclaimed, "Well done, Mrs. W., you
have improved your bad butter into very indifferent _soap_!"
Good-humoured and good-natured as Faraday habitually was, he did not
like to be worried unnecessarily over unimportant matters; and willing
as he was to place even his invaluable time at the disposal of almost
anyone who claimed his attention, he had no patience with persons who
came to him thoughtlessly, as the following story shows: A young man
called on him one morning, and with an air of great importance confided
to him the result of some original researches in electrical philosophy.
"And pray," asked the professor, taking down a volume of Ree's
_Cyclopoedia_, "did you consult this, or any elementary work, to learn
whether your discovery had been anticipated?" The young man replied in
the negative. "Then why do you come to waste my time about well-known
facts that were published forty years ago?" "Sir," said the visitor
in self-excuse, and hoping to flatter the philosopher, "I thought I
had better bring the matter to headquarters immediately." "All very
well for you, but not so well for headquarters," replied the professor
sharply, and he forthwith set his visitor to read the article in the
_Cyclopoedia_.
Yet another story is told of a grave old gentleman who once waited upon
Faraday that he might show to him "a new law of physics." The gentleman
asked for a jug of water and a tumbler; they were brought, and he then
produced a cork. "You will be pleased to observe," he then said, "how
persistently this cork clings to the side of the glass when the vessel
is half-filled."
"Just so," replied the professor.
"But now," continued the discoverer of a new law of physics, "mark what
happens when I fill the glass to the brim. There! you see the cork
flies to the centre--positively repelled by the sides!"
"Precisely so," answered Faraday in an amused tone, which showed that
the "new law" was more familiar to him than to his visitor, who,
somewhat abashed, said, "Pray, how long have you known this?" "Oh,
ever since I was a boy," was the reply; but the innate kindliness of
his nature must show itself even in such a case, for, seeing the old
gentleman's disappointed look, he added that he was not to be grieved,
he might possibly some day alight upon something really new.
The last course of Faraday's Juvenile Lectures--on "The Chemical
History of a Candle"--has been referred to once or twice. These
lectures are indeed of very great interest, not only in themselves as
chemical illustrations, but as being part of Professor Faraday's best
known works, and the only juvenile lectures of his which are obtainable
in the form of a book. The way in which he introduced his subject will
show us how simple, and yet how explicit he was in explaining to his
young audience the phenomena which he brought before them.
"I purpose," he said, to quote the beginning of the initial lecture of
the series of six, "in return for the honour you do us by coming to
see what are our proceedings here, to bring before you in the course
of these lectures, the chemical history of a candle. I have taken this
subject on a former occasion, and were it left to my own will, I should
prefer to repeat it almost every year--so abundant is the interest
that attaches itself to the subject, so wonderful are the varieties
of outlet which it offers into the various departments of philosophy.
There is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed
which does not come into play, and is touched upon in these phenomena.
There is no better, there is no more open door by which you can enter
into the study of natural philosophy, than by considering the physical
phenomena of a candle. I trust, therefore, I shall not disappoint you
in choosing this for my subject rather than any newer topic, which
could not be better, were it even so good.
"And before proceeding, let me say this also--that though our subject
be so great, and our intention that of treating it honestly, seriously,
and philosophically, yet I mean to pass away from all those who are
seniors amongst us. I claim the privilege of speaking to juveniles as
a juvenile myself. I have done so on former occasions--and, if you
please, I shall do so again. And though I stand here with the knowledge
of having the words I utter given to the world, yet that shall not
deter me from speaking in the same familiar way to those whom I esteem
nearest to me on this occasion.
"And now, my boys and girls, I must first tell you of what candles
are made. Some are great curiosities. I have here some bits of timber,
branches of trees particularly famous for their burning. And here
you see a piece of that very curious substance taken out of some of
the bogs in Ireland, called _candlewood_--a hard, strong, excellent
wood, evidently fitted for good work as a resister of force, and yet
withal burning so well that where it is found they make splinters
of it, and torches, since it burns like a candle, and gives a very
good light indeed. And in this wood we have one of the most beautiful
illustrations of the general nature of a candle that I can possibly
give. The fuel provided, the means of bringing that fuel to the place
of chemical action, the regular and gradual supply of air to that place
of action--heat and light--all produced by a little piece of wood of
this kind, forming, in fact, a natural candle.
"But we must speak of candles as they are in commerce. Here are a
couple of candles commonly called dips. They are made of lengths of
cotton cut off, hung up by a loop, dipped into melted tallow, taken
out again and cooled, then re-dipped until there is an accumulation
of tallow round the cotton. In order that you may have an idea of the
various characters of these candles, you see these which I hold in my
hand--they are very small and very curious. They are, or were, the
candles used by miners in coal mines. In olden times the miner had to
find his own candles; and it was supposed that a small candle would not
so soon set fire to the fire-damp in the coal mines as a larger one;
and for that reason, as well as for economy's sake, he made candles
of this sort--twenty, thirty, forty, or sixty to the pound. They have
been replaced since then by the steel-mill, and then by the Davy lamp,
and other safety lamps of various kinds. I have here a candle that was
taken out of the _Royal George_, it is said, by Colonel Pasley. It has
been sunk in the sea for many years, subject to the action of salt
water. It shows you how well candles may be preserved; for though it is
cracked about and broken a good deal, yet, when lighted, it goes on
burning regularly, and the tallow resumes its natural condition as soon
as it is fused."
We have not space to quote further from these delightful lectures,
which however, as I have said earlier, can be got in a little volume
by themselves. These lectures were, as indeed were most of Faraday's
lectures, beautifully illustrated with a large number of experiments.
On one occasion, when suffering much in health, Faraday yet insisted
upon taking his place at the lecture table at the Royal Institution;
for an obstruction of voice, which was indeed too painfully apparent,
he apologised, saying that "in an engagement where the contracting
parties were one and many, the one ought not on any slight ground to
break his part of the engagement with the many, and therefore, if the
audience would excuse his imperfect utterance he would proceed." The
audience murmured, and there were cries of "Put off the lecture;" but
Faraday begged to be allowed to go on. A medical man rose and said it
would in his opinion be dangerous for the Professor to proceed. Faraday
still urged his desire to go on with the lecture; he could not give
people all the trouble of coming there, having perhaps put off other
engagements, for nothing. On this, as by a single impulse, the whole
audience rose, and Faraday yielded to the generally expressed desire to
spare him the pain and inconvenience of lecturing. After a fortnight's
rest he reappeared, and continued the broken course, carrying it on
later that his audience should not lose any of the eight lectures
which they had anticipated. It was on a reappearance such as this
after illness that "as soon as his presence was recognised, the whole
audience rose simultaneously, and burst into a spontaneous utterance of
welcome, loud and long."
FOOTNOTE:
[10] It is interesting here to see what Tyndall says, referring to
Faraday as a lecturer: "I doubt his unconcern, but his fearlessness was
often manifested. It used to rise within him as a wave, which carried
both him and his audience along with it. On rare occasions also, when
he felt himself and his subject hopelessly unintelligible, he suddenly
evoked a certain recklessness of thought; and without halting to
extricate his bewildered followers, he would dash alone through the
jungle into which he had unwittingly led them; thus saving them from
ennui by the exhibition of a vigour which, for the time being, they
could neither share nor comprehend."
[Illustration]