LOCAL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 173
number of interests, and whose members are to a considerable
extent persons without scientific training. Indeed, nothing can
be better or more useful for the scientific specialist himself than
to attempt to explain his own work in simple language to a
mixed audience ; and if the Local Societies can encourage the
specialist to come to them and describe his own researches in
language which all their members can understand they will do
him as much good as they do themselves.
It may justly be urged that there are not many persons able
to describe scientific observations or experiments in simple,
untechnical language ; they are not trained teachers or lecturers.
But surely that is all the more reason why they should try to do
so ; and the Local Society is precisely the place in which the
attempt may with advantage be made. It would perhaps be a
different problem if the communication were a set lecture of the
sort given at schools and universities by professed teachers. For
lectures of this kind educational training and experience are no
doubt necessary. Perhaps, indeed, there is already too much
of the set lecture about the meetings of some Local Societies.
But when a speaker is describing something which he has done
or seen himself, it ought with a little practice to be easy to give
an account that can be understood by a mixed audience as
well as by those who are engaged in the same work as the speaker.
I believe that the attempt is well worth the making.
The educational opportunities which lie before the local
scientific societies can only be developed by co-operation between
the professional and the amateur ; let the professional scientist
become less professional and let the amateur become less of an
amateur when they come together at the meetings of such
societies. The difficulties with which they have to contend are
twofold : on the one hand, there is always the danger lest a
paper or a lecture be too special or too technical for the audience
because the professional cannot adapt himself to their need ; on
the other hand, there is the danger lest the audience fall into the
habit of expecting too much novelty or entertainment. Every-
one must have seen how the utility of a society is undermined
by a single pedantic address, which only causes members to drop
their attendance, or by the reluctance of some members to
attend unless they can expect to be amused by lantern-slides or
showy experiments or witty talk. And yet where can better
material exist for the teaching of science than among the
members of a society who have joined it voluntarily, and in the
first instance because they really wished to learn ?
My suggestion is that the way to interest and to teach such
people is through the description, discussion, and criticism of
new research.
An account of some piece of original work actually in course
of progress, and described by the enthusiast who is himself