Abstract
THE popular science lectures at the Victoria Hall have proved quite sufficiently successful, so far, to make the managers wish to continue them, provided that the kindness of competent lecturers makes it possible to do so. There have been audiences each night of ab ut 600—small compared with what the building will hold, but not amiss for a Friday night, in a neighbourhood where (except on Saturdays) people think twice before spending a penny. Those who have been present, agree in describing the audience as a peculiar one, for whom greater simplicity is needed than for the audiences of mechanics' institutes, and the frequenters of penny science lectures in general. They are quite ready to attend and to be interested, and do not think an hour too long, provided the ball is kept constantly moving, but as to this they are very exacting, and any breakdown of the apparatus, however temporary, places the success of the lecture in serious danger. There are stamps and whistles of impatience at any pause, such as must occur in adjusting experiments, but these cease the moment the lecture proper proceeds. This impatience perhaps makes the sustained interest of a lantern more suited to the audience than the more varied but intermittent experiments.
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ONE OF THE COMMITTEE The Victoria Hall Science Lectures. Nature 26, 626 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026626b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026626b0
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