Lectures to Ladies

Abstract

No one can appreciate more heartily than I do the excellent article on “Lectures to Ladies” which appeared in NATURE No. II.; but I feel far from sanguine of success attending the efforts there referred to. If we put aside the impulse of dilettantism and the spirit of rivalry as against men, there will, let us hope, be left a very fair residue in the shape of love of learning, for learning's sake, as a reason for attendance; and it is only this pure love of learning which can make such lectures in the long run successful. It cannot, however, be such a love which brings to the lectures of the University College Professors, Lady Barbara, who sneers aloud when the lecturer wisely lays a sure foundation of elementary facts and ideas; or which carries to South Kensington the Hon. Miss Henrietta, who tosses her head when she finds the great Mr. Huxley paddling about in that common river the Thames, and treating his audience as if they were little girls at the Finsbury Institution.