The Easter lectures were soon abandoned; but from the date here referred to to the present time the Christmas lectures have been a marked feature of the Royal Institution.
In 1871 it fell to my lot to give one of these courses. I had been frequently invited to write on Glaciers in encyclopædias, journals, and magazines, but had always declined to do so. I had also abstained from making them the subject of a course of lectures, wishing to take no advantage of my position here, and indeed to avoid writing a line or uttering a sentence on the subject for which I could not be held personally responsible. In view of the discussions which the subject had provoked, I thought this the fairest course.
But, in 1871, the time (I imagined) had come when, without risk of offence, I might tell our young people something about the labours of those who had unravelled for their instruction the various problems of the ice-world. My lamented friend and ever-helpful counsellor, Dr. Bence Jones, thought the subject a good one, and accordingly it was chosen. Strong in my sympathy with youth, and remembering the damage done by defective exposition to my own young mind, I sought, to the best of my ability, to confer upon these lectures clearness, thoroughness, and life.
Wishing, moreover, to render them of permanent value, I wrote out copious Notes of the course, and had them distributed among the boys and girls. In preparing these Notes I aimed at nothing less than presenting to my youthful audience, in a concentrated but perfectly digestible form, every essential point embraced in the literature of the glaciers, and some things in addition, which, derived as they were from my own recent researches, no book previously published on the subject contained.
But my theory of education agrees with that of Emerson, according to which instruction is only half the battle, what he calls provocation being the other half. By this he means that power of the teacher, through the force of his character and the vitality of his thought, to bring out all the latent strength of his pupil, and to invest with interest even the driest matters of detail. In the present instance I was determined to shirk nothing essential, however dry; and, to keep my mind alive to the requirements of my pupil, I proposed a series of ideal ramblings, in which he should be always at my side. Oddly enough, though I was here dealing with what might be called the abstract idea of a boy, I realised his presence so fully as to entertain for him, before our excursions ended, an affection consciously warm and real.
The "Notes" here referred to were at first intended for the use of my audience alone. At the urgent request of a friend I slightly expanded them, and converted them into the little book here presented to the reader.
The amount of attention bestowed upon the volume induces me to give this brief history of its origin.
A German critic, whom I have no reason to regard as specially favourable to me or it, makes the following remark on the style of the book: "This passion [for the mountains] tempts him frequently to reveal more of his Alpine wanderings than is necessary for his demonstrations. The reader, however, will not find this a disagreeable interruption of the course of thought; for the book thereby gains wonderfully in vividness." This, I would say, was the express aim of the breaks referred to. I desired to keep my companion fresh as well as instructed, and these interruptions were so many breathing-places where the intellectual tension was purposely relaxed and the mind of the pupil braced to fresh action.
Of other criticisms, flattering and otherwise, I forbear to speak. As regards some of them, indeed, it would be a reproach to that manliness which I have sought to encourage in my pupil to return blow for blow. If the reader be acquainted with them, this will let him know how I regard them; and if he be not acquainted with them, I would recommend him to ignore them, and to form his own judgment of this book. No fair-minded person who reads it will dream that I, in writing it, had a thought of acting otherwise than justly and generously towards my predecessors, the last of whom, to the grief of all who knew him, has recently passed away.
John Tyndall.