Michael Faraday, His Life and Work

by Silvanus P. Thompson

If at a loss for a word, not to ch-ch-ch or eh-eh-eh, but to stop and wait for it. It soon comes, and the bad habits are broken and fluency soon acquired.

Never doubt a correction given to me by another.

His niece, Miss Reid, who lived from 1830 to 1840 at the Institution with the Faradays, gave the following amongst her recollections:—

Mr. Magrath used to come regularly to the morning lectures, for the sole purpose of noting down for him any faults of delivery or defective pronunciation that could be detected. The list was always received with thanks; although his corrections were not uniformly adopted, he was encouraged to continue his remarks with perfect freedom. In early days he always lectured with a card before him with Slow written upon it in distinct characters. Sometimes he would overlook it and become too rapid; in this case, Anderson had orders to place the card before him. Sometimes he had the word Time on a card brought forward when the hour was nearly expired.

AS LECTURER.

In spite of his recourse to aids in acquiring elocutionary excellence, his own style remained simple and unspoiled. “His manner,” says Bence Jones, “was so natural, that the thought of any art in his lecturing never occurred to anyone. For his Friday discourses, and for his other set lectures in the theatre, he always made ample preparation beforehand. His matter was always over-abundant. And, if his experiments were always successful, this was not solely attributable to his exceeding skill of hand. For, unrivalled as he was as a manipulator, in the cases in which he attempted to show complicated or difficult experiments, that which was to be shown was always well rehearsed beforehand in the laboratory. He was exceedingly particular about small and simple illustrations. He never merely told his hearers about an experiment, but showed it to them, however simple and well known it might be. To a young lecturer he once remarked: ‘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.’ He always endeavoured at the outset to put himself en rapport with his audience by introducing his subject on its most familiar side, and then leading on to that which was less familiar. Before the audience became aware of any transition, they were already assimilating new facts which were thus brought within their range. Nor did he stay his discourse upon the enunciation of facts merely. Almost invariably, as his allotted hour drew towards its close, he gave rein to his imagination. Those who had begun with him on the lower plane of simple facts and their correlations were bidden to consider the wider bearings of scientific principles and their relations to philosophy, to life, or to ethics. While he never forced a peroration, nor dragged in a quotation from the poets, his own scientific inspiration, as he outlined some wide-sweeping speculation or suggestion for future discoveries, amply supplied the fitting finale. If the rush of his ideas might sometimes be compared to tearing through a jungle, it at least never degenerated into sermonising; and never, save when he was physically ill, failed to arouse an enthusiastic glow of response in his hearers. ‘No attentive listener,’ says Mrs. Crosse, ‘ever came away from one of Faraday’s lectures without having the limits of his spiritual vision enlarged, or without feeling that his imagination had been stimulated to something beyond the mere expression of physical facts.’”

He was not one who let himself dwell in illusions. When he did well he was perfectly conscious of the fact, and enjoyed a modest satisfaction. If he had failed of his best, he was conscious too of that. His deliberate act in giving up all other lectures at the time when his brain-troubles were gaining upon him, while retaining the Christmas lectures to juveniles, was thoroughly characteristic. Of one of his earlier courses of lectures he himself made—about 1832—the following note:—

The eight lectures on the operations of the laboratory at the Royal Institution, April, 1828, were not to my mind. There does not appear to be that opportunity of fixing the attention of the audience by a single clear, consistent, and connected chain of reasoning which occurs when a principle (sic) or one particular application is made.... I do not think the operations of the laboratory can be rendered useful and popular in lectures....

The matter of these same lectures was, however, the basis of his book on Chemical Manipulation published in 1827. It went through three editions, and was reprinted in America. But in 1838 he declined to let a new edition be issued, as he considered the work out of date.

Besides the note quoted above from the Faraday MS. occurs the following:—