Faraday to Percy Drummond   29 June 1829

Royal Institution | June 29th 1829

Sir

In reply to your letter of the 26th and as a result of our conversation on Saturday I beg to state that I should be happy to undertake the duty of Lecturing on Chemistry to the Gentlemen Cadets of Woolwich provided that the time I should have to take for that purpose from Professional business at home were remunerated by the Salary.

But on this point I hardly know what to say in answer to your enquiry because of my ignorance of the conveniences & assistance I should find at Woolwich. For the lectures which I deliver in this Institution where I have the advantage of being upon the spot; of possessing a perfect laboratory with an assistant in constant occupation¹; and of having the command of an Instrument maker² & his men; I receive, independent of my salary as an officer of the establishment, £ 8.15.0 per lecture. The only Lectures I have given out of this house were a course at the London Institution for which, with the same conveniences as to laboratory and assistance I was paid at the same rate. Since then I have constantly declined lecturing out of the Royal Institution because of my engagements.

I explained to you on Saturday the difficulty of compressing the subject of Chemistry into a course of 20 lectures only and yet to make it clear, complete, and practically useful; and without I thought I could do this I should not be inclined to undertake the charge you propose to me. Now twenty lectures at the terms I have in this house amount to £ 175 per annum and therefore I should not be inclined to accept any offer under that; the more especially as, if I found that the times and hours of the students allowed it I should probably extend the course by a lecture or two or more that I might do the subject greater justice.

Notwithstanding what I have said I still feel the difficulty of estimating labour the extent of which I am ignorant of. Were the lectures of that class which do not require to be accompanied by experiment or were the necessary experiments and illustrations of such a nature that (as in mechanics) the preparations once made are complete and ready when wanted for future courses I should not feel the difficulty. But in many parts of chemistry and especially in the chemistry of the gases, the substances under consideration cannot be preserved from one course to another but have to be formed at the time and hence if the illustrations are to be clear and numerous a degree of preparatory labour which has to be repeated on every occasion[.]

For these reasons I wish you would originate the terms rather than I. If you could make the offer of £ 200 a year I would undertake them and then supposing I found more work than I expected I should not have to blame myself for stating an undervalue for my own exertions. I have no thought that the sum would overpay because from my experience for some years in a chemical school founded in the Laboratory of the Royal Institution I have no doubt that the proportion of instruction to the students would expand rather than contract.

Allow me before I close this letter to thank you and the other gentlemen who may be concerned in this appointment for the good opinion which has induced you to propose it to me. I consider the offer as a high honor and beg you to feel assured of my sense of it. I should have been glad to have accepted or declined it independent of pecuniary motives but my time is my only estate and that which would be occupied in the duty of the situation must be taken from what otherwise would be given to professional business.

I am Sir | Your Most Obedient Servant | M. Faraday

Coll. Drummond | &c &c &c