Faraday to Percy Drummond   11 January 1836

Royal Institution | 11 Jany 1836

Sir

I find it difficult to reply to your enquiry. To examine compare and class the notebooks of 70 or 80 persons so as to make a faithful distinction would require more time for each Lecture than the delivery & preparation of the Lecture itself and time is every thing with me1. But if the object be to select the three or four who by their note books or otherwise are most worthy that might be done much more easily and quickly[.]

I am unaware whether the mode of determining the point is prescribed by any general regulation. If not we could probably devise by personal communication the most useful and quickest mode of ascertaining it. I will therefore make my way to Woolwich either on Thursday or Friday morning2 if either will suit you and should be obliged to you for a note mentioning which you would prefer[.]

I am Sir | Your Obedient Servant | M. Faraday

Coll. Drummond | Lieut Governor | Royal Military Academy

1
See Anon (1851), 142 for the proposal of 22 October 1835, made as part of a general enquiry into the Royal Military Academy, that the chemical notebooks taken by the cadets should be graded by the Professor of Chemistry, that is Faraday. When the regulations were issued on 25 February 1836, Faraday was "required to examine the notebooks", ibid., 142.
2
That is 14 or 15 January 1836. He probably went on 14 January, since on 15 January he was occupied with experiments on the "Faraday cage". Faraday, Diary, 15 January 1836, 2: 2808-59. For a discussion of the significance of the cage see Gooding (1985), 124-31.

Please cite as “Faraday0873,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0873