From Thomas Archer Hirst   April 23rd 1854

Queenwood College | April 23^rd 1854

My dear John

I have just read your lecture¹ which arrived this morning and as I shall never have a better opportunity I will try to say a word about it. As I expected it contains many excellent remarks which I am glad to think will be listened to by your fashionable audience. There is much high-toned thought in it and it possesses that rare property of being simple in its adherence to facts and in its interpretation of them without being hampered by insisting too much on crotchets of minor importance. I like the way you commence exceedingly well, that distinction between a means and a branch far from being trivial is of vast importance in my opinion and deserves to be dwelt upon even more than you have done. You perhaps might improve upon the manner of illustrating the subject by means of the two images of a stomach and a seed and I would do so by expanding your remarks on the subject It appears to me that the objectors to science and scientific enquiry are misled often by considering it as a branch instead of a means of education. Regarding the mind as a store-house or vessel for containing knowledge they naturally wish to seek materials of the best quality and thus they presume to judge the comparative value of different kinds of knowledge and in thus judging they often embarrass themselves with crude notions of utility and so forth. John Haas will hold that a knowledge of atmospheric pressure is of no use to him, he performed the experiment of respiration and inspiration just as well before he knew how it was effected. That he sucked milk from his mothers breast and got fat upon it without knowing either how it flowed into his mouth or what was its chemical constitution. But if we take the higher position and regard the development of the seed as the primary object of education then all facts fall into their proper places and the different branches of knowledge take rank according to the amount of nutriment they are capable of furnishing to this precious seedling. It would be well worth the trouble to expand this first portion of your lecture if by so doing you could induce your hearers to regard the subject of Physics from this point of view in fact they ought never to lose sight of this object of education throughout the whole lecture, for then what you have said about Physics in the latter portion, and you have said it well, will be seen in the best light the whole lecture would appear well knit together and instead of being rather fragmentary as some might at first deem it, it would be found to be all to the point and all illustrative of its subject the Importance of Physics as a branch of education. Then the word branch itself would have a new and higher meaning. The study of Physics tends to develop the mind in a certain direction. As you have very well expressed it it teaches man to traverse with safety that line between cause and effect. Your remarks on the moral tendencies of Physical investigations are very good Here again I am glad that your audience will hear what you have to say on this point. The petty jealousies of scientific men are very distressing indeed and many will listen to you who might profit by what you have here said for it is just what wanted saying It is true that it is not so immediately connected with your subject as other parts of the lecture otherwise I should ask you to expand this part too. But I want to send you the extract from my journal² which you asked for so I will conclude my letter.

Yours affectionately | T.A. Hirst.

N.B. Please return M^r Pilkington’s³ letter.⁴

Pilkington⁵ stammers distressingly and this impeded his progress very much for, teaching his class on the simultaneous principle,⁶ I often passed him by knowing that I could not get an intelligible answer to any question I might ask him, indeed had it not been for his eloquent eyes which often said ‘I know it Sir if I could but speak’ I might have mistaken him for a dunce and thus have done him great injustice. What with his love of mischief, however, and his inability to cope with his schoolfellows, owing to his unfortunate stutter, it was evident that he was losing interest in his work, or rather that he had never felt much interest in it, and it became necessary to try and awaken it in him. One day after he had been more noisy and mischievous than usual, and had been made to stand out of his seat, I walked up to him at the end of the hour and told him to get permission to go with me next hour instead of to M^r Wright. On his return I told him rather sternly to get his cap and follow me. He did so and I walked on towards the lodge⁷ he at my heels in a state of anxious suspense. After some moments silence I asked ‘Do you know what I am about to do with you Pilkington?’. ‘Ne – ne – ne…no Sir’ he stuttered ‘Well’ I replied ‘I will tell you. You will not work with me, I have spoken often enough to you and now I am about to make you do better for the future’ He began to stutter again, no doubt it would have been an excuse or a prayer for mercy if I had turned to look at his eyes, but I would not, and I stopped his stuttering with a stern ‘follow me Sir’. Without speaking a word we walked past the lodge, through the gates and up the road to the Avenue his anxiety increasing every step. At length, putting my arm quietly round his neck I broke silence ‘Can you tell me what an angle is my boy?’ ‘Ye – ye – ye – yes Sir an angle’s a – a – a – a’ he could get no further and turned his eyes up to me imploringly, as much as to say ‘Don’t be cross Sir, I’m sure I know it but I cannot tell you’

‘Well’, I replied to his silent appeal, ‘go and pull two long grass stalks and shew me what an angle is.’ This he did and with the grass stalks he continued to answer my questions about the geometrical definitions. Thus continuing our subject we turned into a stubble field ‘What is a right angled triangle?’ I asked. By this time he had lost all fear and spoke often quite distinctly ‘It has all its angles right angles Sir’ ‘Indeed’ I replied taking my arm from about his neck ‘it has three right angles has it? Will you kneel down a few minutes’ He saw he was wrong, stuttered ‘two’, looked at me pitifully, and hesitated. Again I cried ‘go on your knees Sir’ which he did, and then dropping on my knees too I said ‘now boy pull up some stubble and make me a triangle with either two or three right angles’ He began doing so, at once saw his error, and the absurdity of our situation as we knelt together there making geometrical figures of stubble, and springing to his feet he shook with laughter and cried ‘It has only one right angle Sir, only one of course.’ I replied ‘of course’ too and with my arm round his neck we turned homewards and continued our lesson successfully. ‘This is the punishment I had in store for you’ I said as we reached home, ‘now go and transgress no more’ to which his eyes answered ‘I will Sir’.

(Extract from my journal of Oct 7^th 1853)⁸

We had several such walks afterwards and I have since found that although he has forgotten much that he learnt in school with other boys, he has never forgotten what we learnt together in that stubble field.

T.A.H. April 23^rd / 54

RI MS JT/1/H/197

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/334–335