Department of Science and Art, | South Kensington, London, S.W. | 7 day of Jany 1857
My dear Tyndall
Very many thanks for your letter1 & its suggestions—which shall be acted upon when the List2 becomes a National one—at present it is merely a Local one for which a Local Committee is responsible. Your doubtful books shall be struck out. You have somewhat misunderstood the general aspect of the Experiment. I quite agree with you that popular lectures produce little result. You know Ireland for very many years has had popular Lectures delivered at the Expense of the State in provincial towns.3 The Royal Society was pressing thro’ the Parliamentary Committee4 for a similar grant for the same purpose in England—Doubting very much the utility of such an Expenditure, without testing its results I established in Ireland a system of Examination after the popular lectures Expecting that the results would prove next to nothing & that an argument would be provided against a system which I thought unwise. But I am glad to say that the Experience of 15 Courses, attended by these Examinations, makes me doubtful whether I was right in my opinion. The Examinations have forced the pupils to read & study & the answering has been surprisingly good.
But the question in its general national aspect has nothing to do with Lectures. It is this—The State wishes a certain knowledge in Science; it is willing to pay for this. The knowledge may be had in the School, College, or garret,5 by books, oral demonstration, or Experiment—in any way—if its attainment is effected, we will pay for it.
In its broad Catholicity it is this—
If Queenwood6 or the Royal Institution or a National School at Battersea,7 or an Artisan at Poplar8 produces a certain knowledge of Science in its pupils, we will pay those pupils for proving that they have this knowledge & we will go further & pay the Teacher so much for Every pupil whom he has sent up with the required standard of knowledge.
It is the result which we wish to be attained. How this result is to be attained would be left to private enterprise.
This is the idea which we are trying only Experimentally to find out its weak & strong points & I shall only be too glad to hear them pointed out by good thinkers & Earnest Educationalists like yourself.9
Yours very Sin[cere]ly | Lyon Playfair
Dr. Tyndall | Royal Institution
RI MS JT/1/P/115
RI MS JT/1/TYP/3/982–3
your letter: letter missing.
the List: not identified.
popular Lectures delivered at the Expense of the State in provincial towns: see E. Leaney, ‘Missionaries of Science: Provincial Lectures in Nineteenth-Century Ireland’, Irish Historical Studies, 34 (2005), pp. 266–88.
Parliamentary Committee: the Parliamentary Committee of the BAAS. While President of the RS Lord Wrottesley also served as Chairman of the BAAS Parliamentary Committee and presented a report on the government’s role in improving science in Britain. The report recommended that the government support affordable scientific lectures that would be followed by examinations. See: ‘Report of the Parliamentary Committee’, Brit. Assoc. Rep. 1855, pp. xlvii–lxiii. See also, ‘Obituary Notices of Fellows Deceased’, Roy. Soc. Proc., 16 (1867–8), pp. lxiii-lxiv.
garret: a room on the uppermost floor of a house; an apartment formed either partially or wholly within the roof, an attic (OED).
Queenwood: see letter 1298, n. 13.
a National School at Battersea: National schools were founded during the nineteenth century in England and Wales by the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor with the goal of providing elementary education to the children of the poor. There were a number of National Schools established in the industrial neighborhood of Battersea in South West London including St. John's, Christ Church, and St. Mary's.
an Artisan at Poplar: Poplar is a neighborhood in East London where the East and West India Docks were located.
Earnest Educationalists like yourself: for Tyndall’s contributions in science education beginning as an examiner in 1853 in the government Department of Science and Arts under the supervision of Playfair, see N. D. McMillan, Ireland and the Reform of the Politics and Government of British Science and Education’, in N. D. McMillan, J. Cooke, and D. D. G. McMillan (eds), Prometheus’s Fire: A History of Scientific and Technological Education in Ireland (Carlow: Tyndall Publications, 2000), pp.481–525.
Please cite as “Tyndall1314,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on