THE ATHENÆUM LECTURES.

Southland Times, Issue 1826, 2 December 1873, Page 3

THE ATHENÆUM LECTURES.

(to the editor of the timts.) Sttc, — An nnnnvinous letter appear' 1 lin your paper o<\ the 17t!i of last month, deploring the apathy of the pu'^lio, and members of the Ather.aj;m. in not comini to hour tlv l-'ct urps about " Divms and G- osts»," which title reminds one of the Hibernian song — "I dream' ' hut nisrht of his ghost nil in while — Oh mother, he's going away ! ' — while the writer proposes no remedy to make the lectures more attractive, but bewails in I obtuse and verbose language, by throwing a lot I of synonymous words together, in eypres*iiiii the most common-place generalities, which, after all the trouble of setting and replacing the type, amount to nothin.'. The artist who can mend a fault is worth fi r ty noviivs who cun do nothing but find fault. In the first p!:i 'c, to save expense, the use of a room, town hall. &c, should be obtained gratuitously, or at a minimum charge, till the Athenaeum has one of its own. The price of admission should be about one li'ilf that of the Theatre, and it mi!?ht be raised when a special lecturer came with a dignified nam It is customary to catechise n legislative candidate as to his knowledge of the science of political economy, while he invites the whole of the audi- ' ence to interrogate him. Now, in order to draw a crowded house, every man coming forward to give a lecture shoul 1 be asked questions in a similar manner on general knowledge, say geography, astromony, natural philosophy, natural history, history (ancient and modern, of different countries), biography, mineralogy, anatomy, music, &c, and only such questions should be asked as are to be found in school c.i tech isms, or it may be arranged that no one is to ask questions on a subject with which he is unacquainted, and if the lecturer refuses to answer, the quos tioner tv give the audience the in r ormation ; no question requiring mental calculation to be asked, in order not to delay an impatient and listening audience, only those that are laid down by established rules, data, and phenomena, such as the wonders of creation, the natural physical structure of the face of the earth, the wonderful structures erected by the art of man, ancient and modern, the wonderful structures by the irstinct of animated nature, the recent discoveries of geology, and of the knowledge of the planetary system of the universe,c rse, their size, distances, revolutions, &c. If this entertainment and edincition was conducted properly, it would give the indifferent part of the public a thirst for knowledge, for some are not aware of half the wonders that this world contains. In the Olympic games, held on the plains of Elis, in Greece, prizes wore Riven for the best theatrical reciter, the one who could answer the most difficult questions and riddles, as well as to those who excelled in athletic exploits ; and it is recorded that the lives of some of the Athenian prisoners, taken in war at the invasion of Syracuse (B.C. 413), were spared through being a'-le to recite the tragic poetry of Euripides, and when they returned home they hailed the poet as their deliverer ; while those who could not were put to death. I am therefore constrained to say that at this enlightened period of the world's history, it is a disgrace to a man up in years who cannot recite some epic or sentimental j poem, or prose production, of some poet of his native country. The annual games now practised in the colonies, called "Caledonian," are faulty in this particular, not including the intellectual portion of the original Olympian, practised a thousand years before the Christian era. I hope the directors will include and arrange this in their next schedule of prizes — "The best lecturer on general knowledge, to occupy one hour in delivery ; the one who can best answer the most questions on the same extensile subject put to him by the audience ; the best poc-tic reciter ; the best singer ; the best relater of anecdotes." The questions to be all mental jinrl spontaneous ; all written questions to be forbMden. This part of the entertainment to be held in some spacious hall or room. The Atherafcum lecturer should keep in mind that the tastes and inclinations of a heterogeneous public are as diversified as the colors and shapes of the Aurora borealis, and consequently instruction should be blended with amu«em 'nt to gratify these tsstes and inclinations. The knowledge obtained from school-books on geogranhy, histoiy, astronomy, &0., should never ba erased from the mind, and it shows a depravity of intellect when ir is forgotten in years of manhood. For a man not to know what happened in the world before he was born, or since he has been in it, is like living in it with a similar mind to a quadruped — an ex or an ass. It is not what a man reads that makes him wise, but what he can remember. I must postpone further remarks on this subject until another occasion. — Yours, &c , James Hana.s.