Punch,  35 (1858), 139.

Teachers and Praters

Anon

Genre:

News-Commentary

Subjects:

Lecturing, Progress, Natural Theology, Expertise, Science Communication, Charlatanry


    Criticises a speech by Richard Owen at the Leeds meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for being too long, but then praises it for conveying knowledge and suggesting new ideas, rather than being boring and platitudinous like most speeches. Extracts from the speech a section in which Owen describes the ability of men to approach divine wisdom by discerning 'in a series of conditions, their co-ordination to produce a given result'. Explains Owen's erudition as the result of an 'habitual (and wonderfully successful) search after natural truth' and contrasts his speech to the 'customary gabble about "sanitary improvement", "educational progress", and "elasticity of the revenue"'. A version of Owen's address was published as Owen 1859.



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