OBJECT LESSONS SENSORY SCIENCE EDUCATION 1830-1870 MELANIE JUDITH KEENE DARWIN COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE THIS DISSERTATION IS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SEPTEMBER 2008 OBJECT LESSONS: SENSORY SCIENCE EDUCATION, 1830-1870 Melanie Judith Keene, Depal1tJ1ellt of His/ofJ ' and Philosop!?)' of Science The Victorian nursery was filled with the potential for scientific lessons. From the bookshelves, children could listen to fairy-tales of wondrous forces and minuscule creatures; from the toy-chest, they could play with hoops and tops that demonstrated the laws of motion; at the table, they could taste and smell the chemical constituents of a cup of tea; in the garden, they could pick up a pebble and envision long-vanished lands. Through practical interactions with the objects of domestic life, imaginative stories of the wonders of nature were revealed, scientific knowledge was communicated, mental modes of rational reasoning were enhanced, and bodily skills were entrained. Thls dissertation analyses how such lessons on common things provided sensory introductions to the sciences in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. The 'object lesson', I argue, was a crucial genre of elementary educational practice and literary representation in this period. It emphasised that children acquired knowledge directly through sensory impressions, and advocated conversation and play as effective means of developing structured skills of attention, logical reasoning, and expanded vocabularies; hence, practical scientific subjects were particularly appropriate for this style of teaching. I begin with visual education, analysing how children were trained to open their eyes in the 'art of seeing' the geological past; wondrous tales of forces and fairies that fired childish imaginations to rethink the commonplace objects of the world form the focus of chapter two; hands-on domestic activities appear in the third chapter, which explores household chemistry via tasting tea and smelling soap; the fourth chapter considers speech and the voices of nature through first-person narratives from trees and salt and fossils; and finally, in chapter five we will learn about the astronomical meanings artefacts could hold when held and manipulated, as boys and girls played among the stars. Mirroring tllis diverse array of topics, the dissertation deals with a rich collection of historic material, which spans the spectrum of Victorian childhood experience and complicates abrupt distinctions between instructional and amusing texts and pastimes: my sources include didactic tracts and manuals, gift-books and periodicals, pocket globes and chemistry sets, caricatures and terrible puns, novels and fairy-tales, foodstuffs and beverages, songs and board games. These often fanciful, occasionally funny, usually fact-ridden expositions articulated the process of how to gain knowledge from singular, concrete, common things. Thus, they can teach us how to interrogate Victorian artefacts ourselves, with a similar sensitivity to their histories, materiality, and hidden wonders, glimpsed under their surfaces. Moreover, through their overt emphasis on the science of common things these lessons were simultaneously revelations of and arguments for the interpenetration of scientific and everyday life: the objects of the home were scientific, and men of science were domestic experts. This identification between the specialist and the quotidian supports an argument for 'familiar science' as a helpful analytic category when studying this period. Emphasising both the family context and the exploitation of already-known ideas and already-owned artefacts, as well as a particular mode of writing - that of the 'familiar introduction' - I reflect on how such a term can solve some of the acknowledged problems associated with labels such as 'popular' or 'commercial' science at this time. 3 This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collalioration, except where specifically indicated in the text. Furthermore, it does not exceed the stated word limit of 80,000 words, including notes of reference but excluding the bibliography. NIe/al1te Keelle 29th September 2008 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Department of History and Philosophy of Science has provided a marvellously active and supportive place in ,which to write and research this dissertation. Its academic and administrative staff, its students, and coffee room, the Whipple Libraty and Museum - and extramural 'extensions the Eagle pub and Trockel cafe - have contributed in more ways than they know to the success of this thesis. NIy fIrst thanks therefore go to Tamara Hug, Steve Kruse and David Thompson in the offIce, Tim Eggington and Dawn Moutrey in the library, and Liba Taub and the museum staff; and in particular, to the late Peter Lipton for being the most wonderful head of department. I would also like to thank the staff and Fellows of Darwin College, and the staff of the University Library, particularly Jill Whitelock and the Rare Books Room, and of the British Library. The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, awarded me an internship in the summer of 2006, and sincere thanks go to Gloria Clifton, Richard Dunn and Emily Winterburn for all their help whilst I was at the Royal Observatory. Adrian Whicher tracked down chemical cabinets at the Science Museum - even the radioactive ones; Catherine Howell at the V&A Museum of Childhood kindly sent a copy of a rule-book. The Arts and Humanities Research Council provided the funding that enabled my doctoral research. For stimulating conversations, incidental thought-provoking comments and questions, alerts to particular references, and overall encouragement, many thanks to: my friends and fellow members of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, past and present, especially Salim al-Gailani, Geoff Belknap, Paul Dicken, David Feller, Steve John, Jill Howard, Natalie Kaoukji, Lisa Mullins, Sadiah Qureshi, Nicky Reeves, Jenny Rampling, Francis Reid, Leon Rocha, Liz Smith, Katie Taylor, Nick Tosh, and Lydia Wilson; attendees of the Science and Literature Reading Group over the past four years, including Liliane Campos, Jim Endersby, Daniel Friesner, Adrian Kent, Kirsten Sheppard-Barr, Rebecca Stott, Kelley Swain and, especially, Katy Price; Ludmilla J ordanova and the members of the CRASSH Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Seminar in 2005-06; the friendship and multifaceted scholarship of Victorianists Victoria Blake, Adelene Buckland, Verity Hunt, Kate Nichols, and Charlotte Nicklas; members of the wider history of science community, including Geoffrey Cantor, Thomas Dixon, Gowan Dawson, Diarmid Finnegan, Aileen Fyfe, Graeme Gooday, J eff Hughes, Nick Jardine, Bernie Lightman, Michal Meyer, Richard Noakes, Anne Secord, Jonathan Topham, Paul White, and Shana Worthen. In 5 particular, the BSHS Strolling Players - Terence Banks, Mike Brown, Sabine Clarke, Miguel Garcia-Sanchez, Tom Lean, James Sumner, and Leucha Veneer, and honorary member James Elsdon-Baker - have provided dramatic relief, and a series of entertaining yet intellectual get-togethers. Fern Elsdon-Baker has been an amazing source of advice and support in recent months. A wide variety of seminar audiences have asked thought-provoking questiops, and provided very useful feedback, particularly Karin Lesnik-Oberstein and the CIRCL group at the University of Reading, and Steve French and the HPS Departmental Seminar at the University of Leeds; as well as those who heard me speak at BSHS, HSS, BSLS, and BA VS conferences, amongst others. I thank my colleagues on the BSHS Outreach and Education Committee, as well as the BA History of Science Section, for opportunities to use insights from the history of science education in outreach projects today. I am especially grateful to Ralph O'Connor for reading and commenting on drafts of these chapters, and for many inspiring conversations over the past four years. And also to Simon Schaffer, for providing constructive critiques at crucial junctures, and fInding ways of phrasing ideas that haunt my writing. On a personal level, many thanks to Nick Cook for his teasing yet affectionate commentaries on my work and tolerating my propensity to see object lessons everywhere; and to my brothers for continually asking 'aren't you fInished yet?' I especially thank my parents for their unconditional emotional and fInancial support, and for always unreservedly encouraging me to pursue whatever I wanted to do. Most of all, this dissertation is deeply indebted to Jim Secord. To his work on the readership for science in Victorian Britain, on children's literature, conversation, caricatures, and antediluvian monsters; but more importantly, to his unstinting supervision, generous advice, and all-round encouragement. I have been incredibly lucky to have him as my supervisor. Ever since he encouraged me to apply for a PhD place, over the cup of tea that would play a central role in my analysis, he has been my biggest supporter, and has had utter faith in the overall project. I am grateful for his never-ending supplies of entlmsiasm about mid-nineteenth-century Britain, for his meticulous critiques, even on work handed in quite literally at the last minute, for his entertaining use of extended metaphors, which often escape to take on a life of their own, and for his shared joy in dreadful 1830s puns. This work exists largely because of him. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Summary Statement of Length Aclmowledgements Table of Contents List of Figures Introduction - Objects What is an object lesson? Lessons Objects Structure of thesis 1- The art of seeing A pebble, or object lesson as meditation Drops of water, or object lesson as instrument A lobster and a piece of chalk, or object lesson as lecture Conclusion 2 - Fanciful facts An enchanted horse and drops of water, or object lesson as fact and fancy Insects, or object lessons from fairies A primrose, or object lesson as fairy tale Conclusion 3 - Household chemistry A cup of tea, or object lesson as familiar activity Soap and candles, or object lesson as experiment 3 4 5 7 9 13 36 71 108 7 --------------------..... ...- A YOlltb's LIboratory, or object lesson as commodity Conclusion 4 - Voices of nature An oak, or object lesson as v':pClimeJJtal Chemistry (London: Thomas Tegg). 32. Ede's Chemical Cabinet, frontispiece to Robert Best Ede (1837) Pradical Fads ill Chemistry (London: Thomas Tegg; Sirnpkin, Marshall and Co.). 10 Chapter 4 3.3 . Frontispiece to Mary Roberts (1850) Voices from the lVoodlallds (London: Reeve and Benham). 34. Frontispiece to John Mill (1854) The Fossil Spilit: A Bqy's Dream if Geology (London: Darton and Harvey) . 35. 'Vegetation of the coal age', Ibid. , 36. The dinner in the Iguanodon, from Martin Rudwick, (1992) Semes from Deep Time: Ear!y Pictorial RepreJ"elltatiolls qfthe Prehistoric World (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press) . 37. Title-page to Mill, Fossil Spirit. 38. New title-page to John Mill [186] IlItrodtfdory Reader ill Geology (London: Robert Fisher) , 39. Illustration to 'The Autobiography of a Grain of Salt', in Annie Carey [1870] Atftobiograp!!JI if a Lump if Coal .. (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin). Chapter 5 40. Slipcase for Science in Sport game. National Maritime Museum. 41. Playing surface of Science i1l Sport game. National Maritime :tvfuseum. 42. Wallis's TONr Throtfgh E1Iglalld alld Wales: A Nelv Geographical Pastime. Oxford Digital Library. 43. Margaret Bryan, her daughters, and assorted astronomical instruments. Frontispiece to Bryan (1805) A Compelldious System if Astrononry, ill a Course if Familiar Ledures (London: Printed, by C. and W. Galabin, Ingram-Court, Fenchurch-Street, for Wynne and Scholey, no. 45, Paternoster-Row; W. Baynes, no. 54, Paternoster-Row; J. Scatchard, Ave-Maria-Lane; and Vernor and Hood, Poultry., 3rd edn.). 44. 1830s Newton Son & Berry Pocket Globe, 76mm diameter. National Maritime Museum online records . 45. Miniature Library, From V&A Miniature Libraries web resource. 46. Illustration from Tom Telescope (1812), The NeJVtol1iall System ifPbilosopl!JI, Exp/aimd ~ Familiar Oijeds, ill an Ellteliaillillg ManJJer (London: Printed for J. Walker et al. New edn.) 47. Volvelle frontispiece from William Graeme Rhind (1844) Tbe Creatioll: I//tlstrated ~ SLy EngraviJlgs OJl Stee! (London: Samuel Bagster). 48. One of George Cruikshank's illustrations for John Ayrton Paris (1827) Pbilosop!!)! iJl Spoli Made Science iJl EarJJest ((London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green). Endpiece to chapter 1. 49. Three of the chapter headers for Pbi/osop!?) iJl Sp01i by George Cruikshank, as reproduced in 1853 edn: swing, p. 153; hoops 137; bubbles 209; kite 225. SO. Anon. (1848) 'Old and New Toys', PlIlldJ 14,76. 51. See-saw, from Paris, Pbilosop!?) in Spoli, 275. Conclusion 11 52. Samuel Prout Newcombe, (1857?) Fireside Fads from tbe Great Exhibition (London: ). 53. Thomas Wirgman [n.d.] SOllg of the Fi/Je Smses (London: Chappell), detail from cover and 1. 54. George Cruil<:shank's illustration of 'The Dispersal of the Works of All Nations from the Great Exhibitiol). of 1851', for Henry Mayhew's 1851. From Isobel Armstron (2008) Vid01ial1 GlaSSJvorlds: Glass Clflture alld tbe Imaginatioll 1830-1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 220. 55. A family visits the Great Exhibition. Detail from V&A Watercolours from the Great Exhibition online resource. . Ff1. LJ) 12 OBJECTS "It is all very well to speak so humbly, mater," said Sydney, laughing; "but I do not quite trust you; your 'common objects' ... lead us into uncommon paths, and through rather difficult places." Annie Carey, Tbreads of KlloJlJ/edge l ACCORDING TO THE BOOKS ranged on the shelves of a Victorian child's bedroom, the world was full of hidden forces, tiny creatures, explosive chemicals, vanished landscapes, and the voices of nature. Common things and familiar objects provided a way to enter this. world as the best introduction to a knowledge of and the skills to participate in the scientific enterprise. 'Object lessons' formed a key genre of nineteenth-century science education. Appearing in print in periodicals and playbooks, and in practice in classrooms and kitchens throughout Britain, lessons on objects as diverse as water, wool, wax, and whalebone introduced children to a deeper understanding of the world in which they lived, and trained them in how to interrogate everyday artefacts. In this dissertation I analyse these object lessons as sensory exercises: I ask how children's interest and attention was excited by hearing marvellous tales of common things, scrutinise with what kind of eyes they were encouraged to view the world, consider how these I Annie Carey [1872) Threads of KllolIJ/edge, drrJl)m from A Cambn'i' Halldkm:hiej; A Bl7Issels Cmpet; A Pn'lIt Dnw; A Kid GloJJe; A Sheet of Paper ~ondon: Casseil, Petter, & Galpin), 74, 13 vicarious and actual conversations furnished a scientific vocabulary, and explore how investigative and analytical habits were developed by manipulating miniature artefacts. This dissertation provides an in-depth study of object lesson teaching to elucidate the practices of mid-nineteenth-century domestic science education, arguing that learning things was achieved through learning with things. More than this, it claims that attention to senso1J' practices and material culture, to processes of education and, especially, to the proposed analytic category of 'familiar science', has the potential to transform our understanding of scientific participation in the mid- nineteenth-century. What was an object lesson? An object lesson began with a singular, usually familiar, concrete artefact, explicitly present before the student: a stone retrieved from the street, a grain of coffee brought from the kitchen, or a flower picked from the garden. This object was used to focus th: student's attention, and bound the educational experience: reassuringly, it was placed in tlle palm of the hand. A range of information was then extracted from the chosen object, as it was interrogated in a discussion between student and teacher: as one book of lessons put it, this process would 'question out' its 'particulars'.2 The conversation might begin by assessing its sensory properties: was the object smooth, cold, shiny, fragrant, or noisy? Did it change when manipulated, or subjected to closer inspection? Unfamiliar vocabulary to describe unusual properties could at tlus stage be introduced by the teacher, such as 'transparent', or 'inflammable'. The lustory of the object was then traced, which nught include details of the manufacture, trade, or origins of the object: how had it been made? Where had it originally come from? The uses of the object could be next elaborated: students began by listing what they knew the object to be used for, such as cooking, lighting, 2 W. J. Lake (1858) The Book of Go/ed LeSSOl/s: A Teacher's Mal/llal (London: Longman, Brown Green, Longman and Roberts, 3rd edn), 7, 21. 14 washing, or writing. The teacher could supplement this list with more unfamiliar practices, including dyeing, building, or preserving. Finally, the lesson could turn to any wider associations the students might make with the object, such as well-known or historical stories connected with the given artefact, particular symbolic values of the object, and - especially when discussing natural historical specimens - religious significances to be emphasised: the greatness in small things; the adaptive design to be found in nature. The lesson often closed with reflections on the many stories even a humble object has to tell, and with an appeal tp the wonders of common things. FIGURE ONE: An object lesson in progress at home: the tutor holds the chosen artefacts in his hands, and discusses them with the group of boys. The object lesson was therefore an explicitly conversational, even collaborative, process. Some books, particularly those intended to be read out in the home, or tlnt provided models for teachers, wrote out sample lessons as idealised dialogues benveen an educator and childish audience. Others conversed with an 15 implied reader, appealed to as the listener of a fairy tale, the target audience of a periodical, or the follower of a recipe book. Writers recruited the reader into taking an active role in the educational process, by choosing objects at hand in his or her surrounding environment, and by demonstrating how these lessons could form part of existing conversational culture, and could arise naturally from everyday activities and discussions, be it making a cup of tea, 9r talking about what one had seen on a walk. An identification between described and r; peated actions was encouraged, as a distinction between represented and actual experiences was deliberately blurred. The actual process of the object lesson was in these ways grounded in existing educational practices - oral instruction and aural learning, memorisation of words and mimicry of actions - and built on the child's existing knowledge of anything from a nursery tea to snippets of psalms. A closer reading of one typical object lesson will further identify key features of this central nineteenth-century educational approach; the periodical article 'Remarks on a Feather' (1829) provides an illustrative example. Beginning with a claim dlat 'the wonders of the world of nature, will never cease to amuse and instruct both the aged and dle young', the anonymous audlOr J.e. turned his 'attention' to the plumage of a common, domestic fowl, indeed, to the very feather which he was at that moment using, and made it dle 'subject of Dils] present thoughts': The feadler I now hold in my hand may be considered as consisting of three parts, namely, the quill, the back or stem, and the beard. The ftlaments are placed in smoodl, regular, and beautiful order on each side of dle polished and ivory-like stem, and thus situated, they contribute much to the beauty of dle bird, and furnish a covering to its body, light, warm, and durable.3 3 D.C.], (1829) 'Remarks on a Feather', YO"t!;'i MagazlllC 2 (3rd series), 419-421,420. 16 implied reader, appealed to as the listener of a fairy tale, the target audience of a periodical, or the follower of a recipe book. Writers recruited the reader into taking an active role in the educational process, by choosing objects at hand in his or her surrounding environment, and by demonstrating how these lessons could form part of existing conversational culture, and could arise naturally from everyday activities and discussions, be it making a cup of tea, or talking about what one had seen on a walk. An identification between described and repeated actions was encouraged, as a distinction between represented and actual experiences was deliberately blurred. The actual process of the object lesson was in these ways grounded in existing educational practices - oral instruction and aural learning, memorisation of words and mimicry of actions - and built on the child's existing knowledge of anything from a nursery tea to snippets of psalms. A closer reading of one typical object lesson will further identify key features of this central nineteenth-century educational approach; the periodical article 'Remarks on a Feather' (1829) provides an illustrative example. Beginning with a claim that 'the wonders of the world of nature, will never cease to amuse and instruct both the aged and the young', the anonymous author J.e. turned his 'attention' to the plumage of a common, domestic fowl, indeed, to the very feather which he was at that moment using, and made it dle 'subject of [his] present thoughts': The feadler I now hold in my hand may be considered as consisting of three parts, namely, the quill, the back or stem, and the beard. The ftlaments are placed in smoodl, regular, and beautiful order on each side of the polished and ivory-Wee stem, and thus situated, they contribute much to the beauty of the bird, and furnish a covering to its body, light, warm, and durable. 3 3 O.Cl, (1829) 'Remarks on a Feather', YOl/tb'nv!agaz/lle 2 (3rd series), 419-421 , 420. 16 J.e. described the sensory and aesthetic qualities of the feather - it was smooth, polished, warm, beautiful- which he connected them to the activities for which it was adapted, such as walking, flying, and swimming. All this J.e. saw as evidence of divine design in nature. He went on to 'pluck' one of the laminae, and 'applied it to [his] microscope', identifying three distinct parts, which he proceeded to link to the various functions of the parts of the feather, including flapping wings, and repelling water. The sensory and extended meanings of the object were then combined in a 'moral reflection' as J.e. invited his readers to compare the either pleasant and downy or difficult and jarring touching of a feather - depending on whether one ran one's fInger along or against the direction of the laminx - to corresponding religious feelings: 'Thus God has ordained, that our conscience should feel accordingly, either as we resist, or obey His will, in the gospel of Christ.'4 Appearing in the Yotlth'J Magazjne, "Remarks on a Feather" was written according to that particular periodical's ideology, and in dialogue with a specifIcally evangelical audience; as in other of its articles of the time, the social practices of reading and education were highlighted.5 There are two main lessons to extract from this specifIc example. Firstly, object lesson teaching was thought particularly suitable for imparting knowledge about nature, and hence for scientifIc subjects. The use of direct sensory impressions to learn from the surrounding environment, and then a gradual leading to unfamiliar knowledge and new skills, was thought to mirror the natural mode of growth of the child's mind and body. The educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and his successor, Friedrich Froebel- invoked by many teachers of object lessons as theorising the underlying philosophies employed in their lessons - both argued that education should act through direct sensation, and that it should be structured so as 4 Ibid., 421. 5 Jonathan R. Topham (2004) 'Periodicals and the Making of Reading Audiences for Science in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain: The YOlfth's l\1aga:::jlle, 1828-37' in Louise Henson et al., Clfltlfre and Stielll"e ill the Nimtecllth-Celltlll)ll\1edia, ed. Louise Henson et a/. (Aldershot: Ashgate), 57-70. 17 to match mental development. They also prioritised learning from nature, as Froebel's invention of the 'child's garden', or Kindergarten, made explicit. 6 Secondly, 'Remarks on a Feather' highlights the way in which object lesson teaching progressed was bound by certain generic conventions, a cluster of literary devices. Particular rhetorical tropes recur in the examples on which I shall draw: they include an inunediate tangibility - 'this object, which I hold in my hand'; a flip bel:\veen, and complex management of, the double meaning of the verb 'to see' as both to perceive and to understand; an emphasis on attracting and maintaining the student's attention; the exploitation of existing knowledge about the common object, what about it is 'familiar'; a narrative dependent on a sustained reading from beginning to end, gradually leading away from this familiar knowledge into newly scientific territories; a precise situating of the reader or listener with respect to the object - where it is, how it is being moved; and an emphasis on wonder and the revelation of what is usually 'hidden' beneath the surface of nature, and of everyday life. As well as these linguistic tropes, by taking a generic perspective l:\Vo other issues are highlighted: ~1at object lessons had particular material instantiations in published works; and that they engendered certain expectations in their audience. The object lesson fitted into a range of literary genres deployed and developed by scientific writers in the first half of the nineteenth century. In his Victorian Popll/mizers, Bernard Lightman has identified some of these genres as the anecdote, the calendar or life-cycle, the classification system, the journal essay, the experimental report, the speculative article, the literature review, and the ramble through natureJ For Lightman these genres are subsumed within the higher category of 'scientific 6 For Froebel, see especially KevinJ. Brehony (2001) Tbe Oligi/IJ ofNlmelJ1 Edl/mtioll: FliedlidJ Froebel and the Ellgllsb Sjlstelll (London and New York: Routledge), Vol 3: Friedrich Froebel's Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, especially chapter one; Evelyn Lawrence (ed.) (1952) Fliedlicb Froebe/ alld Ellgllsb Education (London: University of London Press) . For Pestalozzi, see Kate Silber (1960) Pestalozzj: Tbe Mall al1d bis Work (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). 7 See Bernard Lightman (2007) Vidoliall Popl/lal7'zm of Sde/lce: Desigllillg Natl/re for New AI/diences (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press), 129-135 for discussion of these genres. 18 writing'; however, the anecdote, the speculative article, and the literature review were hardly confIned to writing on scientifIc topics. As well as being a useful tool for analysing which narrative forms writers chose to employ when communicating with their audiences, then, I believe that attention to genre can help provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the writing of this period, writing which often did not conform to, or indeed deliberately conflated, emergent categorisations. Of the wealth of literary forms employed in nineteenth century scientifIc writings, a focus on the object lesson genre opens up a particularly rich array of sources for analysis: such lessons appeared in periodical articles, manuals for school teachers, fanciful fairy tales, expensive gift-books, cheap insttuctive miscellanies, works on cookery and household management, travel guides, and autobiographies. They covered a range of subjects: domestic economy, botany, and geology were among the most popular, but chemistry, microscopy, entomology, history, religion, geography, and astronomy were also all included. They were introduced by myriad objects ranging from a pair of scissors to a piece of honeycomb, coral to cinnamon, a sunbeam to slate, to audiences located in a schoolroom, garden or a nursery, on a beach or a heath . . Exploiting the wide scope of these publication types, scientifIc subjects, and familiar objects, this singular generic category hence permits me to cross disciplinary boundaries, since the object lesson approach was used for teaching a wide variety of topics, to many different audiences. Therefore, unlike much of even the best work that is still conducted in the history of science, I shall not be restricted to discussion of one scientifIc discipline, and, moreover, can explore how scientifIc knowledge could be entrained as just one facet of a wider consideration of how and what to learn about objects. By choosing the most elementary, the explicitly introductory, of these lessons, I hope to bring out the fundamental strategies at work in these practices. Elementary education is also arguably the furthest away from the scientifIc practice of the day, but I shall demonstrate that in this genre a wide range of levels of technicality 19 could also be included, as the broad framework of the object lesson could arguably exert an influence right up to the choosing of particular specimens for detailed analysis, the process of interrogating an unknown substance, fossil, or experimental result, or the writing of an expert monograph. As well as providing a rich and influential body of works to discuss, and bringing together the history of science with considerations of literary form, material instantiation, and audience expectation, by choosing the object lesson genre as the focus of this dissertation, two historiographical issues are addressed. Firstly, that the practices of education are foregrounded as my primary historical category and analytical approach; and secondly, that this work will pay attention to material processes and things . The next two sections will consider these two separate elements in order to draw out some of the historigraphical aims - and consequences - of choosing this group of works as the focus for this dissertation. Lessons from education In mid-nineteenth-century Britain there was an unprecedented involvement in and appetite for scientific knowledge. From fashionable conversations at dinner parties to working men's lecture series, the most up-to-date and detailed scientific debates formed part of everyday life for many early Victorians. At home, whether laughing at tl1e lampooning illustrations in tl1e latest edition of PJllI(/J, imagining Dickens' megalosaurus waddle along Holborn Hill, reading an account of a factory visit, using phrenological theory to vet a new servant, or wearing a brightly-hued dress in the latest aniline dye, the sciences were a visible and central part of modern life. They gave guidance when looking inward, encouraging audiences to rethink conceptions of themselves as owning a potentially mechanical mind and body, as in thrall to mesmeric forces, or in a close relation to other members of the animal kingdom. They provoked questions when interacting with the surrounding world, as 20 railway cuttings revealed layers of long-gone history and long-vanished creatures, or as ca"reer opportunities were curtailed by mechanisation, or opened up by the imperial infrastructure. They provided opportunities to meet the latest celebrity inhabitants of the zoological gardens, to enjoy demonstrations at the Royal and Polytechnic Institutions, to visit exhibitions great and small, or to envision the whole world at a spectacular panoramic show. And they encouraged developing the expertise to engage with men of science who were setting themselves up as authorities on anything from telling the time to telling the history of the universe, from life- preserving apparatus to life beyond the grave. It has become increasingly clear that the designation 'popular science', or even the process of 'popularisation', does not do justice to the rich variety of activities, sites and experiences in this heterogeneous scientific culture. Many of these activities were not 'popular' occasions for mass participation, though some were pivotal in def11ling such an audience; many involved significant contributions to and effects on a supposedly separate elite scientific culture; many writers and lecturers did not think of themselves as popularisers, though some did attempt to forge this role; most importantly, the terms, content, and ideas of 'popular', 'science', and 'popularisation' underwent enormous discussion and change in this period. Once a useful rhetorical counterpoint to the overwhelming academic emphasis on the history of a few expert discoverers, talking about popular science before the end of the nineteenth century is increasingly regarded as unsatisfactory and, ultimately, misleading.s Consequently, recent work on Slience in the Marketplace has eschewed the language of popularization and popular science, choosing instead to remap the terrain of Victorian scientific 8 Roger Cooter and Stephen Pumfrey, (1994) 'Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture' Histo,)' of S,ieIJt'c 32,237-267. Tills special issue of HlstO,)' of SdeIJt'c emphasised how research into expert science had dOnllnated acadenllc work, and remains a good starting-point when thinking about scientific participation in the nlld-nineteenth century. James A Secord (2004a) 'Knowledge in Transit', hiJ" 95,654-672,670-671 summarises some of the problems seen with the designation of 'popular science' as an analytic category. 21 culture by an attention to varied 'sites and experiences'.9 Over the past twenty years academics have detailed that many of those once perceived as outside the traditional remit of the history of science were active participants in this complex scientific enterprise; expert contributors to knowledge-making, debates, spectacles, periodicals, and even music hall sing-a-Iongs. This emphasis on varied and embodied types of activities and contexts allows for in-depth studies that reveal the alliances forged, books published, and exhibitions visited in a network of interactions. 10 However, by remaining in a self-consciously commercial arena, this structure risks retaining the underlying concept of a world of popular science: that scientific content has already been produced elsewhere, and remains to be packaged, marketed, bought, and sold. Popularisation has simply been replaced by commodification. In this dissertation, I propose that the framework of education can re orient our investigations into scientific activities, and ultimately lead to a quite different picture of what it meant to be part of scientific culture in this period. At a general level, the category of 'education' might seem almost self-explanatory: the transmitting of knowledge. However, even this simple definition provides a helpful starting-point for thinking about scientific participation. It prioritises a communicative practice, the act of educating, that can encompass a rich variety of disaggregated processes including pedagogy, conversion, apprenticeship, mimicry, recruitment, training, and not only school-bound didacticism: it is both learning alld teaching.! I Many different forms of experiences, including reading self-help literature, engaging in tea-time conversations in the nursery, or spending a seaside holiday spent knee-deep in rock- pools, can be conceived of as educational practices. Audiences picked up a book, toyed with an intriguing object, or listened to an authoritative lecturer, because they 9 Aileen Fyfe and Bernard Lightman (2007) S"iellce ill the Marketp/ai'C,' Nilletemt/;-Celltlll)l Sites alld E >'pCliellt'CS (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press) . The introduction to this book also discusses terminology and the problems with 'popularization' and 'professionalization', 1-4. IQ See, for example, the essays in Ibid. 11 For cOl11111unication as the key problem for the history of science, see Secord, 'Knowledge in Transit'. 22 were interested, or could be made interested, in scientific subjects. Furthermore, these ways' of learning operated in the opposite direction to the much-criticised model of popularisation from expert centre to lay periphery: an educational journey ran from ignorance to experience; from beginners without skills and knowledge right up to practising chemists or naturalists. Indeed, and especially as advocated through the burgeoning contemporary self-help literature, those so willing could end up with a great deal of expertise on the most taxing of, for example, moss classifications. In this way, the idea of education as a continuum of kn0wledge and expertise is foregrounded, rather than as part of a separate sphere of popular culture, or the specific realm of the marketplace. By choosing elementary education, I begin at one extreme end of this spectrum, with those childish participants who had the least knowledge, and the fewest skills, and were self-consciously taking their first steps into a scientific world. In the mid-nineteenth century the place and content of, and suitable pupils for, elementary education was a hotly-debated issue, the instructional landscape a patchwork of nu~sery governesses, private tutors, prep schools, religious establislunents for the poor, and parent-led teaching in the home. Of the wealth of possible avenues of research - for example, how common things were used in educating the working classes, or common men; the instantiation of scientific subjects into schools and universities - I focus in this dissertation on domestic education, teaching that exploited everyday activities and the common objects of the house and garden. The opening dialogue that accompanied the frontispiece to Jacob Abbott's 1833 The L ittle PbiloJopber (see figure two) demonstrated how interacting with objects from the surrounding world could form the most elementary experimental education for children. In the image, 'baby' sat on tl1e floor, playing with a piece of paper; as his mother told her elder son: 'he likes to shake it about, to see how it will move; and to pull it to see how strong it is, and how easily it will tear. In that way, he is learning the nature of it.' After shifting his attention to the 'cricket', the child was alarmed by its 23 falling over, and making a loud noise: Mother declared, however, that 'the next time, he will not be so much surprised; he has learned something, by this lesson in Philosophy'. 12 As the book's introduction went on to state, the book intended to teach children 'to think and to reason about common things' - 'to fix the attention, and to employ the reasoning powers, on the thousand objects around them, with which they are necessarily more or less familiar, and which are consequently the best sources of thought and reflection for them'.: 13 FIGURE Two: 'SCENE: a parlor; an infant is creeping about the floor, playing with a newspaper. Two little children, Ann and William, are trying to make the fire burn. - Enter their Mother with a copy of "The Little Philosopher" in her hand.' Frontispiece to The Little Philosopher. Historians and sociologists of education have identified the 'science of common things' as an important contemporary movement, and it has particularly been I ~ J acob Abbott (1833) The Little Philoiopber, for S .. bools alld Familiu: Duiglled to Teacb Cbildrell to Tbillk alld Reasoll abollt Commoll Thillgs (Boston: Carter, Hendee, and Co.), 4. 13 Ibid., 7. 24 analysed as an exercise in 'social control'. 14 However, in this dissertation I argue that it can draw our attention more particularly to the more widespread use of domestic and quotidian artefacts in scientific education and writings, and to a wider category of 'familiar science' that can solve some of the, problems with an emphasis on 'popular science' outlined above. Common things The middle-class Victorian home was crammed with objects: from pianos and paintings to dolls and dressers, lawnmowers and lampposts, clocks and cutlery, crinolines and Oxo cubes. To many eyes, the everyday world seemed increasingly fuller than it had ever been before: city streets teemed with commuters and carriages; shops and exhibitions displayed a dazzling array of wares; shells, scrapbooks and sheet music jostled for attention on the parlour table (see figure three). Objects were everywhere. This plenitude of things has recently been the focus of academic attention in the histories of art, science, and economics, and in literature, analysed as commodities, decorative ' art, signifiers of realism in novels, foci of social processes, fetishes, and even as potential biographers. Originally belonging to narratives of mass production and consumption, the many artefacts of the mid-century, both as surviving museum collections and as depicted in contemporary artistic and literary representations, are now being used to flesh out a more spectacular, noisier, smellier - indeed, fuller - conception of contemporary culture. IS 14 See David Lay ton (1973) Silence/or the People (London: Alien & Unwin; Bob Prophet and Derek Hodson (1988) 'The Science of Common Things: A Case Study in Social Control', History ojEdlftYltioll 17, 131-147. 15 See, for example, Asa Briggs (1996) Vidoriall Thillgs (London: Folio Society); Thad Logan (2005) The Victoriall Patio/{r (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Thomas Richards (1991) The ComlJlodi!J' Cllltllre ojVidoliall B,itaill: Advertisillg alld Spedac/e 1851-1914 (London: Verso). For streets rather than the home, see: Lynda Nead (2000) Vidoliall Balryloll: People, Streets alld Images ill NilleteCllth- Celltll,)' Lolldoll (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005) . 25 " ,r:.iifl::~f ,lZ" FIGURE THREE: A mother or governess and child sit in the object-filled Victorian parlour, at mid-century. The object lesson tradition fIrmly situated itself in this thing-filled world. The starting point for each lesson was a different item taken from the surrounding environment, both natural and manufactured, which was demonstrably grasped in the student's hand. The reality of this object was paramount, and authors went to great lengths to use readily-available things, to give directives for their collection, or to detail common, familiar processes. It was only by using real objects that the educational processes underpinning the tradition could be effected and effective, could lead from sense-impressions to enhanced understanding, skills, and powers of reasoning. For example, in an oration at the Royal Institution on the life and methods of J ohann Heinrich Pestalozzi, credited with developing object lesson teaching, Charles Mayo stressed that the practices in his school at Cheam led from perception to 'the higher intellectual faculties' because they involved the use of 'real objects' from the child's surrounding environment (see fIgure four): 26 The cultivation of the higher intellectual faculties of reasoning, taste, &c. 'is preceded by the careful developement [sic] of just obsetvation and clear intellectual conception. For this purpose, real objects are presented to the examination of the younger pupils; the physical senses are trained to accurate perception, and the understanding is gradually led to generalize and classify the notices it receives through them. 16 Training the physical senses by examining actuaL artefacts was the fust object of education, the appropriate focus of elementary instruction, and the way to a deeper understanding of the objects themselves, their place in the world, and also how the mind itself might come to such an understanding. Caroline A. Halsted's 1837 Investigation: Ot~ TrclIJels ill the BOlldoiJ; argued that these ordinary objects underpinned the national ideal of the home, and deserved to have their stories revealed to contemporary youth, who had been busy garnering other accomplishments, and had neglected the potential of what lay underneath their noses: FIGURE FOUR: A child picks something up from his surrounding environment. Note the detailed placing of the boy in a specific natural environment and his depiction 'in action', holding the object. 16 Charles Mayo (1827) Observatiolls Oil the establishment alld directioll of in/allts' ft"hools: beillg the SIIbstall(e of a le(t""e deliIJered at the Royal Imti!1ftioll, Mqy, 1826 (London: L. B. Seeley and Sons), 27. 27 How many young persons, of superior understanding, who play and . sing, dance and paint, with taste and execution beyond their years, - are, nevertheless, totally unacquainted with the origin, history, or progress into general use, of the most ordinary articles with which they are surrounded; so ordinary, indeed, as t~ be, for that very reason, disregarded, or disdained because within every body's observation: articles which, nevertheless, ... lrender] an Englishman's fIre-side proverbial among foreigners, and his home .the pride and delight of every true Briton's heart. 17 Underlying this process was a desire to demonstrate that as well as being full of objects, the surrounding world contained hidden secrets, forces, histories, and connections, that could be revealed by the trained eye, the skilful hand, the discriminating ear, and the enquiring mind. Furthermore, this hidden world, of laws and truths, pasts and futures, was the realm of the sciences. As James F.W. Johnston wrote in 1855: The common life of man is full of wonders, Chemical and Physiological. Most of us pass through this life without seeing or being sensible of them, though every day our existence and our comforts ought to recall them to our minds. 18 Such identifIcations between the wonders of common things and the wonders of modern science and technology could be made with relative ease; indeed, many of the objects that furnished the nursery, that were eaten in the kitchen, or were displayed in a parlour cabinet, could quite quickly be traced back to the seashore, laboratory, or factory floor. Educators exploited this familiar knowledge to complicate the 17 Caroline A. Halsted (1837) IlIvCJ"tigatioll: 01; Trave/J ill tbe BOlldoir (London: Smith, Elder and Co.), viii. 18 J ames F. \' The chapters of this dissertation explore this claim as I investigate how and why the senses were affected, through the use of prose and artefacts: directly, vicariously, imaginatively.20 19 Thomas Henry Huxley (1860) 'A Lobster; or, the Study of Zoology', in Alan P. Barr (1997a) The Mq/or Prose of Thomas HeJ/I)' Hf(:":/~I (Athens: University of Georgia Press), 1-19, 14. 20 For some recent 'sensory' histories and studies of Victorian literature, see: Janice Carlisle (2004) Commoll SaJllts: Compamtive EIU'OIlIItfl'.f ill High-Vidoliall Fictioll (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Constance Classen (1994) Aroma: The CIII/llml History of Smel/ (London: Routledge); Steven Connor (2000) DIIJllbstmtk· A CII/tt/ml Histol)' of Velltli/oqllislll (Oxford: Oxford University Press), and Connor (2004) The Book Of Skill (London: Reaktion);Jonathan Crary (1990) TeclJlliqufs of tbe Observer: 011 visioll alld Modemi!)' ill the Nilleteellth Celltlll)' (Cambridge, IvIass .: MIT Press), Crary (1999) SlIJpellJio/U of Pemptioll: Attelltioll, Spedade, alld j\;[odel7l Cllltllre (Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press); Kate Flint (2005) 'Sensuous Knowledge', in Anne-Julia Zwierlein (ed.) Ulllllapped CONlltlies: Bi%gim/ Visiom' ill NilletfCllth-Celltury Litemtllre and CII/ture (London: Anthem Press), 207-215; Barbara T. Gates (2006) 'Sound and Scents', review essay, Vidoliall Litemtllre alld CII/tllre 34, 385-387;John 1"1. Picker (2003) VidO/jall SOlllldsmpes (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press); Jonathan Reinarz (2003) 'Uncommon Scents: Smell and Victorian England', in Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham (eds.) 29 . This dissertation follows recent so-called 'biographical' approaches to objects in exploring what chosen artefacts can reveal about the culture in which they were invented, approved, produced, marketed, purchased, used, perhaps forgotten, and, eventually, displayed.21 Telling the stories of particular objects has even created a sub- genre of historical and popular works: Bill Brown lists 'the pencil, the zipper, the toilet, the banana, the chair, the potato, [and] the bowler hat' as topics of such works. 22 How precisely to combine literary and actual representations of objects has been addressed in recent publications in literary studies, including Elaine Freedgood's The Idem ill Thillgs and Brown's work on 'Thing Theory', and A Sellse ofThillgs.23 These texts claim there are 'no ideas but in things', tracing the 'passions and associations' of objects including curtains, furniture, and tobacco as they read their appearance in the background or foreground of novels as symbolic connections to wider narratives. Appreciating how historical participants could have undergone this type of training in reading beyond the surfaces of things can, I detail in this dissertation, help in solving the problem of how authors and educated, middle- and upper-class, readers would have obtained th~ kind of multifaceted, embodied, and specific knowledge of objects' biographies, properties, resonances, manufacture and uses that is, perhaps, too often assumed when arguing in such works for the significance of tables and tail-coats, Sellse alld Sallt: A ll E:v:ploratioll ofO!fadory Meallillg (Dublin: Philomel), 129-148; HallS J. Rindisbacher (1992) The Smell o/Books: A m/tlfl"tll-hiJtoritLIl st/{{!J' %!fadol)l perceptioll ill literatlfre (Ann Arbor: i'vIichigan University Press); Garrett Stewart (1990) Readillg Voi.-es: Litemtlfre alld the Phollotext. 21 For example, A Appaduri, The Social LIfe ofThillgs: Commodities ill Clfltlfml Perspective, Cambridge, 1986. For some of the biographical work on scientific objects, see: Samuel J. IVL i\if. Alberti, 'Objects and the Museum', Isis 96,559-571; Soraya de Chadarevian and N ick Hopwood (2004) Models: Tbe Third DimellJ"ioll of Sdellce (princeton: Prince ton Un.iversity Press); Lorraine Daston (ed) (2000) Biograpbies 0/ S'imtijic 0lvec/s, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press) ; Daston and Fernado Yidal (eds.) (2004)Thil{gs That Talk: Objed LeSSOIlS from A rt alld Sdmee (New York: Zone Books). 22 Bill Brown, (2001) 'Thing Theory', Critiml111qlfil)' 28 - 'Things', 1-22,2. Isobel Armstrong's GlassllJorlds: Glass Clfltlfre alld The Imagillatioll 1830-1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) is an example of an academic work that focuses on one class of object. 23 Bill Brown (2003) A Sellse ofThi'{gs: Tbe Object Matter of Americall Literatlfre (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press); Elaine F reedgood (2006) The Idem' ill Thillgs: The Olved Matter of Vido/jall Literatllre (Chicago and London.: Chicago University Press) . See also Clare Pettitt (2008) 'On Stuff, 19: IlIterdisdplillal)' Studies ill the Lollg Nineteelltb Centllry, 6 www.19.bbk.ac.uk. 30 curtains and necklaces, as they appear in literary works as background sceneq, leit motifs, or critical plot points . I shall return to these considerations in the conclusion. Mirroring this search for the myriad stories held in surviving things, and an emphasis on the novel information and skills learnt via a sensory engagement with material culture, historians of science have conducted object lessons themselves on scientific artefacts, even referencing this terminology in their titles. 24 Much of this work on objects has focused on the specialist: 00. instruments from astrolabes to zenith sectors; on educational, investigative, and medical tools; on wax, paper, and glass models; on the architecture of particularly important institutions; or on recreating the equipment and conditions of well-known experiments. Other studies have focussed on natural objects - naturalists' collections from around the globe, preserved surgical specimens - or even less tangible scientific objects such as dreams, or electrons. In the introduction to Biographies of Sdelltiji( O~jeds, Lorraine Daston muses on the etymology of the word 'object'. Recalling its origins as referring to the everyday things that 'smite tlle senses': walls, rain, stones, projectiles, she counterpoises th~e 'quotidian' and the 'scientific' object - the former are 'rarely the objects of scientific inqUiry.'25 However, the object lesson texts I look at in this thesis did precisely the opposite, conflating the everyday and the philosophical, the 'quotidian' and 'scientific'. The powerful rhetoric of tlle texts was in part drawn from tius extension and identification of the renut of science into the activities and artefacts of daily life. A properly scientific understanding could illuminate the meteorological processes of the falling rain, or the often surprising composition of a droplet of water; with a trained eye, every stone in the street told its geologicallustory and wluspered of past worlds. Hence, Daston's fertility of scientific objects 'in new techniques, differentiations and associations, representations, empirical and conceptual revelations', can be claimed for common things, which for her 'exist but 24 Daston and Vidal, Tbillgs Tbat Talk: Objed Lbsom ill A I1 alld ScieJIce; Brown, Seme ofTbillgs, 30-36. 25 Lorraine Daston, 'Introduction: The Coming into Being of Scientific Objects', in Biographies of Sdelltijir Objects, 2. 31 do not thicken and quicken with inquiry.'26 In this period in which the specialist hardware available for practising and studying science became ever-more elaborate and available, it is especially instructive to turn to common objects, advocated at precisely the same time as the most suitable introduction to the sciences. We have become used to arguing for objects as part of complex networks of meanings, associations and uses : the creators of these lessons were all too aware of this fact - indeed, it is what they hoped to exploit in their teaching. This dissertation, then, contributes to studies of the varied meanings of Victorian objects in three ways. It details how object lesson teaching used and trained children's senses to develop powers of observation and reasoning, and to uncover the scientific facts and forces that underpinned and made possible the world of goods and natural objects in which they lived. It demonstrates how the definition of a scientific object can be extended, and, moreover, was extended, to encompass a wide range of everyday artefacts, not just specialist equipment. Since the subjects of my thesis were not only teaching their pupils how to learn through objects - they were also articulating the process of engaging with objects themselves - it will show how, through an emphasis on sensory learning, and correspondingly through a sensory history, we can rethink ways of approaching material objects themselves, of conducting our own object lessons. Structure of the analysis This dissertation is structured around the senses, teasing apart different types of introductory scientific experience, and the appropriate skills for learning from those experiences, from walks in the woods and on the heath, to conversations in the nursery, spectacular kitchen experiments, and lectures on model globes. Each type of experience is associated with a particular object: the making of a cup of tea with what it meant to define a familiar activity as a scientific process; an oak tree with listening 26 Ibid., 13. 32 to those Shakespearian 'tongues in trees', the voices of nature; a pebble with a meditative visualisation of vanished worlds. Emphasising the practical basis and sensory philosophies underpinning the use of these particular concrete examples demonstrates how a variety of textual and experimental strategies revealed the scientific lessons to be found at the heart of everyday life. The texts analysed in my first chapter argued that many children wandered the world oblivious to its true sights and meanings: if they were only to open their eyes, they could truly understand, rather than merely see, the natural objects with which they were surrounded. The preeminent position of vision in the mid-nineteenth century as the superlative pedagogic sense is here reflected as visual education is the first mode of instruction that I analyse. I particularly explore the geological sciences as their subject matter was often not immediately visible, locked away in prehistoric rocks and pebbles, and the 'art of seeing' their hidden meanings had to be entrained; similarly, I analyse the complimentary skill of how children were taught to look at common objects through microscopes, uncovering what was really contained in every drop of water. Finally, I explore how visions were conjured for lecture audiences ", from a lobster and a piece of chalk. Chapter two returns from the pebble-strewn stream and the chalky cliffs to the home, to consider how object lessons were given through fantastical stories told around the ftreside. I draw together the overtly fact-laden and apparently fanciful presentations of common things to demonstrate how the use of fairy-tale structures of exotic princesses and sleeping beauties brought tl1e language of wonder to bear on these potentially dry and mundane artefacts, and converted them into marvels of science themselves. The third chapter analyses multisensory introductions to chemical knowledge, exploring ftrst how everyday activities such as tasting and making a cup of tea were 33 recast as chemical processes on which men of science could proclaim themselves experts. Then, I explore how smoking wax candles and smelling cakes of soap could be co-opted into introductory experiments and home lectures that recreated authoritative presentations at the Royal Institution: the ubiquitous objects of the home were reduced to chemical components and physical processes, and were made to act in strange and even explosive ways. New artefacts of the late 1830s included dedicated youth's laboratories that brought boxed chemical knowledge to every room of the house; these began to be marketed as the best sensory introduction to the subject, but had strong continuities, I argue, with more basic household experiments. A particular group of lessons is the focus of my fourth chapter, those given by the objects themselves in autobiographies, dramatic monologues, and in conversation with childish companions; I use these flrst-person narratives to consider the relationships between spirit and matter, and the spoken practice of this type of teaching. Children were urged to listen to the 'voices of nature' present in trees, flowers, and fossils: rather than this providing an unmediated access to natural knowledge, however, I ·read these texts in the light of their authors' heterodox religious beliefs as very particular presentations of spiritualised objects. I then reappraise why the didactic dialogue was the chosen format for many of these introductory works. Just as authors argued they had based their writings on actual conversations, so were these texts intended to be read aloud and in their turn shape the actual speech and vocabulary of learning children. Hence, I contend, they could act as appropriate preparations for an expert scientiflc culture characterised by debates, talk and songs. How play was used in elementary scientiflc education, and how hands and speech were trained through that play is the focus of the flnal chapter. I investigate how astronomy could be the basis of a board game, how toy bookcases contained miniaturised scientiflc knowledge, how the shape of the earth could be carved into an 34 orange. I demonstrate that passages of instructional and entertaining language and activities were interwoven to create a structured experience that turned gaining scientific knowledge into a pleasurably rational pastime. Play, words, and plays on words were in these ways used to match natural philosophical topics to children's minds and bodies. This dissertation investigates how writers and lecturers used individual common objects as entry-points to the worlds of scientific investigation, and I conclude by reflecting on how my work fits with recent analyses of the 'object matter' of Victorian literature, and how it leads to a proposal of 'familiar science' as a useful analytical category for the mid-nineteenth-century historian. Educators explored a child-sized microcosm of things, both already familiar, and excitingly novel, as an introduction to the realm of scientific practice. These texts and artefacts functioned as inductions into the scientific world: its terminology, its skills, its technology, its status, its use, its amusements, its past and its future. And they functioned as introductory experiences by focus sing on a single object, and by giving a lesson: training the body and the mind to apprehend and investigate the science of common things. In 1835 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge's Exenises fOr/he Improvement rif the Senses had exploited a double meaning in outlining the ambitions of its contents: its 'special object', the introduced stressed, was 'to excite little children to examine surrounding objects correctly, so that valuable knowledge may be acquired, while the attention, memory, judgment, and invention are duly exercised.'27 The objects of this dissertation also exist in two senses. They are the artefacts around which the following pages are structured: a candle, an acorn, a primrose. And they are the underlying historical ambitions to uncover how and why things mattered to elementary scientific education in the mid-nineteentll century. 27 [Anon.) (1835) Exercises for the IlJ/plvvelJ/Cllt ~(tbe SellseJ (London: Charles Knight, under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge), vii. 35 1. THE ART OF SEEING ' . .. he looked on objects with other eyes than mine.' Charlotte Bronte on David Brewster28 IN LATER YEARS, friends of the palaeontologist Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790- 1852) remembered his beginnings in geology as being kindled by the serendipitous discovery of a fossil stone: "While yet a mere youth, he was walldng one sununer evening with a friend on the banks of a stream communicating with the Ouse, when his obselvant eye rested upon an object that had rolled down from a marly bank which at that particular point overhangs the stream. He dragged it from the water and examined it with great attention. 'What is it?' was the natural inquiry of his friend. '1 think, Warren,' he replied, 'that it is what they call a fossil. I have seen something like it in an old volume of the Gentleman '.r Magazi!le.' TIle 'curiosity,' which proved to be a [me specimen of the Ammonite, was borne home in triumph by the two friends; and from that moment young Mantell became a geologist."29 28 Letter of Charlotte Bronte, written after visiting the Great Exhibition with David Brewster. Quoted in Clare Pettitt (2004) PalmI [II//cllliolls: [1I1e1/edlla/ Property alld Ihe Vidoliall NOlle! (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 94. 29 Reminiscence of Mark Anthony Lower, quoted in Sidney Spokes (1927), Gideoll Algemoll Malllell, LLD, FRCS, FRS, SlIrgeoll alld Geologist (London: John Bale & Sons & Danielsson), 4. Emphasis original. 36 As Charlotte Bronte noted, mid-nineteenth-century men of science such as David Brewster and Mantell supposedly looked at objects through different eyes. This chapter analyses how children's eyes were educated to see in common objects their histories, secrets, and properties, as they developed the right kind of informed and penetrative vision. I demonstrate that lessons using small, isolated objects entrained skills of observation, attention, and reasoning by miniaturising and visualising natural phenomena, rendering them accessible to au<1iences beginning their education in or practice of the sciences . The process of a scientific education was for many both through and of the eye: as Charles Mayo put it, 'the first object, then, in education, must be to lead a child to observe with accuracy; the second, to express with correctness the result of his observation.'30 For some, this would be achieved by astounding and inspiring the senses with spectacular panoramas; but for the writers discussed in this chapter scientific education and practice began in developing 'observant eyes' by examining particular objects with 'great attention'. In his Thoughts on a Pebble (1836), Mantell provided a guide to the pebble and the world from which it 'had travelled, employing a detailed, present-tense, personalised narration. Through tlus fragment of the natural world, Mantell's close- up, detailed description of a single object brought both the subject and knowledge of geological science closer to Ius reader. Drawing on a combination of travel and theological traditions, Mantell fixed the reader's gaze on a single pebble, and told its story. Tlus magnification in size and importance of tl1e seemingly trivial in nature was made more explicit in later additions of Thollghts 011 a Pebble, wluch appended 'IvIore Thoughts', a nllcroscopical investigation of the interior of the stone. Moreover, in 1846 Mantell published Thollghts 011 A llimalmles, an introduction to the then-popular pursuit of nllcroscopy. In tllls text he sinlllarly subjected a series of commonplace natural objects to the scrutiny of his particular gaze, in tlus instance enhanced by the prosthetic of the nllcroscope, revealing the, as he termed it, 'invisible world' tluough 30 ]'vfayo, ObJcn;alioIlJ, 16. 37 the 'magic power' of his optical instrument. A superficially similar work, and just one example of the burgeoning literature on microscopy at this time, Agnes Catlow's Drops of U7ateJ; was published in 1851 in the same series as the eighth edition of Thol/ghts on a Pebble. An elucidation of tlle science of common things, Catlow transported readers into a magical realm through converting them into spirits. My final section explores two object -lesson lectures given by Thomas Henry Huxley, one on 'A Lobster', in 1860, and the other 'On a Piece of Chalk', in 1868. His investigation of a lobster was presented to an audience of teachers, and outlined how the role of the educator was to create memorable, palpable sensory impressions. In the wonderfully oratorical 'Chalk', Huxley emphasised that it was through specific, sensory impressions that his audiences should learn, and then themselves teach, the rudiments of scientific knowledge. Huxley emphasised the power of a scientific perspective on the world, as he trained a new generation in ocular laboratory skills of attention and close observation, and also in the scientific perception necessary to induce scientific law from the isolated fact, the synechdochic task of tlle man of SCIence. A pebble, or object lesson as meditation In 1836 Gideon Mantell (figure five) published Tholfghts on a Pebble; O/~ a First LeSSOIl ill Geology, in which he revisited the finding of a fine fossil specimen by the banks of a river. He dedicated the work to 'the little geologist', his son, Reginald Neville, and hoped that from the moment of opening his book young readers would become geologists, too. The bookwas self-consciously an attempt to couch 'some of the grand truths relating to the ancient physical history of our planet' in a 'simple and attractive guise': using clear prose, it was set in large type, and contained quotations 38 from popular poems such as Byron's ChiMe HoroM; later editions contained attractive coloured plates (see figure Six).31 FIGURE FIVE: A portrait of Gideon Algernon Mantell, with an Iguanodon thigh bone - his most famous geological find - behind him . . i if FIGURE SIX: "The Pebble". The artificial construction ofthe pebble as an object of analysis can here be seen, with all its fossil attributes conveniently facing the reader. 31 Gideon l\-Iantell, (1836) TbollgbtJ 011 a Pebble (London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve), vii. 39 . Mantell was spurred to revisit this scene by an 1834 article in Leigh Hlfl1t'J Lolldoll JOllrllal entitled 'On a Stone'; his response to this piece ('More Thoughts On a Stone') would form the basis of TholfghtJ Oil a Pebble when it was published two years later.32 The author (Hunt himself), culled a range of quotations from now-canonical figures, including Keats, Wordsworth, and Shakespeare, to meditate upon the philosophical-poetic resonances of the pebble, from babbling brook to precious jewel. As Mantell argued when justifying his extension to dle original article, 'this misshapen mass, this mere flint, is an inexhaustible source of interest to the contemplative mind.'33 The scene set at the beginning of ThotlgbtJ Oil a Pebble bore a striking resemblance to Mantell's own introduction to geology. After identifying the pebble as 'familiar' flint, he continued: The pebble I hold in my hand was picked up in the bed of tlle torrent which is dashing down the side of yonder hill, and winding its way through that beautiful valley, and over those Huge rocks and mounds confus'dly hurl'd, The fragments of an earlier world, which partially filling up ilie chasm, and obstructing the course of the rushing waters, give rise to those gentle murmurings tllat are so inexpressibly soothing and delightful to the SOUP4 Mantell plunged the reader into the scene with the narrator as he directed their joint sight by piling objects of attention on top of each other: 'yonder hill'; 'tllat valley'; 'iliose rocks'. From the overwhelming torrent and confusion of the stream, however, 3~ [Leigh Hunt] (1834) 'On a Stone', Leigh HIII/t's Lol/dol/ JOllrnal1, 9-10. 33 [Gideon Mantell] (1834) 'More Thoughts on a Stone', Leigh HIII/t's Lol/dol/ JOllmal 1, 110. 34 l'vIantell, Pebble, 6. 40 I the pebble was removed and sheltered within his hand. On its journey through life, it had been rescued from the tumult of movement that characterised this natural world, and had become the focus of Mantell's thoughts. Mantell's reader therefore vicariously experienced this too: the 'beautiful', 'soothing and delightful', yet confusing melee of sensory impressions was turned away from, as nature came to rest in the object of the pebble. Reassuringly, the pebble fitted into the palm of the narrator's hand. Unlike the chasm and the rushing waters, it could be manipulated: handled, mastered, and known. In Alfred Te1111yson's 1869 poem 'Flower in the crannied wall', an natural historical objects was similarly taken from its habitat and isolated in the hand: Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower - but if I could understand W~at you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.35 Apparently inspired by a flower 'plucked out of a wall at "Wagoners Wells," near Haslemere', in this verse by bringing the flower into physical human contact, and providing a human scale, the narrator emphasised the dominion of man over this humble physical specimen: compared to the poet's hand the flower was given an adjective, 'little',3(' Literary critics have noted the impact of Tennyson's myopia on his poetic vision: for him the world was 'without middle distance', a bifurcation of the 'detailed, 3, Alfred Tennyson (1869) 'Flower in the Crannied Wall', TCIII!POII'J POetl]', Robert \'11. HilI)r. (ed.), (London and New York: Norton, 1999 edn.), 372-373. 36 Quoted in an editorial note to 'Flower in the Crannied Wall', 372. 41 intimate and striking', and the 'unreal, ungraspable, and vague'.37 Just as Tennyson's poetic vision has in other ways been characterised as 'geologic', concerned with the far reaches of time, the symbolism of particular rocks, the continuity of past and present natural forces, and the practice of goi;1g 'geologising', so too was this movement that counterpoised the world of close, detailed description of particular objects with mu sings on ultimately unknowable distant realms arguably shared with geology.38 For Valerie Pitt, Tennyson's naturalobjects are so-described as to appear 'fantastic to normal vision'.39 As this chapter will make clear, many introductory scientific works in this period stressed that what was 'normal' to scientific eyes, was what for many seemed miraculous. By setting limits to beginners' visual field, and miniaturising and magnifying the phenomena in question, their introduction to these strange worlds could be eased. However, it could be argued that taking such a small and near viewpoint hinders, rather than facilitates, the gaining of knowledge: for Kerry McSweeney, the 'close-up extreme' of 'Flower in the crannied wall' clouds Tennyson's vision by the proximity of its perspective. Rather than allowing a deeper understanding of nature, through the doubts expressed by the poetic voice ('If he could understand) sIte argues that Tennyson is 'too close to the flower for it to function as . .. a metonymic symbol ... there is no continuum or whole of which it can be perceived to be a part.'40 Mantell, however, at the beginning of Pebble, quoted the metonymic aphorism that "[t]here is no picking up a pebble by the brook-side, without finding all nature in connexion with it": his excised text "ott/d, he argued, be connected to the wholes of both the geological world, and geological knowledge. John Ruskin expressed similar sentiments for the possibility of scaling up from the 'more interesting' particular rock to larger and more general natural objects, 37 Kerry McSweeney, (1998) The Lallgllage of the Senses: Sellso!]' Pm-eptllal D)'lIami.-s ill IWordSJlJorth, ColClidge, Thoreall, If/hitmall, alld Dickillson (Montreal: J\;fcGill-Queen's University Press), 173; Valerie Pitt quoted in i'vIcSweeney, 173. 38 See, for example, Dennis R. Dean (1985) Telll!pOIl and GeologJ' (Lincoln: Tennyson Society). 39 McSweene)" Lallgllage of the Senses, 172. 40 Ibid, 173. 42 claiming that 'a stone, when it is examined, will be found [to be] a mountain in miniature . .. and taking moss for forests, and gains of crystal for crags, the surface of a stone, in by far the plurality of instances, is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill; more fantastic in form, and incomparably richer in colour'.41 Many of Ruskin's drawings, such as Gneiss Rock, G1enfi"las (1853, figure seven), focused on a detailed depiction of a small segment of landscape. As Anthony Lacy Gully argues, 'the smallest, seemingly most insignificant portion of a scene could reveal many truths to him.'42 FIGURE SEVEN: John Ruskin, Study of Gneiss Rock, Gienfinias, 1853 41 Quoted in H. \V'helchel (ed.) (1993) Johll &/J"kill & the VidonclI/ E)'e (New York: Phoenix A.rt Museum), 162. 42 [bid. 43 fl Mantell did not pick just any individual object upon which to meditate. As he emphasised with a string of opening quotations, pebbles had long been freighted with cultural connotations. Indeed, their philosophical redolence had been evident since Isaac Newton's fabled encapsulation of genius' modesty, that he was 'only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then ftnding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary'.43 Henry Mayhew's 1854 biography, The Story if the Peasallt-Bqy Pbilosopbe/~' 01~ "A cbild gatberillgpebbles 011 tbe sea-sbore", linked J ames Ferguson, the eighteenth-century 'shepherd-boy .astronomer', with Newton and his pebbles as heroic exemplars for aspiring boys.44 Mantell's work also addressed the new generation, perhaps hoping to ftnd amongst them another Newton; Mantell's own mythologised beginning in geology, similarly characterised by the margins of the water and the exceptional rock, had marked him as suitably philosophical, too. · By commencing his book with the discovery of a particularly signiftcant stone, Hunt and Mantell might also have wished to connote William Paley's well-known Natural Tbeolo!!J, first published in 1802. Paley began his celebrated argument 'from design': In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a Ivakb upon the ground . .. 45 Compare this to the opening of Leigh Hunt's piece: H Quoted in Patricia Fara (2002) NeMon: The Making ofGenillS (London: Macmillan), 206. +-I Henry Mayhew (1854) The Stol)' of the Pem-atlt- BI!J' PhiloJ'opher: 0,; "A. dJild gat/Jelillgpebb/es 011 the J'ea- shore" (London). 45 William Paley (1802) Natllra/The%J)' (London: F.e. and]. Rivington, 1815 edn). 44 LOOK1NG about us during a walk to see what subject we could write upon in this our second number, that should be familiar to every body, and afford as striking a specimen as we could give, of the entertainment to be found in the commonest objects, our eyes lighted upon a stone. It was a conUTIon pebble, a flint .. . 46 Later, in the third chapter of Natlfral Theology, Paley sought to demonstrate 'that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtilty, and curiosity of the mechanism' by 'comparing a single thing with a single thing; an eye ... with a telescope.'47 Mantell stressed the religious lesson to be learnt through his geological work as he stressed that there were 'sermons in stones': like the Shakespearian characters enamoured of their rural idyll in As You Lke It, the reader of Pebble would become one who ' [fjinds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones and good in every thing'.48 A small, squat, and familiar- looking work, Mantell's book was in many ways a pebble itself, an accessible fragment of the imposing whole of geological enquiry; it was also found in 'the running brook'. In a preface to the eighth edition of the work, Mantell re-emphasised this theological purpose of the book, and linked it to the development of sensory skills: 'the more our knowledge is increased, and our powers of observation are enlarged, the more exalted will be our conception of His wondrous works.'~9 After the identification of the chance pebble as something trailing allusive clouds of philosophy and theology, yet familiar, manageable and, for the moment, static, Mantell proceeded to give it his scientific attention: 46 [L. Hunt], Londoll JOllrnal, 9. n Paley, NatllralTheology, 18. 48 William Shakespeare, As YOII Like It, H.l. 49 Mantell, (1849) Pebble (London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve, 8th edn), viii. 45 Upon examining this stone r discover that it is but the fragment of a much larger mass, and has evidently been transported from a distance, for its surface is smooth and rounded, the angles having been worn away . by friction against other pebbles, produced by the agency of running water. r trace the stream to its source, half way up the hill, and ftnd that it gushes out from a bed of gravel lying on a stratum of clay, which forms the eminence where r am standing, and 'is nearly 300 feet above the level of tlle British Channel. From this accumulation of water-worn materials the pebble must have been removed by the torrent, and carried down to tlle spot where it first attracted our notice; but we are still very far from having ascertained its origin. The bed of stones on the summit of this hill is clearly but a heap of transported gravel- an ancient sea-beach or shingle - formed of chalk-flints, that at some remote period were detached from their parent rock, and broken, rolled, and thrown together, by the action of the waves .... 50 Though based on l~s own memories, Mantell's narrator experienced the investigation again with the reader: his narrative was in1mediate, in the ftrst person and present tense: '1 trace', 'r am standing'; yet the reader was included: 'our notice', 'we are still'. The search for the origins of tlle pebble was facilitated by the narrator's precise physical journey, tracing the stream 'to its source' 300 feet above the British Channel. The narrator evoked the sensory experience of the reader, yet also pointed out the geological features of the surrounding landscape, and of the pebble itself, explaining, for example, how it was rounded by frictional forces. By affecting and directing the vision of the reader, an understanding of past phenomena could be reached, demonstrated at a later point in the text through the shared vocabulary of the verb 'to see': 'Our flint then, we see, was once fluid, and being poured out (probably in thermal waters) into a deep ocean inhabited by myriads of beings, some of which are so l'vlantell (1836) Pebble, 6-8. 46 11 I 'I not known to exist, became consolidated and surrounded by the chalk, entangling the shells', corals, and other remains which are now embedded in it.' 51 This immediate mode of describing the scene, and of narrating a physical journey through space and the text, was also employed in Mantell's travel writings, which included, in 1846, A Dqy's RaJJlble Aroulld tbe Anlient TOIVII of LelVes. A guide around his home town, the work commenced with a train journey, with Mantell pointing out scenes of interest on the way, and proceeded to provide a tour of the principal sights of the area. Mantell's narration took the reader (unsurprisingly) to a site of geologist interest, and into the present moment, sharing his privileged sight: The quarry before us, presents an instructive example of the displacements the strata have undergone ... . If we walk to the bank beyond the turnpil<:e-gate, or to a quarry on the road-side, a few hundred yards farther, we shall flnd beds of grey chalk-marl underlying the white chalk; and this marl must therefore be a more ancient deposit,sz He was visiting, perhaps, the same 'marly bank' down which the original pebble, his fossilised ammonite, had rolled. Indeed, the location did have particular signiflcance for the origins of Mantell's own geological career. As he remembered, '[f]rom its proximity to the town, it was my principal fleld of research, when I began to investigate the organic remains of Sussex; and from it I obtained the flrst fossil fish discovered in the chalk of the South Downs.'53 As well as providing beautiful views of the countryside, Mantell also took the opportunity to refer readers 'wholly unacquainted with' geology to Pebble, as 'our time will not permit us to deliver on this spot a Fi,:rt Lessoll'.54 In ITYolldm of Geology, Mantell had claimed that such a guided " Mantell (1846a) A Dqy ~- Ramble Aroulld !be His/OIic TOIIJII o/uIIJes (London: Henry G. Bolm). ;~ Ibid., 130. 5.1 Ibid., 128. 54 Ibid., 129. 47 tour, perceiving natural objects ill sillf, provided the best education, '[b]ut to those who cannot examine Nature in her secret recesses, or accompany an experienced teacher to the valleys or the mountain-tops, lectures illustrated by specimens and drawings afford, perhaps, the best substitute for the more efficient and interesting mode of instruction.'55 In his travel writings, then, Mantell provided a vicarious means of 'accompanying' his readers 'to the valleys or the mountain-tops', just as in his transcribed lectures, WOl/dm of Geology, and works such as Pebble, his authorial voice became a lecturer, and his idealised drawings substituted for actual specimens. Mantell once again combined this role of the tour guide and scientific lecturer when he recommended CeologilC11 Exmrsio11S around the Isle of Wigh! in 1847. In its introductory section, Mantell reproduced the notes taken by his 'young friends, the jVleSJ/:r. Cladstone', on a trip across the Solent the year before.56 Praising the Gladstones' success, he set a standard for the reader to emulate: These young gentlemen went unattended, and witl10ut any previous knowledge of the Isle of Wight, except what they had gathered from conversations with me, and returned home with an instructive series of the organic remains of the Island; thus affording a practical illustration of Mrs. Barbauld's admirable story of" Eyes and No Eyes."57 The tale to which Mantell referred, 'Eyes and no Eyes; or, The Art of Seeing', would have been well-known to contemporary readers as it formed the nineteenth evening's tale in] ohn Aiken and Anna Laetitia Barbauld's best-selling miscellany Evenings at Home, or the jllvel/ile Blldget Opel/ed. First published in 1794, these volumes were reprinted, and highly influential, tluoughout the nineteenth century. For example, several Victorian writers of introductory scientific works, including Phoebe " Mantell, (1848) Wonders ofGeolog)1 (London: Henry G. Bohn, sixth edn.), 193. ,6 l\fantell, (1847) Geological EXClfrsions Rolfnd the J.rle ofIWig!;/ (London: Henry G. Bolm), 20. 57 Ibid. , 21. 48 Lankester, Jane Loudon, and Charles Kingsley, remembered this story, and others, such as· Charlotte M. Yonge, used the phrase 'Eyes and No Eyes' in their own writings.58 For Kingsley the tale had taught him that 'mere reading of wise books will not make you wise men: you must use for yo\}rselves the tools with which books are made wise; and that is-- your eyes, and ears, and common sense ... your senses and your brains.'59 FIGURE EIGHT: In this illustration to 'Eyes and No Eyes' a boy once again finds something next to a brook. Resonant, to most contemporary readers, of the biblical phrase 'they have eyes but do not see' (psalms 115:5), 'Eyes and No Eyes' urged the importance of close observation of nature, arguing that though readers' eyes might be open, they were blind to the wonders of the natural world. 60 The text compared the experiences of SR Fyfe, editorial introduction to John Aiken and Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1809) Evenillgs at Home: 0,; The fUl!ellile Blfdget Opened (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2003 reprint), xxiii. 59 Charles Kingsley (1889) Madam HOIJ) alld Lady 1f70'; 0,; FiITt LeSSOIlS ill Ear!/; Lore for C/;ildren (London: Macmillan), vii-viii. GO Lightman, (2000) 'The Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science: From Reverent Eye to Chemical Retina', his 91, 651-80,652. 49 /1 William (or 'Eyes') and Robert ('No Eyes') as they returned from a walk on the heath. Roberr was bored by the experience, wishing for more sights of 'men and horses'; William, however, had been fascinated by a series of natural objects (see figure eight) about which, with the help of his teacher, he proceeded to learn. For Robert, William's journey would have been 'so tedious, always stopping to look at this thing and that!'; whereas for William it was a chance to £ill his handkerchief with 'curiosities', spied by his observant eyes in the surrounding countryside. At the end of the story the wise teacher summed up its moral, linking the proper use of the senses to temperance, social good, and even the superiority of familiar British countryside over continental 'Grand Tours': But so it is - one man walks through the world with his eyes open, and another with them shut; and upon this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge the one acquires above the other . . . . While many a vacant thoughtless youth is whirled throughout Europe without gaining a single idea wortl1. crossing a street for, the observing eye and inquiring mind find matter of improvement and delight in every ramble in town or country. Do you then, IVilliam, continue to make use of your eyes; and you, Robert, learn that eyes were given you to use. 61 It was this strategy that :rvIantell used to recruit readers into interacting with nature, urging tl1.em to seek not just sights, but knowledge and understanding. They would comprehend the detail and the richness of their surrounding landscape: the specific objects rather than the whole. In another of Tennyson's poems the Mantellian/'Eyes and No Eyes' combination of journeying through nature and looking at its small objects for inspiration can be found: 61 Men and Barbauld, E vellilJgJ' at Home, 'Eyes and No Eyes', 111-112. 50 1 ... any man that walks the mead, In bud or blade, or bloom, may ftnd, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to the mind.62 Alliteratively emphasised, was is the isolated 'and magnifted parts of nature - buds, blades and blooms - that for Tennyson had meaning. Kingsley expressed similar sentiments in his GlallclIs (1855): Seriously, if we wish rural walks to do our children any good, we must give them a love for rural sights, an object in every walk; we must teach them- and we can teach them - to [md wonder in every insect, ... the records of past worlds in every pebble ... 63 Enunciating the interaction between visual perception and mental understanding, such a travel writing 'convention' is concerned with the direction of sight towards and ~ . through imposing views. This direction occurred, for Mantell, Aiken and Barbauld, Kingsley and Te1111yson, through the ftxing of one's attention on speciftc objects. Susan Stewart similarly stresses that the power of the narrative voice lies in 'what is chosen to be related and attended to': 'detail in juxtaposition with pattern, the broad cliche illustrated by selected example.'64 An interesting parallel to this tale can be seen in Mantell's response to that emblematic nineteenth-century speCtacle, the 1851 Great Exhibition. One Wednesday in early autumn, he recorded in his journal details of an excursion to Hyde Park. Still struggling with the pain of spinal deformities that had resulted from an accident years 62 Tennyson. 'The Day-Dream'. 6.1 Kingsley (1855) GIcIllCIIS: 0,; The WOlldel'J ~r the Shore (Cambridge: Macmillan), 49. tH Susan Stewart, 011 Lollgillg, 67. 51 before, he negotiated the 'tremendous' and, to his mind, appalling, crowd of a hundred thousand vulgar visitors. He: managed to squeeze into the back and least crowded compartments of minerals, etc., and with some difficulty ascended the gallery overlooking the transept, to look down on the sea of heads beneath. All was in motion, every one was moving on, whether they would or not: . .. to pretend that this is any proof that the splendid, marvellous, incredible exhibition of nature and art, is or can be appreciated by the ignorant mobs who frequent it, is truly absurd. I remained three hours, and returned thoroughly done up. The only new object I noticed was a splendid piece of opal, and a fine mass of quartz-rock with rich veins of gold, from California.65 In a visit of three hours, Mantell noticed only two objects, both (unsurprisingly, perhaps) mineralogical specimens (see figure nine). Elsewhere, he had confessed himself 'overwhelmed' by the 'multiplicity of attractive objects' on display. Mantell's distaste for the mass entertainment of these events was clear: more particularly, he did not care for the lack of attention given to objects: 'everyone was moving on'. Without the detailed contemplation of particular rocks, noticing qualities such as provenance, or 'veins of gold', knowledge of both nature and art would neither be acquired nor 'appreciated'. In the conclusion to The Ideas in Thillgs, Elaine Freedgood discusses Thomas Richards' argument of the physical effects of the Exhibition, which produced a particularly inattentive vision: 'visitors were virtually forced to acquire a limited attention span. Like it or not, they had to adjust themselves to the serial rhythms of the place .. .. [T]he Cl1'stal Palace turned you into a dilettante .. . '66 As Freedgood comments, ' things U1ad] to be understood and evaluated quickly and (,0 lVlantell (1940) Tbe jOlll'lla/J ojGideoll M.allte/1. SIII;geoll alld Geologist, E. Cecil Cunven (ed.) (London and New York: Oxford University Press). (,(, Richards, COl7IlJlodifJ' Cllitllre ojVidoliall Britaill, 35. 52 successively'; their meanings were not revealed through the 'close inspection and consideration of their material form' that Mantell advocated.67 FIGURE NINE: The mass of rock crystal on display in Hyde Park, as depicted in Prout Newcombe's Fireside Facts from the Great Exhibition. Mantell's commitment to teaching through the guiding of sight with specific, small, actual objects was further revealed by his refusal to act as consultant to the display of 'antediluvian monsters' installed at the Crystal Palace in 1854. He had been the first palaeontologist approached to oversee the sculpting of these resurrected 67 Freedgood, Tbe Ideas ill Tbings, 146. 53 creatures, which formed a geological display in the grounds of the glass palace re- erected in enlarged form at Sydenham (see figure ten). In great part relying on their size for their educational value, a dramatic impact involving, in the words of the models ' sculptor, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, 'direct teaching through the eye', the monsters, their construction eventually overseen by Mantell's bitter adversary, Richard Owen, were almost exactly the opposite of Mantell's small pebble, cupped in the palm of his hand. 68 Though an emphasis oh sensory impressions and eyesight was shared, the geological spectacles sought to entlmse new audiences in different ways. Arguing against the purpose of the project, Mantell claimed that the aim of the exhibit 'was merely to have models of extinct animals'; unlike his own displays at his Brighton museum, no actual fossil evidence would be presented to the audience. For IVIantell the monsters, like tl1e earlier Exhibition's crowds, would be too big. He taught the reader to perceive the spectacular in the everyday: the hidden history of the world written in its stones and sand. 68 James A. Secord (2004) 'lVIonsters at the Crystal Palace', in de Chadarevian and Hopwood, 138- 169, 145; Hawkins quoted on 141. 54 I I ,11 I i I FIGURE TEN A AND B: The antediluvian monsters, as resurrected by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins at the Crystal Palace. Drops of water, or object lesson as instrument In the 1842 sixth edition of Pebble, Mantell updated the work with a second section entitled 'More Thoughts on a Pebble': this proceeded to take the visual investigation of the pebble one step further, as it was viewed microscopically, represented in an additional coloured plate entitled 'Section of the Pebble'.m Such an extension of the powers of seeing to the microscopical reahns could be seen as the next level of improving one's perception: for example, E dwin Lankester wrote in his Ha!J-Holfl'S }vith the MitTOScope (1859) that 'what eyes would be to the man who is born 69 Dean (1998) Gideoll Algemoll M.ante//.· A Bibliograph), Ivi!h Stlpplelllflltal)' EHqyS (Delmar, New York: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints) .79. By the eighth edition of 1849 the work was substantially enlarged with supplementary notes, four coloured plates, twenty-seven woodcuts, and even a portrait of TIr Mantell'. 55 blind, the Microscope is to the man who has eyes'.7o The new section of the text followed the narrative conventions already established by Mantell: a strong authorial presence guided the reader through Mantell's physical activity to the inside of the pebble, as the following quotation from the eighth edition demonstrates: 'I will ftrst strike off a small fragment, and examine it by the aid of a microscope. [woodcut] By a sharp blow of a hammer, a very thin and minute portion of the flint has been detached ... I will substitute a higher power, and lo! they are seen to be distinct globular or spherical bodies beset with spines (jig.3).'71 Perhaps inspired by the publishing success of Pebble, and also influenced by recent demonstrations he had witnessed of microscopical discoveries and new technologies, in 1846 Mantell wrote a companion work, Thoughts on AlliJJlokules. Like Pebble, AllimolCltles was concerned with the power of scientiftc knowledge to bring the invisible into view, and continued the microscopic additions to the first work: Mantell taught audiences how to see the natural world, both looking at and understanding the vanished landscapes and creatures of the deep past, or the minute inhabitants who swarmed in a drop ~f water under a glass slide (see ftgure eleven). Kate Flint notes the 'slipperiness of the borderline between the visible and the invisible' for many Victorians,?2 Like in Pebble, Mantell drew on the surrounding natural world of his local park to furnish an 'easy illustration' of the wonders revealed by the microscope: 'from some water containing aquatic plants, collected from a pond on Clapham Common, I select a small twig, to which are attached a few delicate flakes, apparently of slime or jelly; some minute ftbres, standing erect here and there on the twig, are also dimly visible to the naked eye.'73 Each chapter of the book depicted and described a particular set of animalcules, with each plate represented as if the reader 70 Quoted in l'"farina Benjamin (1996) 'Sliding Scales: NIicrophotography and the Victorian Obsession with the ~1inuscule', in Jenny U glow and F rancis Spufford (eds.) C"ltllral Babbage (London: F aber), 99-122, 106. 71 Mantell, Pebble, 35-36. 72 Flint (2000) The Vidolialls alld the ViSllalImagillatioll (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2. 73 Mantell (1846) Tbollghts 011 AllimalmlcJ (London: John Murray), 9. 56 were looking down the microscope at a scene. Similarly, the illustrations to Pebble had been idealised representations of what one would see in the natural world, exaggerating their qualities had to be exaggerated (see figure six). Yet the writers' rhetoric stressed that e1/ery pebble or drop of water could yield such knowledge, if looked at in the appropriate way. ---~ ~. -"--- i'lll - "'-1 i ' .. I ..•. "'~I ; ,P: ~ \.. " ............ 1 FIGURE ELEVEN: 'Monads and Stentors' glimpsed through Mantell's microscope. In 1851 Reeve and Benham, then publishers of Mantel1's Pebble, issued Agnes Catlow's Drops ojJ,f:l'ater in a matching square 'gift-book' format: with these 'drops', Catlow intended to baptise the reader as a member of the scientific community. In 57 order to commence and facilitate their journey into the other microscopal worlds, she transformed her readers into 'spirits', and transported them into 'the new world' of a drop of water: 'And now I see your astonishment: your minds are bewildered with the variety of new beings and forms you behold . . . '74 As in Mantell's Pebble, Catlow guided the sight of her audience around this newly perceived world, which was at flrst sight 'astonishing' and 'bewildering'. Addressing herself to the drop-bound reader, she stressed the alien and yet familiar nature ef an environment where animalcules were of comparable size to everyday objects, plants were ribbons, and vegetables came without roots, branches, or leaves: Now let me direct your attention, flrst, to the vegetation you see around you; and remark how different it is from our own. Here is a plain covered with a plant which resembles numberless yards of green flgured ribbon, in a state of entanglement. ... Here is another, much tllicker, and of a different pattern. Now we come to one, which, instead of being round, like the others, is three-sided. Then look on tills - have we anything to compare to it? You observe it is formed of two half-circular green masses, joined together on the straight side by a narrow band-like tube: you see it has neither root, branch, nor leaf, and yet it is a vegetable.75 Catlow sought analogies she and her readers could understand ('have we anytlling to compare to it?') . Tllis reassuring guiding voice also helped avoid frightened reactions: terming the sights 'vegetables' and 'ribbons' made them much less strange. 7~ Agnes Catlow (1851) DropJ of IErater: Tbeirl\lIarpe//oIlJ alld Bealllifll/ IlIbabilalllJ DiJP/ayed l:Y tbe j\IIiIToJ{ope (London: Reeve and Benham), x-xi. 75 Ibid. , xi-xiii. 58 FIGURE TWELVE: Catlow's first Drop of Water. Caclow altered her reader to the artifice she had employed in constructing her 'objects', yet claimed this was 'not unnatural', and, indeed, facilitated the acquiring of scientific knowledge (see figure twelve: I shall suppose four DROPS OF WATER to be under inspection at different times; and though it seldom happens that the objects I have depicted in each drop are found alone at any period, still I have thought this plan not an unnatural one, giving clearly some idea of classification, and preparing the way for more scientific works, when the subject is made a deeper study.76 She stressed the importance of identifying discrete objects on which to focus one's attention, lest the reader be baffled by the overwhelming novel sensory impressions 76 Ibid. , 54. 59 they experienced: 'When a drop of water, tolerably full of life, is placed under the microscope, all seems confusion to the inexperienced eye, the varied forms and rapid movements cause bewilderment in the mind of those who really wish to make a study of the names, habits, and peculiarities of these living atoms; but after some use of the glass this feeling subsides, and some one specimen attracts the attention'.?7 Thus, just like the commodities of manufacture or products of imperial industry, to a certain extent the objects in the natural historical works were in themselves artificial: as Catlow and Mantell constructed idealised representations of what could be seen under a microscope, or what fossils would be contained within a pebble, to isolate and exaggerate the features or creatures they discussed. A lobster and a piece of chalk, or object lesson as lecture In 1860 Thomas Huxley gave an object lesson on 'A Lobster; or, the Study of Zoology', to an audience of teachers. Expanding from a single lobster, what Huxley termed 'some concrete living thing, some animal, the commoner the better', he applied 'common sense · and common logic to the obvious facts it presents', leading his audience through the parts of the lobster to wider considerations of scientific speciality, the different modes of scientific enquiry, and the purpose and means of a widespread scientific education.?R Huxley exemplified the practice of scientific teaching he hoped audience-members would emulate in their own pedagogy. This practice would be based around the observation and investigation of discrete objects, teaching through direct sensory impressions, rather than vicarious reading material. Just like Mantell, Huxley sought to enthuse his audience, and his audience's future audiences, by moving away from 'dry definitions' to an active investigation of an actual object. His stressing of the lowly, and widespread, origins of his chosen living thing - 'the commoner the better' - also resonated with his ideas about widening access to scientific education, and his lectures to working men. 77 Ibid., 182. n Hmuey, 'Lobster', 3. 60 Through such lessons Huxley argued one could impart a deeper understanding of the natural world. He urged that the student be 'brought into immediate contact with facts ... acquiring through his senses concrete images of those properties of things, which are, and always will be, but approximatively expressed in human language.'79 He followed this with a phenomenological manifesto for his audience to follow: Therefore, the great business of the scientific teacher is, to imprint the fundamental, irrefragable facts of his science, not only by words upon the mind, but by sensible impressions upon the eye, and ear, and touch of the student, in so complete a matter, that every term used, or law enunciated, should afterwards call up vivid images of the particular structural, or other, facts which furnished the demonstration of the law, or the illustration of the term. HO Such a desire directly to affect the senses of the student, the 'eye, and ear, and touch', resonates with Mantell's quest to open tl1e eyes of his reader. Just as Mantell used the first-person narrative voice he would later employ in his travel writings to guide his reader to see the origin of the pebble and the geological history of the world, so too did Huxley's lecture attempt to imprint knowledge upon the reader through inlmediate sensory experience. Narrated in tl1e first person, present tense, e.g. '1 now take the fourth ring'; '1 find'; '1 turn', Huxley recapitulated the business of scientific investigation, guiding both the vision of his audience members and tl1e vicarious sight of those who would read his lecture in its expanded version, as his 1879 textbook The Crqyfish: All 79 Ibid., 14. 80 Ibid .. 61 IlItrodlfctioll to tbe St/fCry qfZOology.81 Huxley's 1876 lecture tour in America 'on Evolution' has been characterised as 'the combination of broad mental sweep and detail': similar to the twin characters of 'observant eye and enquiring mind' of Mantell the embryonic geologist.1l2 As in Mantell's perhaps poetic strategy of the ranging and specific vision, Huxley argued that the 'great matter is, to make teaching real and practical, by fixing the attention of the student on particular facts; but at the same time it should be rendered broad and comprehensive, by constant reference to the generalisations of which all particular facts are illustrations.'83 Huxley's 1868 lecture 'On a Piece of Chalk' employed a similar strategy to 'A Lobster' - he used a common piece of chalk to start, and anchor, a tour of the history of the world and its inhabitants. Symbolising and substituting for both the working- class members of his audience and England itself, 'that long line of white cliffs to which England knows her name of Albion', Huxley's lecture encompassed chalk in all its prosaic and stupendous manifestations: cliffs, carpenters' writing implements, quicklime, Atlantic deep-sea mud, tlle 'mutton-suggesting prettiness' of England's 'inland chalk country', the fur on the inside of a tea-kettle, and even an evolutionary chronicle of crocodiles.84 With his conjuring of historic geological vistas from a humble piece of rock, Huxley revisited Mantell's TholtgbtJ 011 a Pebble. By emphasising the contemplative nature of his work, Mantell had invoked the tlleological tradition of meditations on particular, usually religious, objects; he used an epigraph from Charles Bonnet's COlltemplatioll de la Nature, translated into English and published in tlle 1760s. With the Evangelical revival of the early nineteenth century, the contemplative/meditational 81 [bid., 4. 82 Bruce Summelville and tvIichael Shortland (1997) Thomas Hemy Huxley, H .G. Wells, and the Method of Zaclig', in Barr (1997b) Hem), H{{xlrys Pial"!! ill Sdellce alld Letteri: Cm/mal)l EJSC!)'i. (Athens: University of Georgia Press), 296-322, 304. 8.1 Huxley, 'Lobster', 12. 8-1 Thomas Henry Huxley (1868) 'On a Piece of Chalk', in Ban (1997a), 154-1 73. 62 genre had became newly popular, influencing such works as Mary Roberts' COl1ch%gist's Compallion (1825), as Donald Opitz has demonstrated.ss In this epistolary book, each chapter focus sed on a particular object, which gave rise to a series of contemplations, following Bishop Joseph Hall's defInition of the meditative method as 'nothing else but a bending of the mind upon some spiritual object, through divers formes of discourse, untill all our thoughts come to an issue ... occasioned by outward occurrences offered to the mind .. .' for the enkindling of our love to God'.86 Opitz identifIes the Compallioll's second letter on pearls, emblematised in the work's frontispiece, as epitomising Roberts' 'meditative style'. As in Mantell's book, Roberts' central character, the Shell Collector, came across a 'remarkably fme specimen', in this case of lv-!Ja margaritefera, 'on the banks of the Conway' river. This shell was the inspiration for a series of musings on 'the days of ancient times', which it, in combination with the vista of the ancient castle, has evoked. 87 Thus, specifIc objects could form an anchoring of an imaginative or poetic journey through time or space, as from seemingly prosaic remains visions of the past could be summoned. 'On a Piece of Chalk' began by undermining the very floor of the room Huxley and his audience occupied, as Huxley sunk a well 'at our feet in the midst of tlle city of Norwich .. . '88 Paradoxically, by this very process he sought to emphasise 'how solid is tlle foundation upon which some of tlle most startling conclusions of physical science rest.' Disturbing and displacing the bodies of audience-members, Huxley facilitated the journey through time and space on which he would take them, guided by the now-magical talisman of the piece of chalk. He was in control of them; as David Knight has noted, 'he always held audiences in the palm of his hand', like tlle 8S Donald ]\,,1. Opitz, 'Introduction' to Mary Roberts (1825) The COlldJ%giJ"t's Compallioll (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2004 reprint) , vi-vii. 86 Joseph Hall, Tbe Arte ojDiIJille Meditatioll (1606), quoted in Ibid., vii. 87 Roberts, COlldJ%gist's Compallion, 144. 88 Huxley, 'Chalk', 154. 63 piece of chalk itself.R9 Huxley was keen to demonstrate the differing appearances of objects to different eyes: Let us try another method of making the chalk tell us its own history. To the unassisted eye chalk looks simply like a very loose and open kind of stone. But it is possible to grind a slice of chalk down so thin that you can see through it-until it is thin enough, in fact, to be examined with any magnifying power that may be thought desirable. A thin slice of the fur of a kettle might be made in the same way. If it were examined microscopically, it would show itself to be a more or less distinctly laminated mineral substance and nothing more. But the slice of chalk presents a totally different appearance when placed under the microscope. The general mass of it is made up of very minute granules; but, irnbedded in this matrix, are innumerable bodies, some smaller and some larger, but, on a rough average, not more than a hundredtll of an inch in diameter, having a well-defIned shape and stmcture. A cubic inch of some specimens of chalk may contain hundreds of thousands of tllese bodies, compacted together with incalculable millions of the granules.90 Much like Mantell's subjection of the pebble to different points of view - the naked eye, the travel-guide, the microscope, Huxley demonstrated how looking at the piece of cl1all{, and physically investigating it, turned it into different objects: mud, a writing implement, 'carbonate', tlle fossil remains of minute organisms. From being a layer of 'fIne mud' undersea, the chalk: when brought to the surface, dries into a greyish white friable substance. You can write with this on a blackboard, if you are so inclined; and, to the R? David Knight, (1996) 'Getting science across', BI7'tish JOlfmal for the Histo1)1 of Science 29, 129-138, 136. ?O Huxley, 'Chalk', 157. 64 eye, it is quite like very soft, greyish chalk. Examined chemically, it proves to be composed almost wholly of carbonate of lime; and if you make a section of it, ... and view it with the microscope, it presents innumerable . Globigelilltlf embedded in a granular matrL,,{.91 Moreover, Huxley self-consciously referred to the use of a piece of chalk when writing on a blackboard, referring both to educational practice, and to the chalk- drawn images with which he himself used to illustrate his 'Profusely Illustrated' lectures.92 One audience member recalled that the 'diagrams in chalk, drawn from memory on the blackboard, often as a running accompaniment to a description, shared in the same admirable qualities as the spoken words. They were masterly performances'.93 Through talking about, and through using, a piece of chalk, Huxley could educate the sight of his listeners. Indeed, an enduring image of Huxley himself is an 1861 photograph of him next to a chalk sketch of a gorilla skull (see figure thirteen).94 Like the pebble and the drop of water, the piece of chalk, though mundane, was specifically chosen because of its existing connotations. FIGURE THIRTEEN: Thomas Huxley holding a piece of chalk. 91 Ibid., 160. n George R. Bodmer (1997) 'The Technical Illustration of Thomas Henry Huxley', in Ban (1997b), 277-295,277. 93 Rev. W. J. Sollas, quoted in Ibid., 281. ?~ This image is reproduced, for example, on the paperback cover of Paul \'V1ute's study of HmJey: see Wlute (2003) Thomas HlIx /ry: Mak illg tbe ''NIall of Science" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) . 65 The narrative of visual education in the nineteenth century should not, however, be read as leading up to the very specific agenda of Huxley. Lesser-known texts such as Annie Carey's Alftobiogmpl?J' if a Lump if Coa/. . . (1870) also sought to train readers in skills of observation, tolerance, and discrimination through the stories of common things, as objects from their quotidian surroundings came to life and narrated their stories to an audience of children.95 In the 'Autobiography of a Grain of Salt' Carey used the novelistic introductory paragraphs to stress objects' altering appearances to different eyes. One grain of salt, isolated by being 'drawn away from the rest': appeared to grow gradually larger and larger, till at last Lilly exclaimed, "Oh look! look, Edith! some fairy must have touched it and made it all at once so pretty and smooth, just like a small glass box, only I do not see where to open it." "No, little Lilly," said a brisk, clear voice from out of the middle of the box, as the child called it, "no fairy has touched me; I am just what I was before, a grain of common salt; it is your eyes that are touched, and you see me more co~rrectly . . .. "96 In the preface to the work Carey had stressed that 'all true scientific training' formed a certain 'habit of mind': ' the power . .. of perceiving clearly, discriminating carefully, and investigating patiently'; in the text she demonstrated that by the second tale in the work Lilly's eyes had been 'touched' by her education and she perceived individual natural objects in such as way as they are able to speak to her.97 95 Annie Carey [1870] Autobiograp/!JI ofa Lump ojCoal,' A Grai" of Salt; a Drop ojWatel;'A Bit ojOId Iroll; A Piece ojF/;II! (London: Cas sell, Fetter, & Galpin). % Ibid., 26 . 97 Ibid., iv. 66 Conclusion By the end of Thoughts 011 a Pebble, Mantell had changed his reader's view of the piece of flint with which he commenced. Lauding the 'beneficial influence' of geological investigations 'upon the mind and character', in later editions of the book Mantell claimed that: In circumstances where the uninstructed and incurious eye can perceive neither novelty nor beauty, he who is imbued with a taste for natural science will everywhere discover an inexhaustible mine of pleasure and instruction, and new and stupendous proofs of the power and goodness of the Eternal! For every rock in the desert, every boulder on the plain, evety pebble by the brook-side, every grain of sand on the sea-shore, is fraught with lessons of wisdom to the mind which is fitted to receive and comprehend their sublime import. 98 Mantell contrasted the reader's 'new' eyesight with that with which he or she had started. Having re!ldered his eyes 'instructed' and 'curious' by appropriately ' fitting' his mind, Mantell's reader could go forth into the natural world to commence his own geological career. He had been taught the art of seeing pebbles. The importance of eyesight, observation, and the visual imagination in nineteenth-century literature and culture has been well-documented. By allying such readings with specifically scientific texts, and the notion of the object lesson, this chapter has elucidated how a strategy of visual education was an important means by which writers and lecturers recruited new audiences to participate in the sciences. Through directing the sight of beginners to look differently at small everyday items, writers ensured that their senses would not be overwhelmed by new impressions, and developed and altered their perceptions on the world in general. Readers' new 98 Mantell, Pebble, 54-55. 67 perception was characterised by melding a ranging and a specific vision, that has also been traced in travel writings; through this direction, use of the speculative or imaginative faculties was constrained by the detailed and attentive study of actual objects. A dual vision was entrained - the detailed description of the small and close, yet an interest in the meaningful distant. These investigations of the small and cdmmonplace were deemed appropriate for beginners, especially children. In part this was -because their eyesight was perceived as suited to this way of seeing; for example, as Charles Dickens noted in chapter two of David Coppeifield, entitled 'I Observe': 'I believe the powers of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy.'99 But this methodology also helped to anchor their thoughts, to prevent their sight being distracted, and to pare down the sciences to a single, apparently simple, material object. Such a focus provided a means of bounding the scope of these initial enquiries, and a familiar means through which to facilitate the communication of scientific facts, concepts, and theories. Despite the seemingly trivial origins of th~se objects, they were often very deliberately chosen as items already invested with a series of particular meanings, or used to tell certain kinds of stories; thus, Mantell was inspired by his own initiation into the sciences, but also invoked connotations of Newton playing with pebbles on the seashore, of Paley coming across a rock on a heath, and of a meditative religious tradition. Huxley sought to emphasise the commonplace and solid foundations on which scientific theories rested, and self-consciously referred to his own use of a piece of chalk to illustrate his lessons, and the significations of pieces of chalk in education, as well as using it as a symbol of England and her working men. Although the authors of these texts could have chosen big and strange objects to enthuse new audiences about the sciences, as did the creators of the antediluvian monsters at Sydenham, they believed mundane yet meaningful things provided a more appropriate entry-point. For Mantell 99 Charles Dickens (1850) DaJJid CoppCljield (J...ondon: Penguin Classics, 1996), 21. 68 and Tennyson, the search for the hidden stories and secrets of nature was facilitated by the taking of small, everyday objects such as isolated flowers and pebbles, miniaturising the natural phenomena in question. Moreover, by using such objects these writers and lecturers could impart scientific skills: they demonstrated that part of what it meant to be a naturalist or philosopher was to search out the small but significant details, even when dealing with large creatures, or distant planets. The scientific, just like the poetic, vision dealt not only with over-arching vistas and grand sweeps, but also with the commonplace. The influential children's tale 'Eyes and No Eyes' informed much of this rhetoric of nineteenth-century writers who revealed the wonders of the natural world to its hitherto unseeing inhabitants. Like the teacher in the tale, many emphasised the importance of the twin characteristics of 'observing eye and inquiring mind'. As in 'Eyes and No Eyes', more than simply communicating scientific knowledge to their audiences, these writings and lectures encouraged an active engagement with and education in the natural sciences. Through their emphasis on the experiences undergone by those who investigated the natural world, these popularisers sought to engage new audiences with the sciences: to enthuse them with amazing tales but also to impart practical skills: close observation, attention to detail, clear perception, reasoning, concentration, discernment, and patient investigation. This notion of the 'art of seeing' would also become associated with figures such as Ruskin, and Gerard Curtis argues that it appropriately describes 'the Victorian approach to observation and a Victorian passion for refuting the skills of 100king'.lllo I have focused in this chapter on the specifically visual skills imparted by object lesson texts. Some of the texts achieved this by a fust person, present tense narration, as the reader was taken step-by-step with the author or lecturer through the different parts of a lobster or pebble. The texts emphasised sensory impressions, even if 100 G . Curtis (2002) Visl/al/Words: Art alld the Matel7al Book ill T ' idol7all Ellglalld (Aldershot: Ashgate), 103. 69 vicarious: pebbles, flowers, twigs, lobsters and pieces of chalk were held W(e books in authors' hands, and closely scrutinised. As Huxley argued in his promotion of scientific over solely literary education, an interaction with things provided a more direct access to knowledge about nature, imparting understanding, rather than merely superficial 'seeing', and bookish 'learning'. Though many of these texts were themselves having to teach through words, they chose language that emphasised or reproduced as closely as possible first-hand encounters with natural objects, the sensory experiences of investigating particular things oneself: grinding up a piece of chalk; holding a smooth pebble in one's hand; the initially astounding sights glimpsed through a microscope; picking up a twig from a nearby pond. Through discussing these objects, therefore, these texts demonstrated how it was possible to render visible to a non-specialist audience seemingly invisible parts of nature, either because they lie beyond the limits of our perception, or because they usually lie beyond our notice. With 'seeing' eyes, they could be perceived. 70 1 2. FANCIFUL FACTS 'Oh, now all corrunon things become uncommon and enchanted to me.' Charles Dickens, after reading the Arabian Nigbts101 THIS THESIS IS FULL OF COrvHv[ON THINGS. From pebble to primrose, candle to cup of tea, they were often used as entry-points to the science~ in the mid-nineteenth century. By teaching their magical properties, wondrous powers, and hidden histories, the objects of everyday life were rendered unfamiliar and strange, uncorrunon and enchanted. The language of myth and magic was often employed in introductory scientific writings to accomplish what for Charles Dickens had been achieved by reading The Arabian Nights: facts and forces could have the same effect as fantasies, could be written as fairy tales, and could be identified with fairies themselves. In this chapterI will explore the contested, competing and conflated issues of 'fact' and 'fancy' in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, particularly in relation to knowledge about specific common objects. I shall focus on a series of examples, including insects, a horse, drops of water, and a primrose, and on contemporary concerns with fairies and fairy tales, to argue that such narratives were not perceived as necessarily opposed to the object lesson philosophy; indeed, for many authors they could fruitfully be combined, as the didactic fantastic transported readers to a modern wonderland of science. 101 Quoted in N1ichael Slater (1988) 'Dickens in Wonderland', in Peter L. Caracciolo (ed.) The Arabian Nights ill Ellglish I..iteratllre: Stlldies ill the Reaptioll tifThe Thousand and One Nights illto B,itish Cllltllre, (J\hcmillan Press) 130-142,131. 71 Attacking 'that cursed Barbauld crew' at the beginning of the century, Charles Lamb claimed that for fact-filled instructive works knowledge 'must come to the child in the shape of knowledge'. 102 The question at the heart of this chapter is this generic one: how the rewriting of fairy tales as conveyors of scientific facts, the presentation of a lecture as a trip to fairyland, and the avoidance of taking either a fanciful or factual 'extreme', played with the 'shapes' in which knowledge was communicated to children. Rather than a fixed 'pigeon hole' view of categorising educational scientific writing, in which a text was. fitted into the genre of either a textbook or a fairy tale, a didactic dialogue or travel guide, a more supple use of genre is more helpful, thought of as akin to family resemblances or centres of attraction, what Ralph O'Connor calls 'sets of broadly-agreed norms'.103 With tllls looser sense of genre, instructive and amusing - fact-filled and fanciful- works do not have to be rigidly separated, and Gradgrind can meet the fairies. Moreover, tllls has implications for my use of tlle object lesson as a genre: rather than simply a distinct pigeon hole it is, rather, a sense of resemblance, the combination of rhetorical tropes and ways of explaining and engaging with the material and natural world I outlined in my introduction. This chapter addresses tllls generic question through the listening ears of middle class children, and with the stories that led children to marvel and wonder at their surrounding domestic and natural environments, full of enchanted common objects. I explore how educational writers enticed their young readers and listeners to learn about nature by employing imaginative narrative strategies, fables, and metaphors, and by dressing introductory explanations in the garb of fairy-land. The 'magic' of these tales, such as John Cargill Brough's Fairy-Tales if 5 cielll:e (1859) and Arabella Buckley's The Fairy-Land if Sciwce (1879), I contend, resided in the 1112 Charles Lamb, 23rd October 1802, quoted in Tess Cosslett (2006) Talking Allimals ill B,itii/) CbildrCIIJ' Fictioll, 1786-1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate), 27. 103 For the limitations of a 'pigeon hole' view of genre, see O'Connor, Ealtb 011 SbOl", 228-230; 'broadly-agreed norms' 011 229, 72 juxtaposition of everyday humdrum reality and fantastical forces, creatures, and stories·, and in the play with what was familiar and unfamiliar to their childish audience. The fairy-tale actions of physical forces and biological processes were not the inhabitants of a far-off realm, but were unveiled in one's everyday surroundings, as Buckley afflrmed in her introduction: 'the ftre in the grate, the lamp by the bedside, the water in the tumbler, the fly on the ceiling above, the flower in the vase on the table, anything, everything, has its history, and can reveal to us nature's fairies .'104 Such speciftcity of directed vision, and the precise.location of the reader in a room with a bed, a ftre, a tumbler, vase, and table, was continued in the chapters of the book, which often asked readers actually to hold such small objects as a segment of orange, or an ahnond, to grasp both mentally and physically the concepts about which they were being told. Providing a new perspective on the 'fact and fancy' educational debate of the period, the object lesson tradition - presented by Dickens in Hard Times (1854) as potentially the worst form of dryly factual instruction - can in these ways be reconceived as an often lively way of writing, which sought to engage both the imaginations and real-world experiences of beginners. Countering Dickens' admittedly satirical presentation of the disastrous results of wholly separating fact from fancy, this chapter shows that many of these writers used the language of wonder to elevate what could be dismissed as the boring artefacts of quotidian life to the status of marvels and prodigies: it was by combining the physically-existing and fact-filled object, such as a lump of coal, with a fanciful tale or bizarre personality that tlus was acIueved. I demonstrate how through tlus more narrative object lesson teaching the everyday became wondrous: insect fairies could be found fluttering their wings at the bottom of the garden, and the seeds of every flower contained a sleeping beauty waiting to be awoken by a sunlit kiss. The very raindrops that fell from the sky were competing suitors for the hand of an exotic Princess, and plum puddings and \O~ Arabella Buckley (1879) The FailJl-Lllld of S,ie","C (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2003), 13, 73 cricket bats grew on trees. By enchanting objects, facts were made fanciful, and childten "vere welcomed into the fairy-land of Victorian science. Enchanted horses and drops of water, or object lessons as fact and fancy In autumn 1837, the statistical section, C, of a scientific society opened its session with a curious presentation. The speaker reported that the group had latterly devoted its energies to the topic of 'infant education among the middle classes of London', in which a survey had revealed the following books in circulation: Jack the Giant-killer Ditto and Beanstalk Ditto and Eleven Brothers Ditto and Jill Total 7,943 8,621 2,845 1,998 21,407105 This preponderance of fantastical works had had dire consequences, the report continued, resulting in 'lamentable' 'ignorance'. As the professor detailed: 'One child, on being asked whether he would rather be Saint George of England or a respectable tallow-chandler, instantly replied, "Taint George of Ingling." Another, a little boy of eight years old, was found to be firmly impressed with a belief in the existence of dragons, and openly stated that it was his intention when he grew up, to rush fortll sword in hand for the deliverance of captive princesses, and the promiscuous slaughter of giants .... They had not tlle slightest conception of the commonest principles of mathematics, and considered Sinbad the Sailor the most enterprising voyager that the world had ever produced.'lo6 The professor regretfully concluded that this was the result of teaching with faulty, untrue stories. A lively discussion ensued - for example, could Jack and Jill be exempted from criticism, on the grounds 105 Charles Dickens (1984) The Mlfdjog Papel'f (Alan Sutton: Pocket Classics), 40. 106 Ibid. 74 that it encouraged industry, in the form of walking up hills to fetch pails of water? - in which '[s]everal other Members ... dwelt upon the immense and urgent necessity of storing the minds of children with nothing but facts and figures; which process the President very forcibly remarked, had made them (the section) the men they were.'I07 Of course, this report was not of an actual meeting of an organisation such as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (founded 1831), rather of its satirical counterpart the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything, a lampoon from the pen of Dickens. Its delegates more concerned with competing for bottles of mulled port, combating seasickness, gossiping about fellow professors Snore, Doze, Wheezy and Slug, and conducting secretive experiments on mistakenly purloined puppies, the society was a thinly-veiled caricature of the meetings of these societies. Yet the conclusion of this section report - that minds should be stored with 'nothing but facts and figures ' - betrays a criticism often levelled at scientific education at this time. Most famously, Dickens himself began his 1854 Hard Times with an attack on extreme utilitarian object lesson teaching, in which Thomas Gradgrind urged that 'facts alone are wanted in life': "Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant notlling else, and root out everytlling else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: notlling else will ever be of any service to them .... Stick to Facts, Sir!"108 In a parody of teaclling through singular classes of objects, the children were asked to detail what they knew about one particular animal: in this case, facts about the horse. It was, a boy named Bitzer claimed, a: 107 Ibid. , 42. lIJ8 Charles Dickens (1854) Hard Til1lCJ" (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994), 1. 75 "Quadmped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer. I09 This presentation of an information-laden horse satirised the stereotype of the overtly factual object lesson: a list of the qualities, uses, properties and origins of a common thing, to be elaborated with the aid of a teacher, and memorized by the pupil. The Mayos' Lessons on O~jeds (1831), which detailed the sensory teaching they had introduced in tlleir school at Cheam, was indeed overtly list-like (see figure fourteen) . Works such as Richard Phillips' A Million qfFads (1832) were repositories of more advanced knowledge, but based around tlle same list-like format, and grouped by particular object or subject of interest. The astounding onslaught of information the reader met upon opening this book (as Phillips claimed in a preface, it should really have been termed a 'million and a half of facts) covered topics including modern history and many sciences. Turning to the section on the animal kingdom, readers would encounter facts including the following: A horse has 24 grinders, 4 tushes, or single teeth, and 12 front teeth. At five the colts' teeth are shed, and the tushes appear; at six they are grown, and at eight the black marks disappear, and the horse is called aged. I 11) As well as dental details, readers also learnt the difference between a mule and a hinny, that Arab horses 'sleep standing and rocking', and a series of comparisons between the speeds and endurance of various named horses: how far, how fast, and carrying what. 10') Ibid., 4. 11 0 Richard Phillips, (1832) A Millioll ofFactJ alld Comd Data ill tbe Elltire Cirde of tbe SciC/uu (London: Darton and Clark), 123. 76 LESSON xm. .... &1lA.IJl 01' 00 ...... P4rlI. Qvalitiu. '!be aurCa.cee. H J'I)Uted it is brown. cuned 1UJ'facea. hard. fiat lIllface. Cl iap. ~Te. sapid. edge. aromatic. stimulating. agreeable tcJ the taste. pulverable, or may bE turned inle powder. IIOlid. H unroaeted, dingy yellow. inodorou8, without smell. disagreeable to the taate U«-To make a beverage, or drink. ParV. The limbe. bows. - bladel. LESSON XIV • .... PA.Dl 01' IIOIBUJl.Io QuI:ilitU .. It illtesl. bright. reflective. FIGURE FOURTEEN: A typical page of object lessons, here on 'a grain of coffee' and 'a pair of scissars', which presented a list of attributes to be learned. Beginning with the lengthy and pedantically accurate zoological language of 'quadruped' and 'graminivorous', Bitzer's catalogue of horsiness was designed to resemble these lists of numbers, names, and authoritative declarations, and indeed bears a striking similarity to the passage from Phillips' book (including the references to 'grinding'). However, it can be argued that by representing what one would perhaps ftnd in an informational book Dickens did not give a fair sense what an object lesson itself would have been like. It would, rather, have been an engaging conversation, or story, told by the teacher to his pupils, woven with and around an object in his or her hand and the facts contained in the book, as reproduced in the Mayos' Lessons on O~jedr as idealised classroom conversations. Hany Hieover's Thi1lgs 77 }V01th k1l0lviJlg about horses (1859), perhaps tbe place to look for equine information, was itself far from a dry catalogue, encompassing subjects including driving out in a carriage, stabling, and treatments for 'ailing horses', as well as peculiarities of shape, habits, and form (from curby-hocked to ewe-necked) in the creatures. I I I Moreover, the book was informal and conversational in ton~, as Hieover introduced illustrative characters where appropriate, or supposedly responded to readers' letters. Even Phillips' 111iilioll of Facts was not simply int~nded as a storehouse of information, but as a stimulus and aid to conversation 'in the closet and the active world'; with quotations from Burke and Bacon on the title page referencing the usefulness of facts in rendering a companion 'agreeable', or when writing, speaking, or meditating with 'understanding'. I 12 Moreover, read in the light of his radical politics, Phillips' work became much more that a dry list of information: his millions of facts were addressed to millions of men, published cheaply to reach and energise a wide audience; as Phillips claimed in his preface, providing a thousand facts per penny. The sheer quantity of information contained in this and similar texts was intended to wonder and amaze: books such as The Arcalla of Science and Art; 01~ One Thousalld Popular lImelltiol/J alld Improvemellts (1828); and Dionysius Lardner's Om Thousand and Ten Thillgs Worth KI101Villg (1856) themselves echoed in their titles the Thousa1ld and Om Nights of Arabian story-telling. I 13 A conversion of the objects and stories of childhood into instructive pastimes underpinned Dickens' later criticism of Mr Barlow, Thomas Day's tutor character from the influential San4ford alld MeJioll (first published 1783), who saw in every event an educational opportunity: he 'didactically improved all sorts of occasions, from the I11 Harry Hieover (1859) ThiflgJ !Wortb KllolJJillgAbout HorseJ (London: T. C. Newby), iii-iv. 11 2 Phillips, Millioll ofFach, title page. 113 These works are listed in Alan Rauch (2001) Useflll KllolI,ledge: tbe VidoriallJ, morality, alld the march of illte/led (Durham, N .C., and London: Duke University Press). 78 consumption of a plate of cherries to the contemplation of a starlight night', or even the TboJlsaNd aNd ONe Nights themselves: What right had [Mr. Barlow] to bore his way into my Arabian Nights? Yet he did. He was always hinting doubts of the veracity of Sindbad the Sailor. If he could have got hold of the Wonderful Lamp, I knew he would have trimmed it and lighted it, and delivered a lecture over it on the qualities of sperm-oil, with a glance at the whale fisheries. He would so soon have found out - on mechanical principles - the peg in the neck of the Enchanted Horse, and would have turned it the right way in so workmanlike a manner, that the horse could never have got any height into the air, and the story couldn't have been. 114 Dickens feared Mr Barlow would extend this programme of didactic improvement even to fairy-tales, and by converting their stories into factual exemplars would destroy tlleir magic. Such writings have been read as emblematizing Dicken's antipathy towards factual writings and the educational cramming of young children. However, he satirised object facts by giving one extreme version of what a lesson could have been like: it is the possible quantity of unleavened information that attracted Dickens' ire, and the barb of his wit, as revealed in the eloquent '(and much more)' which followed Bitzer's response. As the narrator commented after listing the array of knowledge boasted of by M'Choakumchild: 'Ah, rather overdone, lVI'Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!'IIS Indeed, one of the titles Dickens had considered for the book was Extremes !vIeet. fIG A criticism of taking a scientific interest or pursuit to an extreme, particularly on the part of women, had been expressed twenty years earlier 114 Quoted in Harry Stone, (1980) Dit'kellJ and the IlIvisible IIl'orld: FailJl Talu, Fallta!)', alld NOllel-Makillg (London: lvIacmillan), 19. 115 Dickens, Hard Times, 7. IIG See Elaine Ostrey (2002) Soda! Dreamillg: DickellS alld the FailJl Tale (New York and London: Routledge), 52. 79 in the form of comic composite caricatures, in which the bodies of those of 'scientific habits' became transformed into their objects of inquiry, from books to bugs. I 17 Dickens' descriptions of some of his characters invoked the idea of becoming your interest: Gradgrind had gone to such a factual extreme that his very body turned into a dry, square storehouse of information: The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes, found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall . ... The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of fi.rs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if tl1e head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, .. . all helped the emphasis. I IS Later on, this wasyaralleled in a description of Gradgrind's house: 'A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the principal windows, as its master's heavy brows overshadowed his eyes.'119 In 1833 the Comic Offering had used just this analogy to humorous effect (see figure fifteen): 11 7 See James A. Secord (2006) 'Scrapbook Science: Composite Caricatures in Late Georgian England' in Ann B. Shteir and Bernard Lightman (eds.) Figlllillg it Ollt: Sdellfe, Gender, Visllal Cllltllre (Hanover and London: University Press of New England), 164-191; on 165 Secord reproduces a lithograph of 'A Lady of Scientific Habits', constructed from weighty books. 118 Dickens, Hard Times, 1. 119 Ibid., 8. 80 FIGURE FIFTEEN: This caricature of Hamlet of Denmark punned on the dual meaning of 'Hamlet' as a small town and Shakespearian hero; like Dickens' book, it identified a person with a square building, windows with eyes, etc. One of Dickens' best-known articles, and for some commentators evidence for Dickens' preference for 'more fancy ... less fact', 'Frauds on the Fairies' appeared in Household Worels in 1853. 120 A direct response to George Cruikshank's re-writing of Cilldere/la as a temperance tract, in this Dickens argued for a separation of didacticism from fantasy. However, another article from the same periodical, Henry Morley's 'The Water Drops: a Fairy Tale' had been precisely this meld of didactic fact and fairy fancy: it discussed problems of polluted water, particularly in poor areas of London, in the guise of the adventures of the Cloud Country People, each particular drop of water becoming a distinct fairy. 121 The framing narrative featured a familiar trope: a contest between the suitors Nebulus, Nubis, and Nephelo, subjects of the Prince of 120 Dickens to Angela Burdett Coutts, quoted in Stone, Dickens alld the Invisible If/'orld, 16; (Dickens) (1853) 'Frauds on the Fairies', HOlfsehold Words VIII (October 1 st), 97-100. 121 [Henry Morley) (1850) 'The Water-Drops. A Fairy Tale', HOlfsehold Words I (August 17th), 482-489. See Costry, Social Dreamillg, 121. 81 Nimbus, for the hand of Princess Cirrha, daughter of King Cumulus. For those who already had some metereological knowledge, the names of these characters (and the supposedly offensive vernacular 'mackerel', 'ball of cotton' and 'cat's tail' alternatives) would act as puns on cloud classification; but for those without they would be more like the exotic words found in Dickens' favoured Arabia" Nights. 122 The story began by contrasting scientific and fairyland descriptions of a place not in the east, but 'far in the west'. Its appearance was usually 'accounted for' 'by principles of Meteorology', but 'it is well known in many nurseries, that the bright land we speak of, is a world inhabited by fairies.'l23 The purely scientific explanation for the colours of the sunset was deemed not sufficient or suitable for the nursery, where it was 'well known' that fairies were the better explanation for meteorological phenomena. From fairyland, the tale descended along with the various suitors, to the streets and sewers and kettles of London, following the path along which each drop flowed. The truth of the story was afftrmed by bracketed references to the sources of tlle information spoken by the travelling fairy-drops: intruding on tlle narrative they pierced the fairy tale veneer and reminded readers they were learning about actual events: "How many people have to drink out of this butt?" asked Nubis. "Really I cannot tell you," said a neighbor Drop. "Once I was in a butt in Bethnal Green, twenty-one inches across, and a foot deep, which was to supply forty-eight families . (Report of Dr. Gavin).124 The conviction that through fanciful fable concrete and true realities could be imparted, from the corpses of cats floating in fetid metropolitan waters to the 1 ~2 [iV[orley], ,\Vater-Drops', 482-485. 123 Ibid., 482. 124 Ibid. 484. 82 types of discussions about water and sanitary reform ongoing in well-to-do houses,-was central to the success of this story. As we have seen in chapter one, literary object lessons on drops of water were very popular throughout the nineteenth century, included in Buckley's Fairy-Lal/d of S ciel/ce, Annie Carey's A1ftobiogmpbies of a LlImp of Coal (1870), and forming the focus for Agnes Catlow's Drops of Water (1851). Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale entitled 'The Drop of Water' (1848) also compared the microscopic view of the teeming and violent world of a water-drop to the bustle of a great city such as Paris.125 Rather than 'Water-Drops" use of components of clouds, in a poem prefaced to Catlow's book the tiny animalcules glimpsed within the droplet were converted into gems, flowers, and wondrous beings: creatures beautiful and bright, Disporting 'midst its liquid light. Some, like to rare and clustering gems; Like lilies some, with silver stems, Waving in graceful motion, slow, (Like measured cadence) to and fro; Others like fairy bells appear, Ringing their chimes in fancy'S ear;- And there are serpent-forms, that glide 'Midst tiny banks of moss ... Illuminating the hidden inhabitants of a drop of water became something of a commonplace itself in the mid-century, linked to contemporary campaigns of sanitation and water reform, advocated by such prominent figures as Dickens, Henry I~'; For Andersen's connections to and conversations with Oersted and scientific debates, see Ane Grum-Schwensen (2005) 'Little Hans Christian and great Hans Christian: the poet and the scientist', IlIterd/sdp/illa!)' S,'ieJlfC RevielvJ 2005, vol. 30 (4), 349-355. 83 Mayhew and Michael Faraday. Satirical publications such as P1JlldJ exploited their audience's familiarity with microscopical images to portray 'The Wonders of a London Water Drop': rather than the positive associations of glimpsing this hitherto unnoticed world, however, PUI/cb wryly inverted the contemporary representations of lurking organisms who caused disease: instead of pathogenic animalcules they became chimerical pathogenic aldermen, the real cause of dle sanitary problems (see figure sixteen). 126 Horrified, not edifying, reactions to the opening of eyes was depicted in several nineteenth-century images enlarging the drop of water: being able to see the true face of nature was not necessarily a good thing. 127 As Kate Flint puts it, 'it is impossible to ignore the fact dlat for many Victorians, that which was not visible did not so much inspire as frighten.'12R Writers have noted that much of the significance of mundane domestic objects and products such as gas and dust for Victorians, was their 'capacity to suggest the vastness of imaginative conjecture that may lie behind and beyond the most apparendy mundane: dle invisible behind the visible.'129 Indeed, microscopic visions of abundant life and supernatural creatures, such as that in 'Monster soup' (see figure seventeen), have been read as having a profound influence ~n the· format, scale, and subject-matter of mid-nineteenth- century fairy paintings. 130 1 ~6 Curtis, Visl/allf:7onh, 70. 127 For the use of these microscopical images magnifying the polluted contents of London water in water fIlter advertisements, see Ibid., 70. I2H Flint, Visl/al Imagillatioll, 34. 1 ~9 Ibid., 63. 1.10 Ursula Seibold-Bultma1111 (2000) 'lvlonster soup: the microscope and Victorian fantasy', IlIterdisciplillalJl S,ietlce RevieJIIs, 25, 211-219. 84 FIGURE SIXTEEN: 'Monster soup commonly called Thames water, being a correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to us!!!' I~ _==_P~1i~..!-OH n~U!~lOS' oumr!.lU~ ----.-1 THt WQNOtRI Of .. lONOON W,I,T£R 0"0'. ! ~;S:~~~ti~ "' oI~~~~ ~ ! , .:..u,"'~>l t_""""''''_ .u..- ... ~_h , le~~~~"~I' ~t:::')U: f 1-----· · ! i I II .. r~d"lo J. DJ ." Of lJO~J>o" W,I,TE.:;.. .:I_ .... 4bol" Ib...!.uu ll 10 lllaw,. • 1--'.'-=-=-,,--,-,,==:..::::..:=== ! FIGURE SEVENTEEN: 'The Wonders of a London Water Drop'. Whilst the main body of Catlow's text contained a description of various microscopic forms, in its introductory section she continued tlus language of 'wizard 85 Science', 'by some magic spell' revealed, identifying both her readers and science with spirits, and transporting them through a magic portal: My readers must fancy themselves spirits, capable of living in a medium different from our atmosphere, and so pas's with me through a wonderful brazen tunnel, with crystal doors at the entrance. These doors are bright, circular, and thick, of very peculiar constr~ction, having taken much time and labour to bring to perfection. A spirit nam~d Science opens them to all who seek her, and feel induced to enter her domains.ul The next section goes on to show another fanciful strategy for engaging readers with scientific facts: that the visible fairies at the bottom of the garden could be used to . teach scientific and moral lessons. Insects, or object lessons from fairies The frontispiece to AL.O.E.'s Fairy KlIo}}}-a-bit (1866) introduced both Philibert Philimore and Sidney Pierce, its child heroes, and the actual reader of the book to its eponymous main character, a book-dwelling fairy lecturer (see figure eighteen): a tiny figure, not six inches high, dressed Wee a student, in cap and gown, with wee dots of spectacles on his nose, and a grand beard, nearly an inch in length, which reached his little girdle! The figure had as a pen behind his ear a quill from a humming-bird's wing, and at his girdle hung an ink-bottle about the size of an elder-berry. His eyes, not quite so large as those of a robin, but a good deal brighter and merrier, twinkled 131 Catlow, Drops ojlJ7aler, x-xi. 86 through the tiny spectacles, which looked like diamond dew-drops set in a single thread of gold! 132 FIGURE EIGHTEEN: Sidney's Introduction to the Faity'. This frontispiece brought the children and the fairy together in a richly-furnished library, where Fairy Know-a-bit lived amongst the books. A.L.O.E., or Charlotte Maria Tucker, a prolific author of children's books on subjects from mining and rats to needles and India, had converted the didactic voice of her text into a fairy lecturer suitable for Victoria's Britain. As he argued: m A.L.O.E. [e. fl'L Tucker] (1872) Fairy KJloI/J-a-Bit: 01 ; a N lltsbe// ojKllow/edge (London: T. Nelson and Sons) , 12-13. 87 . Times have changed - and so have I. A railway now runs right through the valley which was our favourite haunt - there are engine-lights instead of the glow-worm's, and the scream of the whistle drowns the song of the bird! Education is now all the fashion, and fairies, lllie bigger people, are sent to learn lessons at school. 133 The fairies had been chased away from tl1eir traditional home by tl1e steam engine, and recast as model citizens for contemporary society. As another separate group from 'bigger people' - in tllls case, adults - children were encouraged to identify with ilie fairies, as they were educated ilirough the text. The main body of the text repeated the object lessons Fairy Know-a-bit gave to Pllllibert (and, later, Sidney), as he used his magic wand to uncover the origins of household commodities, starting with foodstuffs: Know-a-bit touched tl1e warm pheasant with IllS wand, and in an instant the dish was empty! The fairy turned and pointed with his wand towards tl1e window; Philibert, looking ilirough it, saw a large handsome bird with a long tail running across the lawn. 134 The fairy lecturer explained that this visualising, enlivening process was used as an educational strategy since 'what we see with our eyes is apt to make more impression on the mind ilian what we hear with our ears'. 135 The many illustrations in ilie work (see figure nineteen) reproduced ilie images Know-a-bit conjured in the story with tl1e aid of a magic nlirror: 1.l3 Ibid. 13 I.H Ibid., 14 135 Ibid. 88 Kn~w·l\·bit gently vmihed with hi", wnnd thl) botUu of oil: th(l bo~th~ ,~ m- IItnut.ly empt.y. 'fQ ilia no ~lIrll\U f/Ul'pri!16 or Phl· l.i00rl., ~ t.ref'" n(it \.t)t1' l~rge in foil~ fir~pC~f(!!I w lKl rttlttd~ld in tJle t:niInJr, tltLiugh ilOthlog liko it WM in UIO mOn}. IUs illUTOW k.ln'~ about hro iJ.ich(ll! and flo hBlf loulJ.. 1!,' CI1J of nbrit ht groen .on t!ill tipper side, n duller' whitiSh grron on th1J. lowor. SmJill wbit~ illJwcnl WI'l'U on t.b~ (}lh'Cl -~m<:h WJ1.6 the IlIUno of t,hlJ tree. Tht.t)D flowertl, whjJu Phmbert looked oh iD " 'OndI3F, CMO(;lod hak! tmit. of s )'\l ll(),,;~h'~l~fI, ",hich dukcIlQd tJ1i tboy ripened , Welre lLle Cyl'$. being lill(}ut tbl' iiWJ Mtt] !]lBpll of diUIlOOI18\ tin III froi'll t.h\~o-li vCfl, ·' cbootvt .. d 'hi} kIr)', "tha.-t oilia (llrla.ined by pr(~'$jn~," FIGURE NINETEEN: Fairy Know-a-bit's object lesson on an olive, reproducing a Mediterranean vision conjured by the fairy in a mirror. In the book's sequel, Fail)! F/7sket (1874), Know-a-bit's sister named the book, and visited her brother at Fairydell Hall, where the books were set. Together, the two fairies introduced the children in the story to the worlds and types of insects in the surrounding garden and woodland (see figure twenty) . This time, the magical power of the garden fairy was encapsulated not in a wand and mirror, but in a substance that would enable the boys to be transformed into insects, and thereby enter an ant hill, and go to a butterfly's ball (their human forms safely sleeping back in the bedroom): 89 • 'Through the charm of that fancy pomatum, the boys whom you love to teach may buzz through a hive as bees, or roam through underground passages as ants, or bury themselves like beetles, or fly through the air as gnats.'I:>6 When A.L.O.E.'s fairies moved, they were compared to insects, a grasshopper in the case of Know-a-bit, and a butterfly in the case of Frisket: 'on catching sight of his long-lost sister, he made a bound like a cricket towards her, while she flew like a butterfly towards him'; so too were the children encouraged to learn more about insects by inhabiting their bodies, and mimicking their sensory impressions. 137 As Nicola Bown has pointed out, fairies were often linked to insects through a metonymic extension of their wings: through associations of tlle small size of tlleir bodies, and quick, darting movements, fairies were converted into common creatures of wood and garden . I:>~ Supernatural beings could be part of same classificatory hierarchy as natural creatures, and the nineteenth century saw a rise in popularity of euhemeristic explanations for fairy lore and peoples, tlle idea that such tales were based on real-world pygmies or disappeared races, or actual occurrences now forgotten.I:>9 !.le. AL.O.E. [e. IVI. Tucker] (1874) rail)' F,isket: or, PeepJ at [met'! Ufe (London: T. Nelson and Sons), 28. For more on 'The Butterfly's Ball', see Tess Cosslett (2006) TalkillgAllimalJ ill B,itiJh ChildrmJ' Fictioll, 1786-191-1- (Aldershot: Ashgate), 51-53. 137 AL.O.E. Fail), Frisket, 12. m Nicola Bown (2001) FailieJ ;n Ninetemth-CentlflJl Art alld Uteratllre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 139 See Carole Silver (1999) Stl'Clllge alld Secret Peoples: Failies alld Victo,,'all COlIscio/{JIICfJ (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press). 90 FIGURE TWENTY: The two fairies converse amongst the paraphernalia of the library: whilst Fairy Know-a-bit, on the right, resembled a miniature lecturer in a cap and gown, his sister, Fairy Frisket, looked more obviously like a stereotypical representation of a fairy, with her butterfly wings. A Primrose, or object lesson as fairy tale 'How are you to enter the fairy-land of scien"ce?' In 1879 Arabella Buckley opened her children's book with this appeal to her audience. In so doing, she revealed questions of paramount importance for Victorian writers eager to recruit children to an active study of nature: what was the most appropriate way of beginning to learn about scientific subjects? Indeed, what were the most appropriate beginners' subjects themselves? Buckley's own answer was definitive: There is but one way. Like the knight or peasant in the fairy tales, you must open your eyes. There is no lack of objects, everything around you will tell some history if touched with the fairy wand of imagination .. . 140 For Buckley, children could learn about science through stories, told with and about the plenitude of illustrative objects at hand in the Victorian home and garden: a piece of coal, a drop of water, a sunbeam, a bee, or a primrose. It was a primrose on which John Ruskin chose to focus his attention when discussing the pathetic fallacy in Moder" Paiflters(1856): So, then, we have three ranks: the man who perceives rightly, because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is very accurately tlle primrose, 140 Buckley, Fail)l-La/ld o/Sciem"C, 12-13. 91 because he does not love it. Then, secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, because he feels, and to whom the primrose is anything else than a primrose: a star, or a sun, or a fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden. And then, lastly, tl1ere is the man who perceives rightly in spite of his feelings, and to whom the primrose is for ever nothing else than itself - a little flower, apprehended in the plain and leafy fact of it, whatever and how many soever the associations and passions may be, that crowd around it.141 In this passage Ruskin addressed the central problem of this chapter, the central concern of Dickens' argument, and indeed of the object lesson philosophy itself. The texts I study in tlUs dissertation relied upon ilie 'associations and passions' that 'crowded around' these apparently simple objects. They aimed to inculcate a way of viewing the world that would result in 'right' and 'accurate' perceptions; but this did not entail a dissociation from nature, a lack of love or feeling. On tl1e contrary, an emotive engagement wiili one's pursuit of natural knowledge was crucial, and appeals for the appropriateness of wider inclusion in and understanding of scientific subjects often relied upon such personal benefits. The object lesson employed and traded in associations and passions just as in facts: writers walked a line between the extremes of 'plain and leafy fact' and 'fairy's shield' as understandings of the primrose. The seventh of ten lectures delivered in the spring of 1878 to an audience of children in St. John's Wood, London, and compiled in book-form as The Fairy-Lalld q/Stielh'e the following year, 'The Life of a Primrose' asked Buckley's audience to 'fix' their 'attention on one little plant, and [inquire] into its history', to learn about growth 141 Ruskin, Modem Paillters III (1856), quoted in Bown, Fairies, 122. 92 processes in plants. 142 It certainly began by following its author's mandate to exploit the plenitude of illustrative objects at hand in the Victorian home: You were asked last week to bring with you to-day a primrose-flower, or a whole plant if possible, in order the better to follow out with me the "Life of a Primrose."* (* To enjoy this lecture, the child ought to have, if possible, a primrose-flower, an almond'soaked for a few minutes in hot water, and a piece of orange.) 143 Buckley used objects that could easily be procured, observed and analysed by the audience at ftrst-hand. The familiar objects would stand for a greater class of natural things, and for phenomena difftcult to perceive by the unaided senses, they were mediated by the substitution of another COllunon object, as she guided her listeners between the particular case of the primrose, active investigations with familiar objects, and general scientiftc principles: I have here a packet of primrose-seeds, but they are so small that we cannot examine them; so I have also had given to each one of you an almond kernel, which is the seed of the almond tree, and which has been soaked, so that it splits in half easily. From this we can learn about seeds in general, and then apply it to the primrose. 144 Knowledge of 'seeds in general' would be learnt, applied to the primrose, and then converted back into general principles. The active investigation of the object in hand was conducted in tandem with references to the wider fairy-land of science into which Buckley sought to transport her readers, in a twin assault of educational strategies, most explicitly in the following passage, in which a dissection of the 142 Buckley, Fail),-ulld of Sdetlt'e, 152. 143 Ibid., 151. IH Ibid., 152. 93 almond, representing the prirnrose, was followed by a fairytale analogy to the sleeping beauty of the dormant seed: If you peel the two skins off your almond-seed (the thick, brown, outside skin, and the thin, transparent one under it), the two halves of the almond will slip apart quite easily. One of these halves will have a small dent at the pointed end, while in the other half you will see a little lwnp, which fitted into the dent when the two halves were joined. This little lump (a b, Fig. 37) is a young plant .. . When a seed falls into the ground, so long as the earth is cold and dry, it lies like a person in a trance, as if it were dead; but as soon as the warm, damp spring comes, and the busy little sun-waves pierce down into the earth, they wake up the plantlet, and made it bestir itself. 145 For the pupils, the plantlet thus became both a physical 'little lump' with which they were themselves in contact and also 'a person in a trance', a character often encountered in fairy tales, in the conflation of science and myth that guided Buckley's text. Throughout 'The Life of a Primrose', Buckley used active investigations of a range of plants to illustrate the biological processes at work in her flower. Some of these were hypothetical experiments, in which she exhorted her reader to listen to what nature could say when placed in an artificial situation: If you will take some fresh laurel-leaves and put them into a tumbler of water turned upside down in a saucer of water, and set the tumbler in the sunshine, you will soon see little bright bubbles rising up and clinging to the glass. These are bubbles of oxygen gas, and tl1ey tell you that they have 14 5 Ibid., 153. 94 been set free by the green cells which have torn from them the carbon of the carbonic acid in the water. 146 Again using an imaginative presentation alongside the observation of an active process, she converted the bubbles of oxygen into animated creatures, as the reader imagined the small round bodies 'clinging' to the experimental apparatus, after they had been 'set free' from their 'cells'. They were also given burbling underwater voices . In these ways questions raised by the subject of the primrose, including how it grows, and what causes this, could be answered by looking at different natural objects, including the piece of orange that the children had brought along. These illustrative experiments taught through familiarising strategies, making analogies with other everyday substances; for instance, the following possible but hypothetical example demonstrated how water was transported into and through the plant: If you tie a piece of bladder over a glass tube, half fill the tube with treacle, and then let the covered end rest in a bottle of water, in a few hours the water will get in to the treacle and the mixture will rise up in the tube till it flows over the top.147 Some such experiments had been performed in front of her original audience in St John's Wood, as reflected in direct instructions to the listener to observe the results, here to illustrate the presence of carbon in leaves and flowers, something 'difficult at first to picture': I have here a plate with a heap of white sugar in it. I pour upon it first some hot water to melt and warm it, and then some strong sulphuric acid. 146 Ibid., 158-159. 147 Ibid., 157. 95 This acid does nothing more than simply draw the hydrogen and oxygen out. See! in a few moments a black mass of carbon begins to rise, all of which has come out of the white sugar you saw just now. * You see, then, that from the whitest substance in plants we can get this black carbon; and in truth, one-half of the dry part of every plant is composed of it. Now look at my plant again, and tell me if we have not already found a curious history?148 (159-160) Here she fulfilled the promise of the introductory lecture, quoted at the beginning of this section: with a series of visual directions (,See!' , 'You see', 'Now look') she opened her pupils' eyes to the surrounding scientific fairy-land of objects. However, tlus fairy-land was not explicitly invoked through describing the process of drawing out the oxygen and hydrogen as magical, or akin to a fairytale transformation, but with an emphasis on the 'curious Ius tory' of the supposedly everyday plant: what clUldren had thought they knew about was made strange and alien. Though she had emphasised tl1e 'commonness' of the loaf sugar willi which she had begun, however, the written instructions contained a note to the reader: *The common dilute sulphuric acid of commerce is not strong enough for tlus experiment, and any clUld who wants to get pure sulphuric acid must take some elder person with him, otherwise the chemist will not sell it to him. Great care must be taken in using it, as it burns everytlling it touches. 149 Throughout lliese examples, such as with considerations of the strength of acids, Buckley was perhaps far away from fairy tales . Towards the end of the lecture Buckley returned to the question and language of fairies, pulling focus from the prin1rose to discuss wider forces of nature, as she asked 'what fairies are they wluch I~ R Ibid., 159-60. 1~9 Ibid., 159. 96 have been at work here?'. Her answer was that fairies were the invisible forces of nature': 'Life', and 'the sun-waves'. ISO They left open the possibility for quasi-magical ultimate explanations for the phenomena of the natural world, what Bown termed an 'unintended consequence' but what can be illuminated by Bernie Lightman's recent discussion of Buckley's 'fascination with spiritualism. ISI Whilst working on FaiO'- Land, she had been attending a series of spiritualistic meetings, at first in an attempt to cure writer's block, but later out of a genuine interest in spiritualistic phenomena. Indeed, in the same year she wrote an article on spiritualism, in which she used the analogy of the growth of a flowers to demonstrate a spiritually-driven evolutionary process: "If this life-principle, or "spirit," exists, Buckley argued, "we must suppose, on the theory of evolution, that it is passed on from flower to seed, .. . from parent to child". 152 However, on the cover of the book Buckley's fairies were far from invisible, rendered as gilt pixies and angels enacting a series of processes and holding natural objects (see figure twenty-one). She closed by using the language of myth and mystery to assert the religious lessons to be drawn from a primrose: And the life of the plant? What is it, and why is this protoplasm always " active and busy? I cannot tell you. Study as we may, the life of the tiny plant is as much a mystery as your life and mine. It came, like all things, from the bosom of the Great Father, but we cannot tell how it came nor what it is.IS3 IoU Ibid., 169. 10 1 For Bown this is an 'unintended consequence' of Buckley's project, implying that 'scientific ideas are a form of magical thinking': Bown, Fairies, 108. Lightman writes: 'Buckley was working on her FailJl-Lalld of Sciellce 246 at the same time that she wrote this article. Although the analogy she draws between invisible natural forces and fairies in tlus book can be interpreted as a device to entice clUldren to become interested in the wondrous world of nature wlUle retaining a naturalistic perspective, it could also reflect her fascination with spiritualism.' (Lightman, Victoriall PopulCllizers, 245-246). 102 Quoted in Lightman, V ictoliall Poplllarizers, 243. 103 Buckley, Fairy-Lalld ofS,iem'e, 170. 97 Thus, Buckley's fairy-land references were used as framing devices, entry- and exit- points, just as she hoped the wider fally-Iand of science would for the world of science as a whole. This is how she managed the transitions from actual observation to general principle; from nature to fantasy; from garden to fally-Iand. FIGURE TWENTy-ONE: The decorated cover of The Fairy-Land of Science depicted impish figures holding everyday objects such as lanterns, shells, or vases of water. These transitions did not involve large changes: as Buckley had explained in her fust lecture, the closeness of her audience to the subjects they were to be taught was paramount: 98 this land is not some distant country to which 1l1e can never hope to travel. It is here in the midst of us, only our eyes must be opened or we cannot see it. Ariel and Puck did not live in some unknown region. On the contrary, Ariel's song is "Where the bee sucks, there such I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do' cry. On the bat's back I do fly, After summer, merrily."15~ In tlus way Buckley connected her writing to a much longer tradition of the fairy-land of nature, and in particular to the Elizabethan fairies of Shakespearean song. A.L.O.E. had also connected her fairy guides to tlus other time of fabled fairy popularity: Fairy Know-a-bit had been living in the library of Fauydell Hall for four hundred years; indeed, he had not 'spread IUs wings since the death of Queen Bess'; and part of his argument 'for the value and virtues of man, as opposed to his sister's championing of nature, relied on the fairies' valuing of Shakespearean song. 155 Moreover, the primrose itself had traditionally been seen as a fairy flower: as Katherine Briggs details, primroses were involved in a range of localised fairy lore and rituals, from being scattered in front of Irish houses to keep away fairies, to a Somerset tale of a child who had become lost wlUlst picking primroses - after accidentally toucIUng a fairy rock with the flowers she was given presents and shown the way home - and in wider associations of yellow flowers with the Devil. 15G Buckley hoped and claimed to go beyond the stories of old: her descriptions of fairy forces were 'ten thousand times more wonderful, more magical, and more 1';4 As quoted in Ibid., 5. 1';5 A.L.O.E., Fairy KlloIIJ-a-bit, 13; AL.O.E., Fairy Frisket, 13. 156 Briggs, Fairiu ill Traditioll alld Literatm?, 84 99 beautiful in their work, than those of the old fairy tales.'lS7 An important way in which these tales would supersede their older counterparts would be in their truthfulness, since scientific knowledge was perceived as an uncovering of the truths about nature. In the mid-nineteenth century concerns over the inherently mendacious character of fairy tales and fantastical writings more generally led to a discouragement of children reading fanciful works, and to a corresponding promotion of factual education. 1s8 Works such as Buckley's used the truthful ideology of the sciences and the (as was admitted) engaging world of fairy-land to help solve this problem in the form of true fantasy: I thoroughly believe myself, and hope to prove to you, that science is full of beautiful pictures, of real poetry, and of wonder-working fairies; and what is more, I promise you they shall be true fairies, whom you will love just as much when you are old and greyheaded as when you are young; for you will be able to call them up wherever you wander by land or sea, through meadow or tlltough wood, tlltough water or through air. IS') Barbara Gates has identified Buckley's combination of scientific fact and fancy as an exploitation of the post-Darwinian possibilities for going beyond objective language in scientific writings. Read in the context of tlle history of children's books and explicitly educational writings, however, rather than just that of Darwinian and expert literature, Buckley's work seems less of a 'transgression' of scientific borders than one of a series of explorations of how best to communicate ideas, a sense of active investigation of the natural world, and of possibilities for that investigation, to young audiences. An overt use of narrative or comparison with other genres was one 157 Buckley, FaiO,-Lalld ofSciellt'c, 6. ISH Sally Shuttleworth, 'Childhood lies in Victorian literature and science', plenary address, British Society for Literature and Science Conference, Birmingham, rvlarch 2007. IS? Buckley, FailJ'-Lalld ofSdelU'C, 2. 100 way in which this could be achieved; animism, animation and imagination were perceived as crucial. For example, in 1859 John Cargill Brough had published the Fairy Tales of S,iCl1C'e, a similar attempt to write imaginatively about technical scientific knowledge in a Book for Youth, as he subtitled his miscellany. He took scientific subjects geological, entomological, astronomical, chemical, and botanical in turn, and converted and compared them to fairy tales. In his botanical tale; 'Wonderful Plants', Brough dealt in exotic plants from far-flung lands. In his story, he used a fanciful cartoon and the object lesson of a plum pudding as a launching platform for his discussion (also see figure twenty two; and figure twenty three for another humorous presentation of strange objects growing on a tree): The wonderful plants portrayed by our artist are scarcely more wonderful than some of the vegetable productions of this bounteous earth. The little boy may well be astonished to see such a wonderful crop of good things; but it he will only stop and think a little he will find that plum-puddings, mince-pies, and wearing apparel do really grow, or, more strictly speaking, they spring from the wonderful plants which actually exist. Consider the composition of tllat famous pudding which crowns the fanciful group on the preceding page. The currants and raisins, the sugar, ahnonds, and candied lemon-peel which are its principal ingredients, are all vegetable productions; and the suet and eggs may be described as animalized grass and barley, for tlley are formed out of the vegetable food of the ox and the hen. The plum-pudding tree is not half so preposterous a conception as it appears to be at the first glance. 160 160 John Cargill Brough (1859) The FaiIJ' Tales of Sdell"e: A BookJor YOllth (London: Griffith and Farran),231. 101 Object lessons on the plum pudding really did exist, and might have been known to Brough's readers: 'Ingredients for a plum pudding' formed object lesson LIII in the miscellaneous flnal section of W. J. Lake's Tbe book of oi!jed lessolls: a teadJer's mal/lfal (1857) (see flgure twenty-four). 161 FIGURE TWENTy-Two: A young boy is knocked backwards, astounded by the 'Wonderful Plant', on which grows dolls and soldiers, shoes, shirts and trousers, bottles and candles, shuttlecocks and cricket bats, and - in the middle at the top - a plum pudding. 161 Lake, The Book ojObjul LeSSOIlJ, 141. 102 A Dl1teTree I FIGURE TWENTY THREE: 'The Reform Bill' of 1832, 'French Revolution' of 1789, 'Great Comet' of 1680, and the 'Comic Offering' itself grew on the leaves of 'A Date Tree!' LU80N Lm - INGREDIENTS FOR A PLUM PUDDING. L DB.A.w from the children, and write upon the black-board, the names of the various articles used in making a U Christmas Pudding ; " e. g.:- (a) Flour. Bread-crumbs. (I) Nutmeg. (6) Eggs. ·lC) Salt. tg) Sugar . . Milk. d) Cinnamon. la) Currants. Suet. e) Ginger. .) Raisins. (J) Orange, lemon, and citron peel. IT. Elicit a description of each article in detail, and give a few particulars respecting its cultiva- tion, preparation, and production. a. Flour. - Trace it from the field to the mill, and through its various stages. Large quantities required by our population; partly supplied from abroad; imported from Russia, Prussia, Germany, and America. FIGURE TWENTY FOUR: In this festive object lesson, children reduced a 'Christmas Pudding' to its ingredients, and then 'traced' each constituent part to its origins and means of production. 103 < Conclusion· After reading the Arabian NigbtJ, Charles Dickens was in a new world: 'Oh, now all common things', he declared, 'becom~ unconunon and enchanted to me. All lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots are full of treasure.' Almost 'every object' he recognised, including trees, beef-steaks, tarts, dates, olives, rice, apples, and dogs, was transformed, bathed in 'fairy light' . 162 As this chapter has demonstrated, works of natural history claimed the same power to transform everyday artefacts and experiences; but they also claimed a higher status: that their enchantment revealed the true wonders of nature. Therefore, object lesson teaching was not simply the Gradgrindian recitation of facts that defined a particular artefact or animal, but an imaginative presentation of the natural world through fable and fairies, allusion and wonder. By sitting and listening to these tales, by reading and hearing these glimpses of the wonders of nature, elementary scientific education was much more than a dry catalogue of information. Moreover, arid for the argument of this thesis, more importantly, in books such as Buckley's Fairy-Lalld of SciCllce these marvellous stories were woven with and around the prosaic objects of a flower, an almond, or a segment of orange. The tales thus depended on readers' and listeners' familiarity: with the metamorphoses of garden insects; with the four legs of a horse; with the life of a flower; with rain-clouds and water-butts. Their very 'uncommonness' worked because it was set against the quotidian. This was the tales' power of enchantment. This chapter has explored fact, fancy, fable and familiarity to demonstrate how tl1ese fairy tales of science were employed in debates over what kind of knowledge should be taught to children, and in what way, the generic 'shape' in which they were couched. References to and uses of myths and stories were diverse, and often 162 Quoted in Slater, 'Dickens in Wonderland', 131. 104 - conveyed subtle and specific allusions: to the oriental Arabia" Nigbts, to British Puckian traditions. In these ways, fairy tales could be used to connect scientific learning and experience to potentially conflicting interpretations: the more detailed comprehension of local objects, or the exotic distant. These elementary works made explicit concerns with the close relationships ~nd blurred boundaries between the natural and supernatural and remind us of the importance of such considerations to research chemists and physicists themselves, and to the nascent scientific studies of fairies and folklore. For some scientific writers fairies solved the problem of invisibility: in conjunction with visible and tangible objects, they brought into the scope of understanding and vision things just outside our grasp - supposedly invisible, magical, or slipping away. For Buckley, it was invisible forces, of heat, cohesion, or life, that were converted into fairies, intermediaries between matter and the ultimately spiritualised world of nature. For Morley in HO/lJebold U7ords, the invisible individual water drops of different types of clouds became distinct fairies, the appropriate scientific language used to describe them modified to resemble the exotic Eastern , names of fairy tale Princes and Princesses. For others it was the hitherto hidden and magical scientific content of objects - their facts - that could be revealed and communicated. Ratller than being seen as the destroyer of supernatural stories about the world, through these fairy tales the sciences were presented as being the way to understand both contemporary society and the invisible recesses of nature. They were a way of revealing the hidden magic of both the sciences and everyday life. Throughout these blurrings of the natural and supernatural, the spiritual and material, an appeal to the tlUth of science and, more specifically, scientific stories was paramount. Fairy tales of science were advocated as conveyors both of accurate information about tlle natural world and also of engaging characters, magical transformations, and powerful forces. Their writers participated in a debate over what 105 was suitable literature for children, and whether fanciful works would encourage habits of lying in children. It was argued that works in which the fantastical elements were representations of true natural laws would not predispose children to lie and, rather, would prepare children for an increasingly scientific and industrialised world. Therefore, though these were didactic works, it was not just lists of facts they sought to teach. The stories were communicators of morals and religion; of inquisitiveness, of wonder and imagination; of the cqnditions of working-class London; of practical household experiments on sugar or laurel leaves; they were also the latest incarnation of an oral folkloric tradition, suitable for a progressive age. In these ways, an important argument of this chapter has been to reconnect factual and fictional children's literature. Academic work has tended to stress the fictional, particularly leading up to the 'Golden Age' of imaginative literature in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, by analysing, for example, the way in which sewerage reform was written as a fairy tale we can see that fact and fancy were not the exclusive preserve of two rigidly distinct genres. Rather, they shared an interest in wondczr, in narrative, in morals, and the physicality of being told; the idea of fanciful facts helps support a more flexible use of genre in the history of science, with genres rather as centres of attraction than fixed categories. When looking for fairy tales of science, works of natural history would perhaps be expected to be the clearest scientific discipline in which this type of writing can be found, as insects and flowers were anthropomorphised and 'fairyised'; but for many in Victorian Britain it was the still-matvellous and the invisible forces of the physical and chemical sciences, such as light and electricity, that were most suitable for converting into modern fairies, sprites, imps and genies, as fairies were brought together with new technological objects of the home. At the end of the century, something as overtly concrete and technological as a Meccano set could be thought of as an evening's entertainment akin to a fabulous tale: on 5th November 1901 106 Professor Hele-Shaw of University College, Liverpool, wrote to Frank Hornby, inventor of the sets: Thank you very much for the Photographs of your clever and useful form of Toy. When it is on the market I shall certainly buy a set for my little boy, and feel sure it will afford many hours of enjoyment both to father and son. With a little ingenuity and exercise 'of the imagination, it should be as good as a fairy story, and what can one say-more! 163 ~ . • J . . . ' .~ 163 Bert Love and Jim Gamble (1986) The Men'a//O S)'stelJl alld the Spetia/ Plllpose MecL'{/l/o SefJ, 1901·1979 (London: New Cavendish Books), letter reproduced on 14. 107 3. HOUSEHOLD CHEMISTRY 'the kitchen is a chemicaLlaboratory' Friedrich Accum, Cu/illa!)1 CbemiJt!),164 THE MIDDLE-CLASS VICTORIAN HOj\ifE was furnished with many artefacts thought suitable for guiding an introductory scientific education. Everyday domestic activities of eating breakfast, taking afternoon tea, washing clothes, or reading by candle-light became opportunities for lectures adumbrating and experiments exploring the properties and histories of particular common commodities. This chapter will draw lessons about the affecting of the senses through exploring the practices of home experimentation, ~nd that pre-eminently smelly, noisy, messy, colourful, and dextrous of disciplines, chemistry. My exploration of household chemistry will centre on three common objects in Victorian homes - a cup of tea, a cake of soap, and wax candles - as well as a slightly different type of artefact, Robert Best Ede's 'Youth's Laboratory', one of the first home chemical cabinets. Rather than demonstrating the hidden, wonder-working fairies that underscored the burning of a fire or the growth of a flower, or dwelled in a drop of water, the texts analysed in this chapter argued for the technical and chemical constituents of the kitchen table and wash-tub, and for their connections to industry, empire, and contemporary scientific practice. I analyse their dynamic role as both demonstrations that even the commonest object could be the basis of a practical 1( .. Friedrich Accum (1821) CI(/iJlal)' Chemistry (London: R. A.ckennann), iv. 108 scientific education as well as arguments for the authority of men of science as capable domestic experts. Claiming the territory of the kitchen through redefining everyday activities and familiar experiences as chemical processes was one way in which this authoritative position could be achieved: by learning more precise details of the underlying scientific concepts at work, practices such as cookery could also arguably be improved. As well as already known activities to be engaged in with common objects, I shall also show how lessons on new ways of manipulating commodities could lead to unfamiliar combinations and locations: the chemicals in soap that would react violently with water, the spectacular world of the soap and candle factory. Michael Faraday'S Chemical History if a Candle (published 1861), perhaps the most famous object lesson text of the nineteenth century, is here discussed; however, by using a rewritten version of Faraday'S lectures that appeared in Household IVords with a boyish protagonist, I demonstrate how children could conceivably become home lecturers tl1emselves, exploiting the objects of tl1eir surrounding environment to introduce unfamiliar material. The new, specially-created chemical laboratories that were marketed from the late 1830s for childish domestic experimentation formed a continuous part of this household culture of chemistry. With the aid of Robert Best Ede's 'Youth's Laboratoty' (c.1836-1845), a typical example of an early Victorian chemical cabinet, I investigate how those using a portable home laboratory for the first time could make sense of their set, analysing its contents alongside the dedicated literary guide to performing its experiments,] ohn Ward's FootstepJ to Experimelltal Chel7list~y (1837). I reveal how close many of its experiments were to those tllat could be performed with everyday objects, employing the same substances and using the same apparatus, such as glasses and tea-cups. Both argued for the essentially embodied nature of chemical 109 education - but the pre-preparation of these sets was criticised for taking away the very practical expertise they sought to inculcate. A cup of tea, or object lesson as everyday activity We begin this chapter by returning to the end of the eighteenth century, for ca tea lecture' one EIJmillg at Home (see figure twenty five). FIGURE TWENTY FIVE: 'A Tea Lecture' given in the home. Note the teapot in the hand of the tutor, the cup in front of him, and the open book in front of the pupil. Laying aside his book, a young pupil was asked by his tutor to talk about the operation of tea-making: PIIP. An operation of cookery - is it not? Tlft. You may call it so; but it is properly an operation of cbemistry. Pup. Of chemistry! I thought that had been a very deep sort of a business. 110 Tilt. Oh - there are many things in common life that belong to the deepest of sciences. Making tea is the chemical operation called it!/iISioll, which is, when a hot liquor is poured upon a substance, in order to extract something from it. The water, you see, extracts from the tea-leaves their colour, taste, and flavour. 165 By identifying the processes of cookery and chemistry, the tutor converted the making of the cup of tea itself into an instructive experiment. Appeasing the fears of his young pupil, the receptacle demonstrably did not contain a 'very deep' subject: it was small enough to hold in one's hand, reassuringly tangible and unthreatening. The pupil was encouraged to think more carefully about what happened during everyday activities which, as it was demonstrated, were also chemical operations with technical names such as 'infusion'. An explication of a chemical phenomena was thus illustrated by, with and through the cup of tea. For example, the process of solution was introduced along with a lump of sugar: Tilt. SOllltiOll is when a solid put into a fluid entirely disappears in it, leaving , the liquor clear. Thus, when I throw this lump of sugar into my tea, you see it gradually wastes away till it is all gone, and then I can taste it in every single drop of my tea; but the tea is as clear as before. 166 The contrasting experiences of the tutor and pupil, highlighted by the dialogue form in which the lecture was presented, helped the reader to identify with the pupil through a series of sensory mediations. The tutor actively demonstrated the process of solution, by 'throwing' the lump of sugar into the tea, and then 'tasting' it. The pupil, however, could only 'see' these actions occur, observing that the tea, along with his knowledge on the subject of solution, became clear. One stage back, the reader watched and empathised with the seeing pupil, and his own understanding 165 John Aiken and Anna Laetitia Barbauld, [n.d.] Evenillgs af Home (London: Routledge), 143. w'/bid., 144. 111 clarified. With such newly-acquired knowledge, the pupil could then answer questions on hypothetical experiments, and become introduced to unfamiliar chemical processes: 'suppose you had a mixture of sugar, salt, chalk, and tea-leaves, and were to throw it into water, either hot or cold - what would be the effect?'167 The close of the conversation mirrored the opening statements, as the tutor affumed the scientific status of the object lesson, and his pupil's fears about the difficulty of the subject were quelled: Tut. But our tea is done; so we will now put an end to our chemical lecture. Pup. But is this real chemistry? Tilt. Yes, it is . Pup. Why, I understand it all, without any difficulty. Tilt. I intended you should. 168 The end of the short dialogue, and of the tea-making, returned to the question of fearing the 'very deep ' subject of chemistry set up at the outset: the tutor affumed that this was 'real chemistry'; the pupil was amazed this could be understood 'without any difficulty'. An important reason for the use of common objects as entry-points into the sciences at this time was to assuage these fears about novel subjects, as they identified the scientific processes at work in phenomena observed or activities engaged in every day. 167 Ibid, 145. 16g Ibid, 148. 112 FIGURE TWENTY SIX: The homely and unthreatening tea-cup. Such identifications relied upon constructions of the home as a refuge: a shelter from fear. In his analysis of VictOlian ThillgJ Asa Briggs cited John Ruskin's declaration of 'the true nature of home' as 'the place of Peace, the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt and division ... a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods.'169 Fear of chemists and of chemistry could take many forms. For evangelical educationalist Mrs Sarah Trimmer, reviewing 'A Tea Lecture' in her Guardiall ifEdllmtioll periodical, it was not suitable as a subject about which children should be taught: 'it is a fascinating thing, likely to occupy their thoughts and attention to the exclusion of more important subjects, and to put them upon dangerous experiments.'17u It was the identification made between cookery and chemistry, however, that would become the locus of debates over the safety of the science. Ruskin's 'sacred place' was not free from fears about foods; indeed, the constituent parts of a cup of tea were amongst the household products 1110Jt at danger of contamination and adulteration. Accum 169 John Ruskin (1864) SeJ"allle alld Lilies, quoted in Asa Briggs (1996) Victoliall Tbillg/ (Folio Society), 185. 170 [Sarah Trimmer] (1803) HA Tea Lecture", Gllardiall o/Edlfl"tltiotl 11,310. 113 himself claimed that the adulteration of tea 'has been practised in this country to an enormous extent'. 171 Similarly, the 'enemy of fraud and villainy' who wrote DeadlY Adlflteration and Slol/J PotJWlillg in 1830 claimed that '[n]o article of consumption is more subject to adulteration than the pleasant one which forms the principal ingredient of the tea-table.'172 Fears over adulterated foodstuffs could be overcome by learning the chemistry of cookery, particularly a series of simple domestic tests that greatly resembled the kind of elementary identification experiments elaborated in introductory treatises. 173 For instance, Dead!y Adulteratioll gave several practical tests whereby the reader at home could detect any spurious substances in their tea: adding grains of vitriol and watching for a particular colour change; noting the precise shape of the tea leaves; and by taste: 'The liquor drawn off, which should be smooth and balsamic to the palate, tastes rougher and harsher tl1an tl1e genuine tea does.'J74 This genre of writing thus taught readers how to be chemical detectives by using their senses to detect adulterated foodstuffs . FIGURE TWENTY SEVEN: Sketch from Accum's Adulteration, demonstrating the shape and properties of genuine tea-leaves, to aid in their identification. 171 Friedrich .-\ccum, (1820) A TreatiJ"e 011 the Adlflteratiolls oJFood, alld Clflilla!]' PoiJ"olls ... (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown), 298. 172 [Anon.] [1830] Dead!y Ad"lleralioll alld Slo}}J POiSOllillg, 83. Note that in Sarah Freeman MIfItOIl alld 0YJ"ters: The Viclo l7'allJ" alld Their Food it is pointed out that relatively little tea was adulterated at tlus time. 173 Accum, TreatIse 011 the Adlllteraliolls oJFood, 298. 174 [Anon.] Dead!y Adulteralioll, 89-92; 90. 114 Writers such as Derbyshire chemical lecturer Albert Bernays attempted to reassure readers that appreciating the proper chemical nature of everyday foodstuffs led to their being 'good and wholesome', not artificially tampered-with: though chemists were arguably the cause of adulterated foodstuffs, they could also be the solution to this problem. A discourse of purity had underpinned the opening of Freidrich Accum's 1821 Culillary Cbemistry, which convinced readers that by preparing meals they were alreac!J1 chemists: 'the art of preparing good and wholesome food is, undoubtedly, a branch of chemistry; the kitchen is a chemical laboratory'. 175 As with the earlier 'tea lecture', the identification of cookery and chemistry was just the beginning of the educational process: extending one's knowledge du:ough learning more precise details about these connections would provide an enhanced perspective on the world, as well as sparing waste and labour, and providing more nutritious food . The perceived wholesome and temperate properties of tea itself, though certainly not a unanimous position, its suitability as a beverage for children, and its increasing position as central to afternoon domestic and nursery life, helped reinforce dlese arguments. 176 A more advanced work than 'A Tea Lecture', Bernays' Housebold Cbemistry used a series of easy experiments to demonstrate the chemical contents and nutritive properties of tea, an example of his 'Chemistry of the Breakfast-Table': tea could be transformed into thein and tannin. l77 Other writers presented such facts and statistics in tables, impressing readers with their reduction of each cup of tea to precise chemical components. The motivation for learning tllls chemical information was, as Accum had stated, to improve the quality of the tea one produced oneself, rendering it 'good and wholesome'. Therefore, Bernays immediately followed his chemical identification with recommendations for tea-drinkers everywhere: that a 'volatile oil' meant that 'the longer the tea is allowed to draw, the less pleasant becomes the taste'; 175 1\ccum, C"lillal)' Chemistl)', iv. 176 See Jane Pettigrew (2001) A SOlial History oJTea (London: National Trust). 177 Albert Bernays (1853) Household Chemistry (London: Samson Low & Son), 63-64. 115 he also reported that some authorities recommend: 'heating the tea in a dry tea-pot, before the hot water is added.'178 Bernays therefore gave a purpose for understanding the chemical composition of tea, about which his readers were tested with a series of questions at the end of each chapter: Is hard or soft water best for making tea? .. How much woody fibre is contained in tea? What is tannin? What are its properties? What is meant by extractive? What is thein? How may it be prepared? Of what is it composed?' 79 Accum's Culillary Chemistry also included 'singular effects of different kinds of teapots, on the infusion of tea': he was concerned with explaining how the taste of the tea could be affected by the conductivity of the material out of which the teapot had been made. ISO Charles Foote Gower's Scielltific P!Je/lome/la of Domestic Life (1847) even demonstrated how best to put a lump of sugar into one's tea, no stirring required: holding it in a spoon at the surface of the cup, made the most of circulating currents so that the sugar was 'constantly in contact with a fresh portion of unsweetened tea'. 181 Sensory considerations were key, and were the chemical technology used to differentiate results. Thus, these chemical guidebooks not only revealed the chemical nature of tea, but argued tllat men of science were those who had the autllorit), and demonstrated expertise to advise on household activities, from corroborating your produce as genuine to the best way of making a cup of tea, as they could explain tlle scientific laws at work therein. 178 Ibid., 64-65. 17'l Bernays, HOlfsebold C/;emist!)" 88. 180 A.CCUffi, CIf/illa!)1 Cbemist!)l, 299-300. 181 Charles Foote Gower (1847) Tbe SdClltific P/;ellomClla of Domestic Life (London: Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans), 37-38. 116 But different phenomena could be introduced through making a cup of tea: the 'kettle boiling on the fIre was 'a familiar illustration of the process of evaporation', which could lead not to the chemical laboratory, but to the steam engine:I ~2 If we hold a cold tumbler near the spout of a boiling kettle so as to receive tlle steam, we shall in1mediately perceive it condensing in small drops on the sides of the tumbler, and running down in a miniature shower.IK1 By making these connections, and detailing experiments his reader could enact along with the narrator ('if we hold a cold tumbler .. . we shall in1mediately perceive'), Gower also implicitly relied on mythologised stories of the young James Watt and his observation of the boiling kettle (see fIgure twenty eight), which was said to have inspired his ideas about steam power and was the most famous contemporary example of how thinking clearly and scientifIcally about everyday occurrences could lead to insights into the laws of nature. 184 Mention of Watt returned in a short story on the 'Mysteries of a Tea-Kettle', published in Household Words, the periodical 'conducted' by Charles Dickens, and after which Bernays claimed to have named his " Household Chemistry, in 1850. 185 A discussion that began with defIning whether or not a kettle which had been brought into the room by a servant was boiling led to tall<: of steam, and, eventually, to tlle inevitable pun: "For all which," remarked Mr. Bagges, "we have principally to thank what's his name." 182 Ibid., 23-24. I H3 Ibid., 25. IR.! See David Philip iYIiller (2004) 'True myths: J ames \\1att's kettle, his condenser, and his chemistry', [-{istory if Sa·et/ce 42,332-360, for how this story originated and was used to assert Watt's expertise. Though now used to emphasise \Xlatt's insights into steam power, r"Iiller argues that the story could be (and indeed was) used to demonstrate his thinking on the propertiu of steam, and on the chemical composition of water itself. IKS See Bernays, HOllsehold Chemistl)" vii. He calls HOI/Jeho/d Words 'a serial worthy of the attention of young and old'. 117 "Watt was his nalne, I believe, uncle .. . . "IH6 More important than its supposedly comedic asides, however, is that in this story the child, Henry Wilkinson, became the knowledgeable lecturer, introducing his mother and buffoon of an uncle to what he had learned at the Royal Institution. IS7 Just as with a tea-set children could preside over a playful dolls' tea party in the nursery, they could also get to play at giving chemical lectures. Moreover, it was as a boy that Watt had supposedly had his eureka kettle moment: children could identify through these stories and tales both with someone who knows a lot about this kind of knowledge, and also with someone like Watt, who would go on to use that knowledge. FIGURE TWENTY EIGHT: The young James Watt contemplates a kettle, with tea-pot, cup and saucer on the table nearby. Not all of the works in this genre used their tea lectures as an opportunity to advocate experimentation: others used these interdisciplinary objects to teach about a 186 [percival LeighJ (1850) 'The Mysteries of a Tea-Kettle', HO/lSebo/d lf7ordJ" 179. IX7 The next section will deal with Henry \'\!ilkinson's version of Faraday's Chemiml HiJ"/ol)' of a Ca/ldle lectures, which also appeared in HOl(Jeho/d Words in 1850. 118 range of other subjects. For example ].F.W. Johnston's Cbemistry ojCommol1 Life (1855) explored 'the beverages we infuse' by taking an amazingly global perspective: tea-drinkers from Central America, Labrador, Georgia, the West Indies, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Arabia, China, Tartary and TI1ibet, Siberia, and Sumatra were referenced to demonstrate its 'extensive use', before details of the tea-plant were given. 18s For Accum, too, rather than simply an opportunity to entrain knowledge of chemical processes of infusion, solution and, evaporation, the tea leaves became owners of an exotic and global history: from Dutch adventurers trading sage to Linnaean natural history and Japanese tea ceremonies. Indeed, before he had given details of the chemical composition of tea, Bernays had also begun his description of tea by telling his readers about the tea-plant's history and natural history. IS'} Other works focused on the china of the cup rather than the tea itself to connect the household with the world: Halsted's Travels ill tbe BOlldoir (1847) talked of both Oriental china and European Porcelain. 190 Through making such connections, history, magic, mystique, and exoticism, were stirred into the reader's drink along with tea-leaves and sugar. Satirical composite caricatures of the 1830s had punned on these, representing China as a cup and saucer on a map of 'Figurative Geography', alongside a turkey-shaped Turkey; and constructing a Chinese man out of porcelain objects (see figure twenty nine. IMM J ames F.W. J ohnston (1855) The Chemist!)1 of COIJIlJlon Life (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons), 155. 189 Bernays, HOllsehold Chemistl]" 62. I~O Caroline A. Halsted (1837) Trcl/Je/s ill the Boudoir 119 FIGURE TWENTY NINE A AND B: 'A China-Man' and' Figurative geography' (in which China, represented by a cup and saucer, is at the top left) The tradition of such literary tea lectures continued throughout the nineteenth century as an appealing way of introducing young audiences to scientific subjects. By the time of high imperialism, talking about tea provided an opportunity to afflrm the global reach of the Victorian home. The pre-eminent example of this can be found in AIII/t Ma/iba's ComeI' Clipboard (1875), authored by Mary and her sister Elizabeth 120 Kirby. This moralising tale about how to inspire idle boys with a thirst for knowledge and a sense of industry, revealed how Aunt Martha determined to commence her nephews' education with the histories of the commonplace items of the tea-table: 'It seemed to Aunt Martha - for she was a lady of a lively inlagination - as if everything in that cupboard, - her china, her tea, her coffee, her sugar, even her needle, - had a story to tell, and a most entertaining one toO.'191 Through the exemplars of each discrete object, whose history was narrated in turn at successive tea-times, Aunt ~ifartha stressed the labour that had gone into producing the everyday things of life: 'The tea-cup seems a simple thing, and you use and handle it very often, and drink your tea out of it every afternoon. But perhaps you have never been told its whole history "from beginning to end," as the story-books say, and do not know that it takes a vast amount of labour, and sets numbers of persons to work, before it can become a cup at all.'I92 That epitome of Victorian society, the emphasis on 'setting numbers of persons to work', was thus embodied in its everyday artefacts. Moreover, Ami! !vIa/iba's Comer Clipboard underscored the importance of the imperial sphere: through telling these stories of far-off places and people the authors demonstrated how even, and perhaps especially, the 'common' things of life were dependent on, and helped forge, the British Empire. This section has demonstrated how written lectures on making tea offered a familiar way of introducing young readers to the sciences of chemistry and physics. The actual observation of the boiling tea-kettle, infusing liquid, and melting sugar- lump, either at fIrst-hand or in memory, was crucial to the success of these presentations. The widespread contemporary fears over adulterated foodstuffs, of which tea and sugar were prime examples, allowed chemists to assert the authority of their knowledge of the kitchen. And the global tea story allowed some writers to travel from the breakfast-room or boudoir to the farthest corners of the empire. But 19 1 :tvIary and Elizabeth Kirby (1875) Alfllt MarthaJ' Conter Clipboard (Bristol: Thoemmes Press reprint, 2004), 13-14. 192 Ibid., 18. 121 in other ways there was only so far a cup of tea could take you; only certain chemical and physical processes about which you could learn. Soap and candles, or object lesson as experiment Michael Faraday's well-known Royal Institution lectures, published in 1861 as The Chemical History if a Ca1ldle, used this common household commodity to introduce the sciences: as he claimed, 'there is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not come into play and is touched upon in these phenomena. There is no better, there is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy, than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.'193 By grabbing hold of a candle, his juvenile audience could be connected to a scientific understanding of the entire cosmos, all of which was 'touched upon' . Faraday began his lectures with an analysis of the different substances of which candles are made, introducing his 'boys and girls' to: candles as they are in commerce. Here are a couple of candles commonly called dips. They are made of lengths of cotton cut off, hung up by a loop, dipped into melted tallow, taken out again and cooled, then re-dipped, until there is an accumulation of tallow round the cotton. In order that you may have an idea of the various characters of these candles, you see these which I hold in my hand - they are very small and very curious. 19-l A crucial part of the introductory process was the fact that Faraday held these 'small' and 'curious' objects in his hand. His actual experimenting with these candles, and the possibility of his audiences' experimentation, continued throughout the lectures; 193 Nlichael Faraday (1861) The Chemical History ofa Cal/dle (1861), 1-2. See \ Tanessa Steele (2004) MitiJael Faradqyjo Chemical History of a Candle (part II dissertation, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge) for an in-depth study of this work. 194 Faraday, Candle, 2-4. 122 for example, he asked the listening children to 'go home and take a spoon that has been in the cold air and hold it over a candle - not so as to soot it, - you will fInd that it becomes dim just as that jar is dim.'195 At the end of his Royal Institution lectures, Faraday wished that his audience would 'be fIt to compare to a candle; that you may, like it, shine as lights to those about you'.l96 This plea was taken up in an aJ!ticle for Dickens' HONsebold Words, the fIrst of many of such expositions modelled on Faraday's lectures; quite literally in the case of this article, which was written from notes taken at these events by Percival Leigh. In 'the chemistry of a candle', which appeared in the issue for 3rd August, 1850, information about the household object was imparted not to the child, but 0' the child, Harry Wilkinson, a "bright youth", whom we met earlier in this chapter making jokes about James 'Watt's his name'. 197 By altering the source of information from the Royal Institution's stage to its audience-members, it was demonstrated that children could attend these lectures and learn their content, to the degree that they could themselves reproduce them. As Harry's mother observed, "he attended Professor Faraday's lectures there on the chemical history of a candle, and has been full of it ever since." 198 Whilst in the story Harry had to be prompted by his father for some of the more scientifIc vocabulary Ous mention of "cap-something" is corrected to "Capillary attraction"), he remembered and recounted most of Faraday's everyday analogies and examples from the presentations. 199 With his uncle again providing humorous relief (as he terms it, a "comical chemical history"), the article demonstrated that from youthful "dips and rushlights" to older candle "moulds", "seniors may learn sometlling from a juvenile lecture". As a reward for his learning, and a spur to further 195 Ibid., 53. 196 Ibid., 171. 197 [percival Leigh] 'The chemistry of a candle', Howcbo/d Words I (1850), 439-44, 441. 19R Ibid, 439. 199 Ibid., 440. 123 study, at the end of the story Harry was promised a "Galvanic Battery on [his] next birthday". 200 Just as young Master Wilkinson went home from the Royal Institution to give his own chemical lecture, then, these written books were intended as enticements to active practical investigations; for instance, Bernays' Household Chemistry concluded with 'a number of useful and simple experinients, many of which may be understood and performed by a child of eight years 01d.'20 I The fIrst series of these experiments required 'no apparatus beyond what is to be found in every household', and began with observing what happened when a candle was lit: 1. Take a fresh candle and light it. Mark the carbonization or apparent blackening of the wick, the melting of the tallow, its rise into the wick, the form of the flame, and the division of the wick into the part which consumes away and that which is simply soaked in tallow. Then the reader w~s encouraged to start manipulating the object, and doing strange things with it, noticing how it changed: 2. Move the candle quickly through the air, and note carefully the results, as regards smell, smoke, &c. Hold a dry plate immediately over the flame- carbon is deposited; - some distance above it - the plate is not soiled. The lessons drawn from these investigations were then extended by being compared to what happened when the experiment was conducted with an oil-lamp, rather than a candle: 200 Ibid., 444. 2tll Bernays, HOlfsehold Chemistl)" viii. 124 3. Try at what distance immediately above the flame it ceases to light or even chart a piece of paper. - Repeat the experiment with a lighted camphine or oil-lamp, and fInd out why the paper will inflame at a much greater distance from the flame than a candle not surrounded by a lamp- glass.202 Another example included in these experiments using everyday objects at the end of the book was an exploration of what happened to grains of soap in different types oh-vater: Dissolve a few grains of hard soap in clean rain-water, and add a few drops of this solution to hard-water. You will fInd the soap curdle. The lime of the water forms, with the fatty acids of the soap, a greasy insoluble lime-soap, while the soda of the hard soap combines with the sulphuric acid with which the lime of the hard water is usually associated. Until, therefore, the lime is thrown down from the hard water, the soap will not begin to act a~ a cleansing agent.203 This was an experimental version the ablutionary observations made by Gower in Tbe S,ieJItifit" Pbellomella of Domestit" Life, a text that stalked the daily activities of its reader, and talked of what happened when soap and water were mixed in one of the 'phenomena of [the] bed-chamber': In performing our morning ablutions we shall probably be led to remark the difference between hard and soft water, as they are commonly termed, and the difference of their actions upon soap. Hard or spring water, though originally rain, has, by flltering through the earth for a considerable time, imbibed many impurities, by having come into contact with various 202 Ibid., 245-246 . 2tl3 Ibid., 250-251. 125 c earthy and mineral substances through which it has passed. These impurities, when using soap with hard water, have the effect of decomposing the soap, and preventing its solution with the water, on which the washing properties of the soap depend.204 For more advanced students, and those willing to spend 'a few shillings' on specialist apparatus to augment the contents of the kitchen cupboards, one of Bernays' next series of more complex experiments detailed the spectacular properties of potassium, which, as he informed his reader, was the basis of potash, and found in soft soap and glass. This was one of the more sensually-exciting of the experiences he outlined, creating burning substances and tastes : A small piece of the metal thrown into a few drops of water in a saucer, bursts into flame, is carried rapidly about, and is quickly dissolved. The water is decomposed; its oxygen unites with the potassium and dissolves, whilst its hydrogen is inflamed by the heat of the combustion, and burns with a violet flal~e - the color being due to admixture with a little volatilized potash. The remaining water will be found on examination to possess a caustic (burning) taste, and to blue reddened litmus paper. 20S Thus, these experiments began to take the reader far away from their evelyday experiences of soap, and demonstrate the hidden alien natures of these commodities. As Bernays introduced his chapter on 'the chemistry of soap', this product connected the home to the factory to the chemicallaboratolY: 'in a chemical point of view, tlle manufacture of soap is extremely interesting, and forming as it does one of the most important articles of domestic use, a short account of its composition, and the process of its manufacture, should not be omitted in a work professing to 204 Gower, Scimtift" Phmomella, 19-20. 205 Bernays, H01{SeiJo/d Chemisfl]', 264-265. 126 illustrate household chemistry.'206 Soap and candles were often made together in industrial manufactories. George Dodd's account of 'A Day at a Soap and Candle Factory' emphasised the ironically smelly and dirty experience of soap's manufacture (see figure thrity): Near the frame-room is a range of ware-rooms, in which the slabs of soap are cut up into bars, and then piled up in tiers, like bricks in a wall. If "cleanliness is next to godliness," according to the old adage, we ought to have very pleasant thoughts while passing between these walls of soap - here 'mottled' - there 'yellow' - in another part 'curd,' and so on; but the truth is, that the odour from such a mass of soap, and the unavoidable absence of cleanliness in the manufacture, somewhat disturb the pleasure of contemplating the ulterior purpose to which the soap is to be applied. 207 FIGURE THIRTY: The fumes of the soap and candle factoty. 21)6 Ibid., 185. 207 George Dodd (1843) Dq)'i at the FactO/ies 01; theMallllJadlllillg IlldllstryojGreatB.itaillDemibed. alld I/llIStrated by NlIlJlelVlIS Ellgravillgs oji\1mfJillcs alld Professes. 5C1ies 1. - Lolldoll. (London: Charles Knight), 190. 127 - In his Chemistry of Commol1 Life J ohnston included a section on smells produced by such factories, which, he argued: 'materially affect, at times, the comforts of common life.' Advocating a ban on the 'intentional discharge' of 'injurious substances', he referenced the 'soap and candle makers' in particular, who '[dissipated] into the air the volatile fetid substances which naturally exist in long-kept and rancid fats. As a result of some of these processes, also, they produce and send forth vapours of the irritating and unpleasant acrolein'.208 This section has demonstrated how two emblematic early Victorian commodities were used by writers to introduce a range of scientific phenomena to young audiences. Rather than just thinking more about practices already engaged in at home, these works demonstrated unfamiliar processes, and could take readers on . imaginative journeys to the sites of these processes: Faraday's candle could open the doors to the factory, as well as to the Royal Institution. Moreover, as Household IPora's' recasting of Chemical History reveals, children could be set-up as knowledgeable lecturers, and that they were believed capable of remembering the majority of the information imparted in such venues. If such lectures were based on common objects, then they could particularly easily be recreated in the home, alongside elementary experiments. A Youth's Laboratory, or object lesson as commodity Of course, not all chemical experiments could be illustrated with objects found around the house: at some point specialist equipment would be required to interrogate particular phenomena. From early in the nineteenth century several chemists, including Accum, and chemical outfitters had produced sets with which elementary experiments could be conducted in a small space in the home, claiming such apparatus was a vital accompaniment to the many introductory treatises on the 208 Johnston, ClJemiJfry of COJ1/moll Life, vol. II, 300-302. 128 subject: as I have been arguing in this chapter, it was only through physical engagement with objects that beginners could really learn about chemistry.209 Robert Best Ede's 'No.l Youth's Laboratory, or Chemical Amusement Box' flrst appeared around 1836-1837 and sold for a price of 16 shillings. It was advertised as 'containing more than 40 Chemical preparations and appropriate apparatus, for enabling the enquiring youth ... to perform above 100 Amusing and Interesting Experiments with perfect ease and free from danger.'21O This introductory set included a range of equipment, from Funnel, and Test Tube, to Spirit Lamp, Retort Stand, Two Watch Glasses, and Litmus Paper, alongside various chemicals, all labelled according to Ede's standardised system. The company's acclaimed earlier portable laboratories, marketed from 1835, had been designed to accompany the 1834 7th edition of John Joseph Griffln's best-selling Chemical Recreatiolls, but the Youth's Laboratory had its own dedicated guide: 'the [supposedly] plain and simple instructions' of J,Vard's Compallion; or Footsteps 10 E'PeriJ)1et1tal Chemislry. This textual accompaniment, a 36- page pamphlet written by Ede's London agent, was from the beginning conceived of as essential to the Laboratory's success. After GriffIn's book went out of print in 1837, Ede himself produced.Pradit·al Fads in Chemistry: as he phrased it, a 'key' with which to unlock his larger cabinets. 211 This section explores Ede's set and IVard's Compallion. 20') See Brian Gee (1989) 'Amusement Chests and Portable Laboratories: Practical Alternatives to the Regular Laboratory', in Frank A. J. L. J ames (ed.) The Developlllellt of tbe Laboratol)l,' EJJC!)'S 011 tbe Plare of E>.:penillCllt ill I"dllJ"IIial CiviliJ"atioll (tvlacmillan Press), 37-59, and David Knight (1993) 'Pictures, Diagrams and Symbols: Visual Language in Nineteenth-Century Chemistry', in Reanto G . ~vlazzolini (ed.) NOII-Verbal COlJllllllllimtioll ill Sdem'c Prior to 1900 (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki), 321-3-+4. 2111 Robert Best Ede (1837) Pradiml FadJ" in CbellliJ"tl)' (London: Thomas Tegg; Simpkin, ;'\·Iarshall and Co.), endpapers bound in British Library edition, 9. 2 11 [bid.; J. J. Grifflll (1834, 7'1. ed.) CiJClJliml Recreatiolls. Incidentally, to obtain a locked Youth's LaboratOl'Y you would have had to have paid £2 2s Od for the No. 3 version. 129 FIGURE THIRTY ONE: Close-up of R.B. Ede's Youth's Laboratory, fromits depiction on the title-page to Ward's Companion. FIGURE THIRTY Two: Ede's Chemical Cabinet. Note how this more advanced cabinet contains more apparatus and more reagents than the Youth's Laboratory, and that it has a lock. The inscription on the lid reads: 'Render the Study of Chemistry So Fascinating'. 130 Despite his readers presumably having purchased a 'Youth's Laboratory' alongside their guidebook, an image of which was engraved as his frontispiece image (see figure thirty one), the first of Ward's experiments did not use the contents of the chemical box at all, rather the everyday dornestic items of water, sugar, and a tea- spoon, as he detailed exactly the same kind of elementary household experiment outlined by Bernays, and even the Evellillg.r at Home tea lecture: EXPERIMENT L To discover whether any substance is soluble in water, is easily ascertained by suspending it in the fluid. For instance, by holding a lump of sugar fastened by a thread, or in a tea-spoon, in a glass of clear water; if it be soluble, you will observe a stream of bubbles continually descend until it is all gradually dissolved or melted away; and so, you will no longer be able to perceive its presence in the fluid, nor discover it, except by taste, or by some other means by which you may detect its presence: to do this you must employ some re-agent which shall exhibit its existence in the solution. 212 A nice pun on the supposed purpose of these texts to 'sweeten the lip of the cup of knowledge', by beginning with a sugar solution Ward revealed that tl1e act of tasting was itself an art of testing, one of Lissa Roberts' 'sensuous technologies'.213 More importantly, however, Ward decided not to start his book witl1 a spectacular demonstration of something strange and new and wonderful: instead he chose the mundane dissolving of a lump of sugar. He thereby created a bridge to the kind of household experiments previously discussed in this chapter - experiments with which his young readers might well have been familiar. 2 12 John Ward (1837) Ward~' Compallioll; 01; Footstepi to ExpClilllental Chemistry (London: Thomas Tegg), 14. 213 Lissa Roberts (1995) 'The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The 'New' Chemistry and the TransfOlmation of Sensuous Technology', Stlldiu ill Hiitol)l alld Philoiopl!y of Sdellfe 26, 503-529. 131 Many intrOductOl), chemical works in this period used this middling combination of household and specially-purchased equipment: Samuel Parkes' Ele!1Jetltary Treatise contained many such directions, of which the following are illustrative: in the fust, the reader combined the tea-cup (everyday) with the bell-glass (chemical) to perform that reversed miracle of turning wine into water; in the second, the colour of a rose (everyday) was changed by suspending it in a gas jar (chemical) and exposing it to the fumes of a match (everyday): EXPERIMENT Put a little alcohol in a tea-cup, set it on the fue, and invert a large bell- glass over it. In a short time an aqueous vapour will be seen to condense upon the inside of the bell, which by means of a dry sponge may be collected, and will be found to be pure water. EXPERIMENT Suspend a red rose within a glass jar similar to that in the annexed engraving, and in that situation expose it to the conftned fumes of a brimstone match. This will soon produce a change in its colour, and at length the flower will become quite white.2 14 Therefore, we can see that there was no clear divide between the kind of experiments that could be conducted with evel),day commodities and with the contents of the chemical cabinet. The way in which these texts were written differed considerably from the more narrative styles employed by authors such as Gower. The clearest example of how a series of elaborate instructions detailing how to perform a particular chemical 214 Samuel Parkes (1839) All ElemeJItal)' Treatise 011 ChemistD" "POll the Basis of the Chemical Catechism (London: E . Pahner), 50; 121. 132 manipulation were first outlined, then encoded in a handier and singular imperative, can be seen in experiments II and III of Ward's text: experiment II provided a lengthy articulation of how to evaporate a substance: EXPERIMENT II Take a few grains of the superoxalate of potass, and dissolve in a tea- spoonful of water; then having fixed the· brass rod and triangle, (as shewn in woodcut,) put the solution into a watch-glass, and place it on the triangle; then light the spirit-lamp, and very gently and gradually apply heat to the watch-glass, to prevent its cracking by a too sudden expansion, and continue it until the water rises in the form of vapour; and after a time a tlUn ftlm will appear on the surface; then gradually lessen the heat, and take away the watch-glass, and put it in some place where it will not be disturbed. In a very short time you will find the crystals of the superoxalate of potass reformed; but if the water has not been sufficiently evaporated, tlle crystals will not be formed, and it will be necessary to repeat the process, and continue it a little longer, and then again put it aside to crystalise. After the crystals are formed there is usually a little water remaining, which is called the motller-water, and in simple crystalisations of this nature may be thrown away. The crystals are to be thrown on a piece of blotting-paper, so that any moisture adhering to tllem may be absorbed, and the perfect crystals obtained dry.215 The detailed instructions gave quantities (a tea-spoonful of water); showed how to set up tlle appropriate apparatus (by directions and the woodcut); warned of potential dangers (cracking the watch-glass); and directed the repetition of the process should 215 Ward, Footsteps, 14-15. 133 the desired result not be obtained. Terminology not introduced in the earlier 'theoretical' sections, such as 'mother-water', was explained. By the following experiments, all these processes of experimentation could be themselves boiled down to one sentence: EXPERIMENT III Take a solution of the bi-chromate of potass, evaporate, and crystals of a beautiful garnet colour will be formed. EXPERIMENT IV Evaporate a solution of the prussiate of potass, and lemon-coloured crystals will be produced.216 The emphasis on gestural control (gently heating), on what equipment to use, even on quantities, had disappeared, as had the figure of the experimenter. Ratller tllan a potentially fallible process, the experiments became certain and passive demonstrations of fact: 'lemon-coloured crystals lvilf be produced.' There was no longer any room to go wrong. I have chosen these experiments of evaporation partly because they were supposedly some of the first experiments children would have attempted to perform; but also because the processes they described neatly provide suitable language to describe tlle 'difficult', as Ward found, operations of writing out experimental instruction. This was itself a process of reductive concentration, as Ede revealed in tlle preface to his Pradiml Fads ill Cbemistry. Within its pages the reader would find 'the technical phraseology, in which the sciences are too often obscured, redlfced to the 211, Ibid., 15. 134 most familiar and simple form consistent with the dignity of Chemistry'.217 The sets themselves were an exercise in reduction: the Times applauded how Ede had 'managed to col/dense into as small a form as possible a considerable number of chymical tests, and re-agents'; 218 Ede reported in his advertisements that the (admittedly less influential) Bury and Suffolk Herald declared that: 'the cOl/cmtratiol/, in so small and elegant a form, of all that is requisite for practical experiments, cannot fail to be duly appreciated by all interested in'the study',219 However, more importantly, such linguistic processes rendered the experiments transcendent, as these advertisements brought out: like the small (and supposedly affordable) boxes, the sugar or tea, the experimental instructions could travel between many different places, and bring these types of chemistry to new ' audiences. Not everything was conserved in this distillation, however: the reductive prose did not include the rich digressions on etymology, history, and industry that were included in more descriptive works, and which for some were just as important parts of learning about chemistry. An ability to move between rooms, like volatile compounds wafting through the air, was important for Ede's other projects: the fIrm was a renowned purveyor of a series of perfumes, advertised alongside the chemical cabinets. 220 The scent of his 'odoriferous compound, or Persian Sweet Bags,' (which apparently sold over 80,000 packets), was pronounced 'delectable' by the Literary Gazette, whilst tlle World of Fashion recommended that 'No Lady'S Toilet should be without it.'221 Ede's Hedyosmia was even patronised by the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria: m Ede, Practi,'tli Fads, ix. My emphasis. m Ibid, endpapers, 7. My emphasis. 2 19 Ede, endpapers, 8. 220 It appears that the idea and practicality of turning a perfumery into a chemical toyshop occurred more than once: William Edward Statham, who began trading in rival chemical cabinets in 1839, was originally a wholesaler in perfumes (Gee, 'Amusement Chests', 57, footnote 4). 22 1 Ede, endpapers, 36. 135 Combining all the fragrant properties of the CELEBRATED ODORIFEROUS COMPOUND, being extracted in a pure and colourless form from that greatly-extolled and highly-popular Perfume, ... tius Essence is considered by FAMILIES OF THE FIRST DISTINCTION, as the purest and most elegant article for the ASSEMBLY, or the BOUDOIR, and being quite colourless, and derived from the farfamed exotics ifForeigll alld British ClIltivatioll, is justly calculated as the ftnest Esprit for the HANDKERCHIEF, the TOILET, or the DRAWING ROOM.222 The two commercial concerns could be linked together: the Leituter Herald echoed the language of tius advert when reviewing Ede's Portable Laboratories, stressing elegance, refll1ement, and the suitability of the product for many different rooms of the house: "we have concentrated in an elegant and ornamented Cabinet, adapted equally for the Library of the man of Science, the Studio of the Chenlist, or the Boudoir of the Lady amateur, an organized collection of the best contrived modern apparatus, adapted to render the exlubition of refll1ed experiments even in the draJving 1'00111 at once easy and satisfactory."223 Yet the differences between these spaces were asserted by Ede: despite the professed aim of these chenlical cabinets to provide a sense of what it was like to be a research chenlist, he reminded the purchaser of Ius laboratory not to expect to be able to (re-)enact all experiments which he encountered in his readings: When it is said, that a Portable Laboratory is presented to the student in the compass of a sJJJall box, let him clearly understand in what sense tius is 222 Ede, endpapers, 37. 223 Quoted in Ede, endpapers, 8, italics as emphasised by Ede. 136 meant. We do not pretend to say, that either one size or the other will enable him to put every fact he may meet with in reading to the proof of experiment, very few Chemists indeed are in a condition to do this, but they are amply sufficient to unfold to his view the phenomena of nature, by making him familiar with a great number of useful and entertaining facts, and giving him such expertness in manipulation, as will render it easy for him hereafter to widen the sphere of his operations, should he judge it necessary so to do. 224 In his autobiography, the engineer James Nasmyth likewise emphasised the limitations rather than opportunities created by the pre-packaging of commercial chemical sets. Contrasting the mid-Victorian present with the days before Ede's . laboratories, he remembered how, growing up in the 181 Os, he and his friend: made it a rule ... that, so far as was possible, we ourselves should actually make the acids and other substances used in our experiments. We were not to buy them ready made ... Hence, though often baffled, we eventually produced perfect specimens of nitrous, nitric, and muriatic acids. We distilled alcohol from duly fermented sugar and water, and rectified the resultant spirit from fusel oil by passing the alcoholic vapour through animal charcoal before it entered the worm of the still. We converted part of the alcohol into sulphuric ether. We produced phosphorus from bones, and elaborated many of the mysteries of chemistry .... I feel certain that there is no better method of rooting chemical or any other instruction, deeply in our minds. 225 Nasmyth lamented that with the production of commercial chemical cabinets such as Ede's, later generations had little experience of real 'technical handiness or head 22~ I bid., 2. 225 Samuel Smiles (ed.) (1883) jalJJeS N aJIl(Yth Ellgif/eeJ:· All Alltobiograpl?J1 (London: John i'vIurray), 95-96. 137 - work!': 'Everything is bought reacfy made to their hands; and hence there is no call for individual ingenuity ... , the result, for the most part, of too free a supply of pocket money.'226 Thus, the production of these sets, despite all their rhetoric of providing the means to do experin1ents, in fact often worked against the wider dissemination of certain kinds of skills, and turned the replication of chemical experiments into a sin1ple matter of combining prepared substances. Users might have imagilled they could now have an insight into and experience of what it meant to do chemistry, but in reality they had learnt few practical skills, and chemical instruction had not been 'rooted' in their minds. They were effectively boxed in by the contents of the sets, which did not really encourage the independent use of their products; rather, the sets distanced you from learning certain things about chemistry. Dodd had opened Dqys at the FactO/ies with a reflection on the contemporary distancing of individuals from the means of production of everyday commodities: THE bulk of the inhabitants of a great city, such as London, have very indistinct notions of the means whereby the necessaries, the comforts, or the luxuries of life are furnished. The simple fact, that he who has money can command every variety of exchangeable produce, seems to act as a veil which hides the producer from the consumer.227 Many of the texts I have studied argued in the opposite way, however, and revealed how their audiences were made aware of how objects had been produced - where they had come from, what they were made of: indeed, it was this appetite for such stories hidden in the artefacts of eveqrday life that created the market for Dodd's 'factory tourism' itself. AUllt /Vlartha's Comer Cupboard particularly emphasised how these commodities revealed labour by setting vast numbers to work, and not least by setting their readers to work on active engagements with these subjects themselves. 226 Ibid., 96. 227 Dodd, Dqys at the Fadolies, 1. 138 Conclusion In his best-selling memoil:, Ullcle THllgstell, neurologist Oliver Sacks remembered that when a youthful experimenter his 'ftrst taste was for the spectacular - the frothings, the incandescences, the stinks and the bangs, which almost deftne a ftrst entry into chemistry.'22s A century earlier, several of Francis Galton's Ellglish Mell ofStience also claimed their 'flrst taste for chemistry date[d] from the possession of a chemical box, when I was a little boy;' or from 'the lectures I attended as a boy, and to the permission to cany on little experiments at home in a room set apart for the purpose. I was encouraged in my tastes at home.'229 This chapter has explored how mid-nineteenth century children acquired their flrst tastes for chemistry through such experiences of home experimentation, fro things , bangs, stinks, and boxes. Moreover, I have taken their chosen metaphor of 'taste' quite literally, and argued for the sensory nature of elementary science, and its appeal to beginning audiences. By sipping sugary tea, charring the wicks of candles, smelling perfumed soap, and enacting exciting experilnents, they could engage with the chemical world in which they lived. When introducing the series of experiments that appended Household Chemistry, Bernays afflrmed the importance of actual experiences in converting common objects into conveyors of scientiftc facts: CHEMISTRY is a science so dependent on experiment, that it may be averred that a man may spend a life-time in reading about it, without attaining to any satisfactory knowledge on the subject. We may read about 228 Oliver Sacks (2001) Ullde TlIlIgJlell: lVl eJJJoirs of a Chemical Bq)lhood (London: Picador), 71. In this passage, Sacks goes on to say that he used a copy of Griffin's Chemical RecrealiollJ to guide these youthful experiments. 229 Francis Galton (1874) Ellglish Men ~r Sdellce (London: Macmillan), 158. Admittedly these responses were given to a rather leading question! 139 the changes which the air undergoes in the processes of respiration and combustion - we may hear that a burning candle gives off water and carbonic acid - we may see a blue-bell on the solitary heath become red during a thunder-storm: - but how much more do these become facts to our minds, when we can prove these results to be constant and ever- recurring under similar circumstances. I need, therefore, offer no apology for suggesting a series of experiments on the subjects treated of in this lit de volume. 230 Edwin Lankester echoed these comments when reviewing J ohnston's Cbemistry if Commol1 Life in the Atbellaeum, connecting the 'operations of the senses' to learning facts: it is a great mistake to suppose that chemistry, or any of the natural sciences, can be taught, or that they can become methods of education, by mere reading. The laws of natural science are derived from observation and experiment, and a correct knowledge of the import and value of these laws can only be imparted through the operations of the senses on the facts they embrace. It is useless to expect to teach natural science without museums, apparatus, experiments, and specimens.231 As Johnston's book did not contain any directions for specific experimentation, readers relied on the everyday activities he described to provide such sensory experiences, 'apparatus, experiments, and specimens' that could readily be found around the home. ~.lO Bernays, HOlfJ'eho/d ChellliJ/I)', 245. 2.11 (Lankester, Edwin] (1855) 'Review - The C/JellliJtl)' o/Comllloll Life', Athellaelllll1432 (April 7th) , 402- 403,402. 140 Like many a scientific education, therefore, this chapter commenced with a discussion of quotidian chemistry. In particular, it began with that household ritual often converted into an illuminating illustration of scientific phenomena: the chemistry and physics of the teapot. As the tea leaves infused, the young reader was enthused with ideas of learning about the sciences, and chemistry became his 'cup of tea' in more senses than one. Theories of evaporation, solution, infusion, and even steam power could be in1parted through a closer examination with eyes, nose, hand and tongue of familiar activities, helped along by a knowledgeable guide. An important function of identifying these household experiments as chemistry was to connect the potentially unreachable realms of science with the eminently attainable home: in these ways, contemporary conceptions of the home as a shelter or refuge could be used to overcome fears about learning the sciences. However, the cup bf tea was a doubly appropriate vehicle for these lessons, as it was the constituent parts of tea, sugar and water themselves of which early Victorian drinkers could be afraid, due to widely-propagated scares about adulterated foodstuffs and fluvial pollution. Learning about chemistry was promoted as one way of overcoming these fears, and many of the elementary tests for adulterated commodities resembled introductory scientific experiments, as I have shown. Once safely ensconced in the domestic environment, the further reaches of the globe could be traversed through telling the stmy of the cup of tea, from leaves to exotic lands, and china to China. Ratller than the relationship outlined in chapter one of this thesis, in which the sciences were rendered exotic, mythic and fairy-tale, the converse applied, as experimental orientalisms became everyday objects. For many children at this tinie, ilie factory could be almost as remote a location as the far-off tea-fields of China. The next section of this chapter demonstrated how experimenting with soap and candles provided one way of visiting tlle sites of industrial manufacture. With these objects Victorian children moved beyond the simple recapitulation of household activities to elucidate scientific 141 theories, and could begin to experience the unfamiliar effects produced through new types of chemical manipulation. By following the experimental directions detailed by lecturers, or appended to introductory texts, they began to enact new types of experiments with increasingly novel objects. They could thus comprehend and manage the spectacular in the everyday, such as the explosive properties of potassium, or Dodd's overwhelming spectacle of the factory. An emphasis on the senses was again appropriate: the ironically smelly and dirty soap and candle factories were seen to be the objects whose productions most deleteriously affected the bodies of nearby inhabitants. Just as with tea, these highly symbolic objects were already at once commonplace and also redolent of many other events and practices: candles and enlightenment, soap and cleanliness. Drawing on such notions, Faraday hoped that his young listeners would themselves become fit to compare to a candle. Many writers on elementary chemistry, from Parkes to Faraday himself, incorporated these types of household experiments into their writings. Yet certain phenomena could only be illustrated wid1 specialised equipment, reactants, and practices. Pre-packed chemical cabinets such as Ede's 'Youth's Laboratory', and its dedicated literary companions, were created to sell to these markets: rather than making the reader or commodity capable of transcending the spaces of the home, empire, factory or laboratory, the laboratory itself became portable. However, d1ese boxes had permeable sides, being intimately linked to more common household products and places, including their equipment and replicating their processes. I demonstrated how the literary strategies of the prose in accompanying textbooks reduced language to its elements, hiding location, quantities, failure, and the body of the experimenter, and thus also transcending the household and identifying the practices engaged in at home with d10se of the laboratory. However, d1ere were criticisms of portable laboratories such as Ede's, couched in bodily language, which argued d1at pre-prepared sets gloved the hand of the experimenter: they therefore 142 created barriers to knowledge rather than opened doors; distanced rather than engaged their audiences with chemistry. This chapter has taken a geographical approach to these topics, mimicking some of the authors I have studied, and accompanying readers and experimenters as dley travelled around the house and world. I have discussed how these writers placed the sciences in general, and chemistry in particular, at the heart of everyday life. A powerful argument for the authority and inlportance of the sciences, and for men of science as capable domestic experts, such a location revealed conceptions of who was thought able to practice and understand these disciplines. Like chemistry itself, these objects of tea, candle, soap, and cabinet connected the kitchen to the chemical laboratory, to the factory, the boudoir, and the world, all under the gaze, nose, and · hands of the man of science. This was achieved by the conflation of household and scientific activities, though: however insightful the science, it was, like the use of fairy tale or poetry in my first chapter, irretrievably dependent on either traditional narratives or mundane tasks and objects for its success; and it was also couched in the rhetoric of expanding knowledge of these subjects and practices. Thus this chapter can be read in the light of debates over who could participate in the sciences at dus time. Symbolised in the artefact of dle sliding scale, and underscoring contemporary rhetoric, were ideas of an egalitarian chemical community, in which all could contribute to ongoing research. In the 1820s, a correspondent wrote to The Chemist to applaud its aims of promoting a community in which all could participate with very lit de equipment: he oudined, in a reference to Wollaston, how "the profoundest of the English chemists discards the fopperies of apparatus, and keeps Ius laboratory witllin the compass of a tea-tray; a few glass tubes, a blowpipe, some t\venty little pluals, and three or four wine glasses, suffice for Ius experiments." The periodical also referenced Franklin, Priestley, and Watt to 143 demonstrate how great discoveries could be made with mainly household objects. 232 Did these metonymic extensions from the candle to laws of nature imply it was just a matter of degree or quantity which separated these activities? Or were there fundamental differences in the type of activity engaged in in the specialist laboratory, the factory, and the kitchen? If what beginners were doing was like what specialists were doing, then they were still making sensuous judgements, even if mention of them disappeared from expert discourse. 2.H In these ways, far from 'dying' at the turn of the nineteenth century, the sensuous chemist could be immortal. These introductions to chemistry welcomed early Victorian children into a household and world in which even the commonest object was full of wonder and magic. But more than tlus, they grounded chemistry in smelly, tasty, and reassuringly tangible experiences: the perfumed whiff of an exotic origin, the taste of a sugary solution, the heat of a candle flame, the weight of everyday commodities as they rested in the hand. New ideas were impressed on the mind through those 'gateways to knowledge', the senses: tl1US, these lessons on the science of common tl1ings were not just designed t3 The Atbe/laeJlm termed 'Nliss Carey's autobiographies' 'delightful', praising both tlle correctness of the facts she imparts, and the 'graceful lightness and vivacity' with which they were told, 'which makes them as entertaining as fairy tales.' More importantly, the facts of the sciences themselves were deemed so powerful- and so correctly presented - as to override any misgivings tlle reviewer might have about the choice of fictional presentation: 'We do not, as a general rule, approve of the plan of 33 1 Care)" AlltobiograpbJI, 9. 3.12 Ibid., 10. m The Ti»w, Wed. Dec. 7·h, 1870, 8. 188 turning the acquisition of useful knowledge into a mere amusement; but the elementary' facts of natural science are so fascinating and so wonderful, that when put before either children or grown persons with any sort of skill and power of narration, they cannot help being attractive; and Miss Annie Carey has the gift of being able to do justice to her subjects.334 FIGURE THIRTY NINE: The four children converse with the grain of salt. Carey's 'autobiographical' text taught about a range of topics connected to the common object and linked by the thread of the conversation. Indeed, she also published Threads f!fKIlOJv/edge (which was reprinted with the Alltobiographies as The If/ollders if Common Thillgs), which, as its introduction claimed, argued that 'there are no subjects so simple, no objects so commonplace, as not to possess some one or more "Threads," connecting them with others that are at once intricate and wonderful.'·m 3.14 [G. E. Jewsbury], 'Review - Tales of/he Tqys, Told B)' Themselves', 336. 335 Carey, ThreadJ' ofKJlollJiedge, ill. 189 Mrs Norton, the mother character in the book who gave the lessons, taught her children how to make the most of these threads, telling them that they had to contribute to the educational process, too: Parents and teachers can only give their pupils the ends of threads, so to speak; threads, that if you are patient and inquiring, will unwind and unwind themselves from the endless web ofknowledge'.336 Carey's 'Autobiography of a Grain of Salt' connected its readers to 'the endless web of knowledge', as it managed to cover the increase in the duty on salt during the Napoleonic wars, the mines of Poland, what is meant by a solution, details about the salinity of the oceans, Scandinavian poems, elementary chemical theory, Herodotus, . Homer and the New Testament, as well as the properties of crystallisation. The children each had different characters, with appropriate levels of knowledge; and occasionally the voice of a scientific expert is invoked, such as a quotation from Charles Lyell on the deftnition of a 'brine spring'. However, the most prominent voice in the text was - rather than that of Mrs Norton - that of the grain of salt as an informative and, because of its direct access to phenomena, authoritative lecturer. As it said: when two things are chemically combined, the new substance formed may be as different as possible from either of the two things of which it is composed. Take me for example. You all see that I am white and pleasant to the eye and taste; you know also that I am useful and edible, that is fit to be eaten; that I help to make food agreeable and suitable, and that I tend to preserve food from decaying. Such are my personal qualities. Now what will you say, when I tell you that my two elements are each of them separately most deJtl1fdive to life. If you breathed much of my gas Chlorine, 336 Ibid., vi-vii. 190 you would certainly be suffocated ... If you throw a piece of [sodium] upon water, it will cause effervescence ... You must ask your uncle to show you these things, next time you are in his laboratoty.337 By taking on the persona of the object Carey was able to provide a lively account of chemical phenomena, and to urge the students to pursue further enquiries into the sciences. The quotation articulated and recapitulated ,her process of education: it fltst stated the central concept the grain of salt wished to impart (properties of elements); it then drew attention to itself as an example of this concept; it then went through common knowledge of common salt - fltst what the children could see, then what they already knew - its 'personal qualities'; then subverted these expectations with an unfamiliar fact - the different properties of salt's constituent elements; there was a demonstration of this fact with experiments the children could conceivably do; and ftnished with a gesture towards going to visit their uncle in his laboratory and the actual experience of scientiftc investigation. Thus from the object lesson notions of reasoning and also practice were imparted - as well as how such phenomena should be talked about. Conclusion This chapter has echoed with the voices of nature, with speech given to natural and chemical objects in the second half of the nineteenth century. From the mouths of oak-trees, a grain of salt, and a series of fossils, we have heard tales of vegetable structure, chemical composition, and rocky strata; learned what life was like in Silurian seas, the dangerous sides of separated sodium and chlorine, and how water travels from root to leaf. However, and as I have implicitly argued in the preceding pages, the idea of an uninterpreted, unmediated voice from nature speaking through tllese objects and through these pages is an illusion. Rather, the choice of explicitly 337 Carey, A Ulobiograpl!Jl, 39. 191 talkative artefacts demonstrated most clearly that things never speak for themselves: they are always enmeshed in networks of books, illustrations, authors, lecturing practices, religious convictions, shops, conversations, letters, dining clubs and advertisements - amongst others - without which they are mute. By investigating the contextual fabric of these 'subject lessons' - who was speaking for and through the object, what the object was saying, the genre and oeuvre of works in which the object was embedded - we can complicate the notion of 'talking for themselves', and tease out specific stories. As part of an emphasis on practice and the senses, many different disciplines claim a renewed awareness of all things noisy.338 Much recent scholarship has suggested that the second half of the nineteenth century can be characterised as a culture interested in aural phenomena and technologies, which was echoed in contemporary literature.339 For Stephen Connor, this involved a reconceptualisation of the natural world as itself alive, capable of communicating secrets and understanding to those who possessed the correct meld of mental and physical skills, what he termed the 'curious revival of a very ancient conception of the expressiveness of the material world, a sense that the world could speak'.340 However, this sense of direct communion with nature had by no means disappeared in the intervening centuries; for example, poets and philosophers had used the Aeolian harp as an actual and metaphorical instrument for capturing the sounds, moods, and thoughts of nature. 341 By the end of the nineteenth century, the persona of the m Some of these texts include: Tess Cosslett, Ta/killg AllIilla/.f in Childrell J' Fic!ioll, Picker, Victoriall SoundJwpeJ, Stewart, Readillg Voit'CJ. 339 See, for example, Gillan Beer, '.-\uthentic Tidings of Invisible Things', 85; Picker, Vic/oliall SOlfn(/Jwpes, 85: this was 'an age defined by new emphases on and understandings of the capacity for listening, in which Victorian science at first gave substance and form to sounds that had once seemed indefinite and immaterial, and Victorian technology then fundamentally destabilized aural communication'. 340 Steven Connor (2002) 'Voice, Technology and the Victorian Ear', in R. Luckhurst and]. McDonagh, Transactioll alld EI/coul/feu: Sdence and Culture il/ the Nineteenth Cm/m)1 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 16-29. 21. .W See Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J Silverman (1995) II/stl7ll7le!l/s alld the Imagil/atioll (princeton, N . J: Princeton University Press), 86-112. 192 scientist similarly became conceived of as a conduit, a direct and ~'L"" __ '" conveyor of natural knowledge, particularly with what has been termed appeal to considerations of 'objectivity' in this period.342 Many writers in the half of the nineteenth century emphasised their role as conveyer or interpreter 'voice of nature': just as the visual impressions of the natural world could overwhehn the neophyte, so too could he be deafened by the 'cacophony' of voices emanating from the natural world, what George Eliot termed 'that roar which lies on the other side of silence'. For experienced naturalists such as Charles Kingsley, nature "was a companion speaking with a thousand voices": he might have been able to comprehend such speech, but new audiences required help.343 Popular texts would make sense of these experiences.344 Many of these works were explicitly intended as introductions to the sciences: their use of a singular object and presentation as dramatic monologues helped to ftlter and decipher the confusing messages potentially heard by those seeking enhanced sensory perceptions. Imbuing objects with spirit, personalities, and voices made manifest these senses of direct, aural, and oral communication with nature. If things were going to talk to Victorian audiences, considerations of hOlv they would talk became of paramount interest. It has been said that the Victorian 'fascination' with conversing and conversation '''represented an area of private life open to the dictates of self- improvement which was also an area of public life where progress could be tested against contemporaries" ... for speech to be useful in itself, there had to be a forever elusive "right" way to tallc'345 Speech was a physical mode of communication as words were enunciated, both virtually in the text, but also through processes of reading, reading aloud, and tallill1g about what one had read. The 'soundscapes' of 3H See Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, 'The Image of Objectivity'. 343 Kingsley, Life alld Letters, 156-157. 344 Lightman, 'Voices of Nature', 207. 345 M. P . Stitt, (1998) Metaphors of Change in tile Langllage ojNinetemth-Cmtlll)' Fiction: S({Jlt, Gaske//, and Killgs/I!)', 155. 193 scientist similarly became conceived of as a conduit, a direct and unmediating conveyor of natural knowledge, particularly with what has been termed the increasing appeal to considerations of 'objectivity' in this period.3-l2 Many writers in the second half of the nineteenth century emphasised their role as conveyer or interpreter of the 'voice of nature': just as the visual impressions of the natural world could overwhelm the neophyte, so too could he be deafened by the 'cacophony' of voices emanating from the natural world, what George Eliot termed 'that roar which lies on the other side of silence'. For experienced naturalists such as Charles Kingsley, nature "was a companion speaking with a thousand voices": he might have been able to comprehend such speech, but new audiences required help.343 Popular texts would make sense of these experiences. 344 Many of these works were explicitly intended as introductions to the sciences: their use of a singular object and presentation as dramatic monologues helped to ftlter and decipher the confusing messages potentially heard by those seeking enhanced sensory perceptions. Imbuing objects with spirit, personalities, and voices made manifest these senses of direct, aural, and oral communication with nature. If things were going to talk to Victorian audiences, considerations of hOJJJ they would talk became of paramount interest. It has been said that the Victorian 'fascination' with conversing and conversation "'represented an area of private life open to tl1e dictates of self- improvement which was also an area of public life where progress could be tested against contemporaries" . . . for speech to be useful in itself, there had to be a forever elusive "right" way to talk.'345 Speech was a physical mode of communication as words were enunciated, both virtually in the text, but also through processes of reading, reading aloud, and talking about what one had read. The 'soundscapes' of 342 See Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, 'The Image of Objectivity'. 343 Kingsley, Life alld Letters, 156-157. 344 Lightman, 'Voices of Nature', 207. 345 M. P. Stitt, (1998) MetaphorJ ofChallge ill the Lallglfage ofNilleteelltb-CC/ltlfl)l Fi.-tioll: Scott, Gaske/I, alld Killgs/f!)I, 155. 193 these texts, their sonic environments, were formed, and reformed, through these acts of reading. 346 Recent historical, anthropological, literary, and sociological studies have emphasised how material objects can 'speak' to us': that seemingly trivial objects are eloquent of their place in wider systems of thought, practice, and naturallaw.347 By considering the presentation of explicitly talking things, this chapter has argued that what objects can say to historians can be made especially clear when their actual way of speaking is taken into account; when, rather than an object, they became a subject lesson. The self-conscious use of literary techniques of personification and anthropomorphism gave different kinds of voices to objects: voices that readers were supposed to emulate. The texts that I have studied in this chapter provided a series of voices for objects from the natural and manufactured worlds. Some writers lectured on behalf of the object in question, 'telling their stories', as Crookes memorably put it. Others, drawing on early nineteenth-century models of the conversational genre, presented a fictionalised representation of the correct forum for discussing natural knowledge, teaching, when, where, how and to whom was it appropriate to talk about the sciences. These authors sought, quite literally, to bring the sciences to life for their readers as a series of animated object lessons . Thinking about these soundscapes of introductory texts therefore helps us to elucidate and emphasise the oral cultures of reading and education in this period. These voices of geology also draw attention to the fact that for many Victorians the discipline could be conceived of in vocal terms, or as a voiced activity: fossil and rock sequences formed a hieroglyphic language; comparative anatomy aped the resurrectional voice of Ezekiel; memorable geological education, convivial post-prandial entertainment and even painfully punning satire 3~6 Picker, Victoriall SOlflldJt"apeJ; R. Murray Schafer (1977) The Tllllillg of the /f:-'or/d (New York: Alfred A I..plailled 'D' Familiar Oijel'/J, ill all Elltertaillillg Mallller (London: Printed for] . \'\' alker et a/. New edn.), 7-8. m [Anon.], ExeniJ'es for the ItlIprOllemellt of the Sensu, 9. 224 In a different way, William Graeme Rhind's The CreatioJ1 (1842) also used itself as an object to teach positional relationships. It appealed to the dexterity of its readers by including a manipulable volvelle inside its front cover (see figure forty seven), with which reading children could dial up a series of times across the 'Habitable Globe'.4Is As Rhind explained: The arrangement of the names, on the inner circle, is to meet the desire of these who have friends going abroad, or already settled there. How often is tl1e question asked, in every family where tl10se dear to them are far away, "I wonder what our brother, or sister, or friends are doing now?" One glance at the Dial, will, at least, in part, answer the question. 416 Rhind picked out particular locations that 'traced' the 'line of the steam voyage to Bombay, Calcutta, China' via the Red Sea as well as the Cape of Good Hope; to Australia and North America, as well as Nice and Dublin, which, dlOugh it was relatively close-by, had 'a sensible variation of time' from Britain.417 Children reading tl1e book - formatted as a series of letters from a fatl1er to his offspring, minllcking the theological connotations of God as Father to man - were encouraged to explore tl1eir personal relationships with figures standing in various positions around the world. Though it utilised only two dimensions, the title given to the frontispiece declared that tlus representation was self-consciously a 'globe', flattening but simultaneously mimicking the planet's real shape. Throughout the book, a series of steel engravings had depicted the earth as a whole, mapping its appearance on the successive days of creation, with the sun and moon, land, plants and animals, and finally man, accumulating on tl1e plates according to the order laid out in Genesis. The concept of connecting individual pieces of information to the planet as a whole m Rhind, (1842) Creatioll. ~16 Ibid., appendi.., [i) m Ibid. 225 was foregrounded, as through analysing and experimenting with the spatial relations between themselves and their actllal relatives elsewhere in the Empire, children were taught to abstract these lessons to more general precepts in positional astronomy. 7l1t11/(IIIII"I.~· tl", Jt'lillls "r lit" .IlomillQ ,vld ,1.",,/1 ill lIlt' 1J1I~'7f1(l.rt part or tlu' s." ~'I 'i'II IANt' slidll i1r It,ut'! /"ful 11;() lmd tlfr right ItcUld .thall Iwltl 1I1J!!. l"' ~~ :-' L~{')'~ ~ ~\ 10 ., II1IPJ. 'TIll/{ $ -Flnn' ~#II!,,: •. """",in. (·tJv Pi.,) ,.;/I,...,ok dv. ",LJ,'w qj,y.. rI (N«Mr.pW"" Vf ikrJ.,~ . t:rtfMI'LE 1t7.,.II it v N",'n,u/ Ltm,J",,- ;t~ ",U"ltIAl ,,( ,A, t"''mJ~.'lsf.""I" .v"m/n:It,,1V,., .. (Nit"" ""d1:,·mint! .JI.lQ1Jdi,." FIGURE FORTY SEVEN: Volvelle from Rhind's Creation. The Instructions read: DIRECTIONS Place the hour of your time opposite the Co un tty you are in~ & the Dial will mark the relative time at the other parts of the Globe. 226 -EXAMPLE When it is Noon at London, it is Midnight at the Friendly Islands, - Morning at New Orleans and Evening at Calcutta. Above the 'Habitable Globe' volvelle was written a quotation from the psalms that epitomised the purpose of the book in drawing together scriptural writings with the surrounding natural world, and the hands-on activity of the child: 'Though I take the wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost'part of the Sea', it read, 'even there shall tlry halld lead lite alld dry right halld shall hold me' (see figure forty seven),418 Knowledge came to the child through the divinely-ordered natural world: as the first letter had set out, the purpose of the book was to enlighten its audience to the 'manner in which the things around us are continually used in the blessed Word of God to set forth divine truths', that the reading children might 'get instruction from every object around',419 Both time ('the Morning') and space ('the uttermost part of the Sea') could be reached with and could reveal the presence of God, if handled appropriately. Most significantly for our purposes, the quotation asserted that the child was 'led' down the patll to that knowledge by t11e hand: the right-handed child would hold the book, and spin the volvelle, which apparently spoke to the child in the first person, referring to t11e child's hand as 'thy hand', and itself as 'me'. The left hand came to life and petitioned 'tllOse who have the superintendency of education' to give her the same training as her right 'twin', in Benjamin Franklin's letter on tile subject, cited in Charles Bell's Bridgewater Treatise on The Hand: Its NledJallism and ElldOlvJl1ents, as Evillcillg Desigll.420 Nlill opened his work on n~hat to Teach alld HOIv to Teach It WitIl a sinillar extended discussion comparing the differences between the hands. What could one do with the right hand, Arthur had asked his sister, Kate? And how about the left? Why was this so? Through a carefully-directed m Ibid, quotation reproduced above frontispiece. l'vIy emphasis. m Ibid, 1,2. 420 Charles Bell (1852) The Hand: Its iVIec/;allism alld Vital ElldoJllments, as Evillcillg Desigll (London: John Murray, 5th edn), 144. 227 series of questions and answers, Arthur led the reader, and his sister, to the following conclusion: . "Then you see, Kate, we have arrived at this, that your right hand is powerful and useful because it has been educated; that the great difference between that and your left is, that the latter is uneducated or uncultivated - in one word, neglected. Now we come to the point I have been trying to bring you to - the grand difference between the educated and the uneducated. The one is strong, powerful, useful, because it has been trained; the other weak, inefficient, helpless, because it has been neglected." "Of course I know that," retorted Kate, "and so does everybody; and that is what is intended by the new acts of the Legislature, which are designed to make educations universal, or, if you like similes better, take care of the left hands."421 In Mill's extended analogy, the synecdochic right hand became the body of the schoolchild, that -like Rhind's reader - beld knowledge, in contrast to those who were ignorant, and uneducated. This polemical, political use of the hand as synecdoche was at its most resonant in debates over labourers, or 'hands', resonances on which Kate punned in her retort to her brother. This identification between the working classes and their hands is used by Barnes and Shapin in severing the intellectual, complex and active (or 'gnostic') process of education from the sensual, simple and passive (or 'banausic'), which they argue formed the two 'mentalities' 'constructed' in this period. 422 This was a useful rhetorical separation for those advocating the higher status and mental pleasures of 4~1 NWl, P/ima1)l, IlIdmf/fa/ alld Tedillical Ed"t<1fion, 6-7. 422 Barry Barnes and Steven Shapin, (1976) 'Head and Hand: Rhetorical Resources in British Pedagogical Writing, 1770-1850', O>jord Re/JieJ/J of Edtlt"fioll 2, 231 -354. 228 science, but obscures how these categories were, in practice, brought together: complex thoughts and active practices were communicated through sensual processes, and by beginning with simple objects and concepts. Even Henry Brougham's argument for learning the sciences being a process of transcending the body and training the mind was itself couched in' a sensory language of 'tastes'.423 Rather than being dangerously 'base', then, sensory in1pressions could in fact be upheld as the rational- and natural- way to train the mind.424 Moreover, playful activities exploited actions already known to ci1e hand, and could be the way to understanding rational processes . This section has explored how children's hands, and, by extension, children themselves, were taught about the shape of the earth in the nineteenth century. From an elaborately-carved orange to a lump of clay, children were taught to handle astronomy and geography through a range of different types of tactile activities engaged in with a variety of paper, card, and paste, two- and three-dimensional objects. Often manufactured and sold by the same enterprises that created games such as S,iell(e ill SPOlt, specialist card-sets, slides, puzzles, and globes provided hands- on explanatory aids to the introductory teacher. Problems including demonstrating the spherical shape of the earth, and one's place on it, were also solved by practical examples using more everyday items such as fruit, magnets, balls, and wheels. Books were themselves revealed as sites of hands-on learning, in the volvelle with which Rhind's readers manually dialled up the time across the globe, or on the pages of miniature libraries that presented child-sized knowledge. Above all, therefore, by placing artefacts in the hand of the child these object lessons on the spherical earth brought the immense subjects of astronomy and geography onto a human - indeed, m See Henry Brougham (1827) A DislYJ/lrse of the O~jeds, Advantages, and PleaS/lres of Science (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 2nd edn.). For example, he declares that 'the appeal is made to reason, without help from the senses', but also that 'you will, as it were, taste a little to try whether or not you relish it' , and that 'the pleasure derived from this study is unceasing, and so various, that it never tires the appetite' (6, 7). m See, for example, George Wilson (1856) The Five GateJ/Jqys ofKllowledge (Cambridge: Macmillan and Co.). 229 an infant - scale. Shrinking the subject of the lesson to the size of the child's world was more "than a rhetorical flourish: object teaching proceeded and succeeded through sensory training" The hands and body could be trained to relate to abstracted phenomena, and relationships between objects extended to encompass the whole of creation. A see-saw, or object lesson as plaything Object lessons, as I have demonstrated throughout this dissertation, were ftrmly situated in the child's surrounding physical environment, and exploited the artefacts at hand and activities known to the learning child. The kitchen, local countryside, garden, parlour, and nursery were converted into sites of scientiftc instruction. So far, the objects recruited as the foci of these lessons have been commonplace household commodities and natural historical specimens. But it was the commonplace plqytbings of childhood, from marbles and kites to hoops and pea- shooters, that populated the pages of John Ayrton Paris's Philosoplry of SpOlt Made Sdence ill Earl/es/, whi~h ftrst appeared in three volumes with illustrations by George Cruikshank in 1827 (see ftgure forty nine). As its subtitle declared, this book was 'an attempt to illustrate the ftrst principles of natural philosophy by the aid of the popular toys and sports of youth': rather than creating new ways of playing, older pastimes were recast as educative, scientiftc, activities. Indeed, not only the toys and sports of youth, but the tools of discipline associated with the sterner sort of classical education found a place in the book's system of instruction: 'Imagine not', Paris's preface averred, 'that I shall recommend tl1e dismissal of the cane, or whip; on the contrary, I shall insist on them as necessary and indispensable instruments for the accomplishment of my design; but the method of applying them shall be changed':l25 The last section of this chapter analyses how Paris achieved this aim of changing how objects were applied - and how children applied themselves - in games. It argues that m John A yrton Paris (1827) Pbi/osophjl ill S pOl1 Made S dem"e in Eal7lest (London: Longman, Rees, Orne, Brown, and Green), vol. 1., viii-Lx. 'sport' became 'philosophy' in t:\vo ways: through games and humorous language science wa's converted into a pastime itself, and through physical activities scientific theories were adapted to fit the child's body and mind. FIGURE FORTY EIGHT: One of George Cruikshank's illustrations for Philosophy in Sport, here depicting some of the childhood playthings used as examples in the book: a kite, cricket bat, shuttlecock, bow and arrows, and balls. The original illustrations were retained throughout the subsequent new editions. The tension inherent in Paris's oxymoronic tide - Pbi/osop/?), ill SpoJi - played on the perceived contrast bet:\veen education and entertainment, a contrast reified in the contemporaneous publication of the SDUK's Libraries of Usifitl and Elltertaining Kllowledge. The book began by explaining that it 'proposed' a 'series of amusements' for the 'instruction' of Tom 'during the holidays'; a creed immediately criticised, to pre-empt concerns that could be raised by the reader of the book: 231 "Amusement and instruction," replied the vicar, are not synonymous in my ,roca bulary . . . "426 If not precisely synonymous, 'amusement' and 'instruction' could be complementary, and books and lessons reconciled their different demands in a variety of ways, as we have begun to see in the discussion of miniature books above. For Paris, they would primarily be brought together by taking already existing amusements, and revealing their instructional value. He also, however, navigated the waters by playing off different genres of writing, including the didactic dialogue (Ciceronian, not Platonic, he was at pains to stress), farces, and even claimed to have 'ventured so far to deviate from the beaten track as to skirmish upon the frontiers of the Novelist, and to bring off captive some of the artillery of Romance .. . '427 The genre of the caricature was · also encroached on by the book, with 'amusing' illustrations by George Cruikshank a counterpoint to what could appear at first sight as 'instructional' prose. In these ways, the playfulness of Philosop/?) ill Spoltwas not restricted to the activities it depicted : ~guistic gymnastics and, especially, plays on words were central to its narrative and didactic success. A spectrum of puns provided everything from knowing references to the educated reader, to simple light relief for their younger counterparts, and were identified in the text in italic font, as they were in contemporary publications such as The Comic Offering (see figures sixteen and twenty four in chapter two). For example, the use of puns played a key role in one of the first conversations between the educational voice of natural philosophy, Mr. Seymour (the family name itself a pun on their enlightened perspective: 'See-More'), and Reverend Twaddleton, a Virgil-quoting antiquarian vicar (and supposedly allergic to puns, which at the beginning of the book provoked in him a visceral reaction, likened by the narrator to 'the quivering back of a horse, when goaded by the sting of a gad- 426 Ibid., 25 . 427 I bid. xiii. 232 £1y').428 A vogue for natural science was, the Reverend reported to his dismay, sweeping the village, after Tom Plank - the carpenter, naturally - had visited a Mechanics' Institute in London, and returned with ambitions to set up a local philosophical society.429 Lampooning the rhetoric of critics of contemporary movements such as the SDUK, the Reverend remonstrated that 'unless this "march of intellect," ... is speedily checked, Overton, in less than twelve months, will become a deserted village; for there is scarcely a tradesman who is not already distracted by some visionary scheme of scientific improvement'. This 'distraction' from appropriate activities greatly resembled Thomas Love Peacock's satirical depiction of the calamitous - indeed, con£1agratory - results of the working classes learning philosophy, in Crotchet Castle (1831). As one of his characters lamented: '1 am out of all patience with this march of mind. Here has my house been nearly burned down, by my cook taking it into her head to study Hydrostatics, in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society'; the cook had read this 'rubbish' in bed, promptly fallen asleep and overturned her candle, setting fire to her curtains. 43U Back in Ove!ton, Roger Naylor, the blacksmith, had even abandoned the forge to found an elementary school, news of which provided the basis for an ever- more elaborate series of puns: from how 'writing and forgillg' could be the same business - if one wished to risk conviction in the courts - to NIt Seymour's riff on 'elemeJltary education'. Initially, none of the other characters understood this joke - Tom, the learning schoolboy with whom tl1e reader identified, 'was quite unable to comprehend what elemeJIts had to do with the shoeing of a horse; the vicar was equally at a loss to discover the speaker's meaning; for, as he said, he could not possibly imagine what afflnity existed between the heels of a quadruped, and the head of a child.' Mrs Seymour offered the observation 'that, in both cases, it is the business of the artist to hammer something soundly into them,' which her husband confirmed 428 Ibid. 29. 429 Ibid. 430 Thomas Love Peacock (1831) Cro/dJet Castle (London: T. Hookham), 18, 19. 233 was 'a happy hit of hers; but none guessed that he was connecting the elemental materials with which the blacksmith worked to introductory instruction, and the elements of knowledge. As Mr Seymour implored his audience, 'Are not fire, JIJaler, emtb, and ail~ the elemwts? and has not the air animated his bellows, the fire heated his iron, the water tempered his work, and the emth aff~rded him moulds for his castings?'431 Audiences both in and reading the book could now appreciate the patriarch's wordplay, and enjoy an 'enigma' on the topic relayed by Mrs Seymour: A shoemaker once made shoes without leather, With all the four elements joined together; There were Fire and Water, and Earth too, and Air, And most of his customers wanted two pair.432 Arguably, it was parents, tutors, and governesses, rather than children, who would have appreciated chapters such as this on the very business of education and the spread of philosophical knowledge - reflected in the fact that in this section it was primarily the speech of the adult characters in the book that was relayed, unlike in other passages, where the various Seymour children contributed more to the discussions . Allusions, such as the reference to the 'march of intellect', and the 'liberal' politics of Mr Seymour, made the book's awareness of contemporary political debates clear to a newspaper-reading adult. Paris was well aware that by playing around with different ways and levels of writing and explanation, portions of his book could be criticised for failing to appeal to its avowedly childish audience, to whom he apologised in the preface for ignoring for a few pages 'that I may address a few words to your parents and preceptors'.433 There was also an apology for the parents themselves: 431 This discussion takes place on Ibid., 40-42. m Ibid. , 42. 433 Ibid., viii. 234 If it be argued that several of my comic representations are calculated, like seasoning, to stimulate the palate of the novel reader, rather than to nourish the minds of the younger class, for whom the work was written, I may, upon such a charge, at least, plead common usage; for does not the director of a juvenile fete courteously introduce a few piquant dishes, for the entertainment of those elder personages who may attend in the character of a chaperone?434 In his role as 'chaperone' to the sciences, Paris justified his aim of providing conversational 'sport' for the adult as well as nursery games for the child reader, both nourishing in their way. Thus, the playful verbal patchwork of novelistic passages, Latin quotations ftom the Aemid, witticisms and knowing references formed part of the same enterprise as Paris's actual use of play and activity in the book, just as contemporary titles such as Exercises for tbe JmprotJelJtel/t of tbe Sellses punned on the word's dual meaning of both a mental and physical work-out.435 Andrew Warwick has analysed how mathematics students at Cambridge University used exercises to train both their bodies and minds with competitive examinations in the first half of the nineteenth century; 436 it appears that precisely tlus undergraduate experience underpinned Reverend Twaddleton's bitter antipathy towards the sciences in Pbilosopl!J ill SPOlt, as the book's narrator explained: He entertained a singular aversion to the mathematics, a prejudice which we are inclined to refer to his disappointment in tlle senate-house; for, 434 Ibid, l'o."ri. 435 Anon., ExcniJcs for tbe IlIJprovclIJeJlt of tbe SeJlJej-. This book was split into two sections: 'Exercises on Objects' and 'Exercises for the Body'. 436 See Andrew Warwick (1998) 'Exercising the Student Body: l\tlathematics and Athleticism in Victorian Cambridge', in Lawrence and Shapin, 288-326; and Warwick (2003) Masters Of Theory: Cambl7·dgc alld tbe Rise oflvlathclllatical PI.!ysio (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press) . 235 although he was what is termed at Cambridge a "reading maJl," after all his ex-ertions he only succeeded in obtaining the "Ivoodell spoon," an honour which devolves upon the last of the '';illlior optimeJ."437 ExerciJeJjor tbe Improvement of tbe 5 ellJeJ had drawn together actual artefacts and verbal artifice, describing language as 'the most important' 'instrument' 'for the acquisition of knowledge and virtue', advising that children 'should understand it well, and use it with accuracy, dexterity, and ease'.438 Language itself was cast as an object capable of manipulation, and in need of careful handling. Playing on or with actual objects was an equally important part of PbiloJopl.!y ill SpOlt (see figure fifty), discussion of which operated in tandem with these linguistic puns. The conversion of playing into learning was perceived as an effective means of instruction since, Paris pointed out, playing was deemed a natural activity of childhood: cy outh is naturally addicted to amusement', he declared; indeed, so addicted that 'his expenditure too often exceeds his allotted income'. On this excess expenditure, Paris proposed to 'draw a draft'; or, as his epigrammatic quotation from Cowper declared, to levy 'a tax of profit from his very play'.439 The educational practices of Froebel relied on many playful activities, incorporating games with objects as well as songs as ways of learning particularly suited to developing children's minds. 440 In Plimary, Sel"Olldary, alld Tedll1ical Edlftl1tioll N1ill remarked on this identification: 437 Paris, PhilosoplZy of Spol1, Vol I, 13. See Warwick, Masters ofTheol)l, 208-11 for discussion of the 'wooden spoon', given to the student who came bottom of the list. From 1804, conceivably around the time that the Reverend graduated, an actual wooden spoon was constlUcted and presented at the Senate House. 418 Anon., Exenises for the Improvement of the Senses, xvi-xvii. 439 Paris, Pbilosopl:!J1 ill SpOlt Vol I, 10-11, 5. 440 For Froebel's use of play in education, see especially Froebel, Pedagogit> of the Kindergm1en, 63-69. For the classic snldy of play, see J OM Huizinga (1970) Homo L/ldem: A st/ldy of the plqy elemellt ill mltlllt! (London: Temple Smith). For a more recent sociological analysis oflearning through play, see Jeffrey H. Goldstein(1994) TI!P, PIC!JI, alld Child De/JeloPJJlellt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 236 I t was well said by Frobel, 'Play is the labour of the child,' and in play we must fmd the sources of our physical culture, especially for children under ten years of age. A series of games have been organized in what is called the 'Kinder-Garten system,' which are designed, taken as a whole, to exercise the whole bodily faculties of the· child. You will see from the samples which I submit to you that they are derived principally from games which have existed among children from time immemorial, and are only systematized and reduced to order for the special requirements of industrial children.441 As in Pbilosopf?JI il1 SPOli, it was traditional games 'from time immemorial' that formed the basis of these activities, and rendered scientific; Paris also, however, dealt with the science of new optical amusements, such as the thaumatrope.442 Discussing the stereoscope, one such new amusement, a contributor to HOlIScbold Jl70rds writing on 'Playthings' criticised the conversion of playing into learning: In the use of these philosophical toys I utterly object to all attempt to turn them into lessons, or to say one word about the science that is in them, more than can be made pleasantly intelligible ... . It is not at all necessary that a child should do more than wonder at a plaything of this kind . .. 443 Such an opinion echoes with Dickens' frustration with the fictionallVIr Barlow's propensity to 'didactically improve' almost any occasion - indeed, Salldford alld lvIcltoll +11 IvIill, PnilJa/)I' Tee/II/ica!, and Indl/StJia/ Edlfcation, 49-50. +12 The Opies conducted an analysis on such traditional forms of play: see Iona and Peter Opie (1969) Children J. GaJl/eJ in Street and P/qygrolllld (Oxford: Clarendon Press); and (1997) Childrell 's Gall/es JlJith Things (Oxford: Oxford University Press). For Paris and the thaumatrope, see Gerard L'E . Turner (1987) 'Presidential Address: Scientific Toys', BnliJh jOlfma/ for the His/OJ)' of S ciellce 20, 377-398, 391. +13 [Anon.] (1853) 'Playthings', Household J(7oniJ VI (15th Jan) , 430-432, 432. 237 was an important model for Pbi/osop!!] i1l Sporl. 444 PUI/dl would satirise the taking of science to the nursery in an 1848 article on 'Old and New Toys', which argued that new and scientific objects needed to be created for the rising generation. Toys, it proclaimed, should 'advance with the age', since children 'are too clever now to be amused with' traditional toys such as kites or d~lls; rather, they should be instructed and amused with balloons, gasometers, and velocipedes, or even a Megatherium rocking-horse. Reminiscent of Paris's manifesto, it concluded that in this way a 'lesson will be contained in every toy', and 'the most abstruse sciences be made easy to the smallest understanding by the aid of a plaything' (see figure fifty)445 +14 See chapter two, section one. +15 Anon. (1848) 'Old and New Toys', PUI/d; 14, 76 238 ) r }~G:jJ~-'"" 1e~:" -.- FIGURE FORTY NINE A, B AND C: Some of the childish games and activities used to impart scientific knowledge in Philosophy in Sport trundling hoops, flying kites, and blowing bubbles . .. , .. ... -OtTl' .... , -...~ .~ .~ ... ..... .... ~_" ..... . H ~'.:i~~~~~:r.:.·tP:!1.?'~:~"1f .. :~~i .,,",:,, " .'" .~ ","- l w-.:..._if · ~' 1't"""l'T't'W Ua" ....... ·f ..... .. !l \"\i ~_I~.t". .. d,,,,.,,-Vn;,!It ' ..... ""',.t .... ~";.-_;n ~_,~ \jo..f-__ j .. ' t_ ........ ·J ; .. ,~ r"'f'1" .. (, • .-.l ..... ~ .. , ... ""# 'T ", ~ ~ i' " "K' t"$ 239 FIGURE FIFTY: Punch proposes modifications of several traditional toys, using 'Science' to 'unmesmerise them' and fit them for the 'expanded' mind of 'advanced' nineteenth-century youth. The Seymour boys' new hobby of playing upon a see-saw provided one opportunity to demonstrate a scientific 'principle' through a familiar activity, and is typical of how Philosopl?J ill SpOil attempted to combine instructional didacticism from Mr Seymour with depictions of playful activities and the input oflearning children. After walking 'to the grove, in which a plank had been placed across a wooden post', Tom and his younger brother John: again mounted their new hobby; and, after amusing themselves for some minutes, Mr. Seymour desired them to stop, in order that Tom might explain the principle upon which the see-saJJ} acted. Tom replied, that he was not aware of any principle which could apply to riding on a plank. "Have I not often told you, my dear boy, that the principles of Natural Philosophy may be· brought to bear on the most trivial acts of life? Listen, therefore, and you shall find that your present amusement teems with instruction. You are already well acquainted with the nature and operations of the centre of gravity; tell me, therefore, whereabouts it lies in the plank upon which you are riding." "I should think," replied Tom, "that in this instance, the centres of gravity and magnitude must coincide, or be very nearly in the same point. "446 First, the children's play was interrupted by the patriarch, who asked them 'to stop' their amusement and think about what they were doing. Though Tom did not at first realise this, he was convinced that what he was doing 'teemed' with 'instruction; when 4-16 Paris, Pbilosopl!), ill SpOlt, vol. I, 273-274. 240 questioned, he could in fact apply his existing knowledge of the actions of gravity to the actions of the see-saw. Mr Seymour then introduced new material, describing how the 'moments' on either side of the central fulcrum (the wooden post) needed to be balanced, and how the see-saw in effect acted as a lever, a key mechanical principle: " ... you and John are of unequal weight, so that you perceive the plank must be drawn a little farther over the prop to make the arms unequal; and John, who is the lightest, must be placed at the extremity of tlle largest arm. Thus arranged, you will exactly balance each other, and as each of you, on your descent, touches the ground with your feet, the re- action afford you a spring, which destroys the equilibrium, and enables you to oscillate in arcs about the centre of motion." [see figure fifty one] . .. said Tom, "1 have myself observed, that the lighter person has the better ride, as he moves both fartller and quicker, and I now understand the reason of it; it is because being father from the centre of motion he describes a larger arc." cc ••• You have here then a striking instance of mechanical advantage gained by opposing motion to matter, or velocity to weight; for I think you will readily admit, that without the aid of the plank, your little brother could never have raised you from the ground." "Then the plank thus arranged," continued his father, "constitutes a mechallical pOll/er to which tlle name of lever has been given ... -147 Technical terms were in tlus way introduced to the reader through the father's didactic prose. However, throughout the passage the playful, enjoyable, nature of the activity in wluch they were engaged was brought back to the attention of the reader: for instance, Tom recalled that due to these laws of physics, his little brother had a 'better' time on the see-saw. The example closed with Mr Seymour telling Ius +17 Ibid., 274-276. 241 companion to 'let the children remain at their sports': left alone by the adults, they returned to the playful activity with which the section had commenced, but with a newly philosophical understanding of how it worked. 44H ~ FIGURE FIFTY ONE: \ \ "Do we then describe the arcs of a circle as we ascend and descend?" "Undoubtedly you must. Look at this diagram," said Mr Seymour, "and you will see at once that the plank can only move round the centre of motion". 449 In these ways, Paris's Phi/oJOp/ry ill Sport Made Sciem'e ill Earnest epitomised many of the facets of object lesson teaching that I have explored in this dissertation. In its presentation of the daily life of an idealised nineteenth-century family, it argued for the interpenetration of scientific and everyday objects and activities. It both inserted and revealed the scientific content of almost all components of contemporary culture, +18 I bid., 277. 44') Ibid. 274-275. 242 and claimed that it was subjects such as natural philosophy that should form the foundation of children's education; indeed, it already was the basis of their leisurely pastimes. Moreover, it emphasised learning through demonstration, discussion, and hands-on activities, not through book-reading: sensory education and enlightened conversation were prioritised, as intellectual problems and factual knowledge were couched as interactive games, bodily pursuits, and recreational amusements. In its negotiation between the more 'philosophical' explanations of physical phenomena and 'sporting' pursuits and asides, it drew together instruction and entertainment to exploit playing and amusement as an avowedly natural tendency of children. Humorous passages of prose and numerous caricatures also leavened the dry didacticism. By analysing the way Paris played with language as well with see-saws and pea-shooters, it can be seen that prose and practice, written and actual experience,. were different facts of the same enterprise, working together to provide sensory and rational education. Just as oranges and pocket globes matched the vast realms of astronomy and geography to the child's body, then, Philosopf?y in SpOIl matched Newtonian mechanics to the childish vocabulary and mind. Conclusion Whether it be a specialist board game, a miniaturised globe, or the more everyday orange or top, children were taught to seize with both hands objects from their surrounding world that contained lessons on astronomy. Through the playful childhood activities of sports and competitions, races and jigsaw puzzles, they could be introduced in an engaging manner to the facts and forces that, it was demonstrated, underpinned every aspect of that world. As the introduction to one familiar treatise put it: A knowledge of this science is essential to all ranks of society - to all conditions of man, from the prince to the peasant. What must be that 243 human being who could be satisfied to plod his way upon the earth without knowing something of its form and magnitude? or could cast his eyes up to the sun, the moon, and to the starry heavens, without wishing to understand something of the nature of such magnificent wonders? In fine, the uses to be derived from a knowledge' of tllls science, connect themselves with every part of nature, every branch of art, and every operation of busy and domestic life .. . 450 . This chapter has analysed the playful and tangible ways in wlllch nineteenth-century clllldren learned about the astrononllcal and geograplllcal sciences as part of 'busy and domestic life'. I have analysed two different facets of familiar object teaching: firstly, how specialist, particular objects were created to teach astronomy, especially, in a hands-on manner, combining sensory and rational instmction (child-sized globes, fanllly-friendly games, interactive books and cards); and secondly, how the playtllings of the nursery (balls and marbles, kites and cricket bats) were converted into exemplary demonstrations of physical phenomena - 'sport' made 'science in earnest'. With titles of Science ill SpOlt and Philosophy in SpoJt, and a reliance on playful activities including racing counters around a board, or whipping a top, the arguments and objects analysed in tllls chapter have shown that an abmpt distinction between instruction and amusement, education and entertainment, does not give an accurate representation of introductory science practice - as well as introductory science writing - in the early nineteenth century. Rather than appearing amusing or anomalous, separate from the main modes of contemporary instruction (for example, the ubiquitous and standard texts on the 'use of the globes'), objects such as an astrononllcal board game become key sources for understanding elementary science at this time. By analysing how playful learning converted the potentially dry prose of an astrononllcal textbook into a communal competition, or demonstrating that when 450 Newton, Familiar TreatiJe, u-iii. 244 playing at blowing soap bubbles, on a swing, or with a kite, involves and exposes scientific forces at work, this chapter has explored how introductory texts and objects combined didacticism and amusement. The negotiations made in works such as Philosoply ill SpOlt to balance expository, explanatory prose with actual activities, classical allusions, and joking asides, were int~nded to ease the child's introduction to the subjects; moreover, they made science a pastime itself. Physical activity was one way to bring together education and entertainment, with the right kind of play conceived of as a natural and pleasurable way of training the childish mind. Prioritising hands-on learning with child-sized artefacts, children were taught through touch and manipulation: moving game pieces, shuffling cards, turning handles and pages, holding pocket globes. These objects and practices matched the scientific subject to the child's body, as with contemporary productions such as miniature libraries and, indeed, with the concept of 'toy' artefacts in general. This introduction of bodily matching was particularly relevant for the disciplines of astronomy and geography, which - unlike anatomy or botany, say - were not immediately visible on the same scale as the child, but had to be treated in some manner to fit with the philosophy of object teaching. Direct sensory education could only operate on this scale, especially for these potentially remote and untouchable subjects, whose immediate understanding went against usual sense-perception (the earth is flat; the sun moves around the earth; the moon is bigger than the stars). Therefore, children were led to compare these original, common-sense impressions with other, equally powerful, tangible and tactile experiences to overcome their immediate, erroneous, ideas. Learning through space and movement in the infant world was then scaled back up to the cosmos, just as Newton's apple could stand for the gravitational attraction between celestial bodies, and billiard balls for transcendent laws of motion. By combining rational reasoning with everyday objects and playful activities, children could understand the universe. 245 I I Playing family board games in the parlour, swinging from a tree in the garden, making a joke during an afternoon conversation, or peeling an orange at the dinner- table: the activities of childhood were revealed as scientific processes or converted into educational examples by the kinds of object teaching I have analysed in this chapter. The conflation of conunon life and the ;cientific world was perhaps the most important argument and consequence of these books and artefacts: it both elevated the status of astronomical understanding. and rendered it accessible, placing it not just as one component of the educational syllabus - as the introduction to one Familiar Introdllction had it, analogous to learning the notes and staves of music - but as a central part of almost any everyday activity. Life at home, at work and at play, was saturated with the sciences, and it was through common practices and physical objects that their lessons could be revealed. 246 LESSONS 'a small beginning has led us to a great ending' T. H. Huxley, 'On a Piece of Chalk'451 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY CONCLUDED his 1868 lecture on 'A Piece of Chalk' by claiming that a 'small beginning has led us to a great ending'. He compared the 'physical metamorphosis' that would take place if he 'were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into [a] hot but obscure flame of buming hydrogen' to what had occurred in the Norwich lecture theatre that night: by 'subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought' it had been made to 'shine Wee the sun', rendered 'luminouS'.452 The object lesson journey on which Huxley had taken his audience had altered their perceptions; had clarified their views and trained their eyes and thoughts; and had beatified the piece of chalk so that it became an exemplar of the light of sCience. In these concluding remarks, I draw together the themes that have run throughout tlus account of a series of objects and their lessons over the preceding pages. In particular, I discuss the genre of the object lesson as educational practice and literary representation; what the consequences of this work are for the widespread contemporary interest in Victorian tllings and the material imagination; how these uses of common objects challenge the identification of historical scientific 451 Hmdey, 'Chalk', 172. m Hu:dey, 'Chalk', 172-173. 247 artefacts as solely instruments and specialist equipment; and how a focus on education and the label of 'familiar science' can be used to transform our thinking about scientific participation in this period. In these ways, just as object lessons were, despite Huxley's oratorical flourish, I/ot endings - rather, many of the artefacts I have discussed saw themselves self-consciously as introductions to a lifelong pursuit of knowledge through the practice of the sciences - these texts, and toys, and tales can provide beginnings for new ways of analysing the cultural history of mid-nineteenth- century Britain. FIGURE FIFTY Two: A singular household object - here, a wine jar - in the forefront of a representation of the period, towering over its Victorian audience. 248 I have defmed the object lesson as a genre of both literary representation and educational practice, which can help us in drawing together written and actual experiences, just as educators of the time believed possible. Lessons on objects used and trained children's senses to develop powers of observation, reasoning, and manipulation; they taught of the scientific forces and substances present and at work in almost every activity of daily life - from morning ablutions to night-time reading by candle-light - and which made possible the contemporary world. An emphasis on the explanatory power of the everyday gave a privileged position to learning through concrete things, and demonstrates that considerations of common objects should be at the forefront of research into this period (see figure fifty three). One way of abstracting from this emphasis on object lesson teaching to ways of learning and thinking in scientific subjects more generally, can be seen in Barry Barnes' analysis of training 'by ostension'.453 Ostension involved the comparison of similar concrete things: Barnes discusses Thomas Kuhn's example of a small child, J ohnny, on a walk with his father 'in a zoological garden. The child has previously learned to recognize birds and to discriminate robin redbreasts. During the afternoon now at hand, he will learn for the first time to identify swans, geese, and ducks.'454 This post-prandial stroll with a parent reminds us of many of the kinds of elementary lessons on everyday objects and animals dealt with in this dissertation. The 'primary pedgagoic tool' for J ohnny, Kuhn argues, 'is os tension': by a series of 'correspondence relations' pointed out between different sets of things the boy is led to draw 'class boundaries'. In other words, through his father's corrections when Johnny points to a bird and ducks are mistaken for geese, or geese for swans, the boy learnt how to identify the three different types of waterfow1.455 m Barry Barnes (1982) T S. ](;{bll alld S odal S dellre (London: !'vlacmillan), 23-8. i'ii Thomas S. Kuhn (1977) The Emlltial TellJion: Selected Stlfdiu ill Srielltijir Traditioll alld Cballge (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press), 309. <'is Ibid., 309-318. 249 Barnes uses this example to talk about the process of learning in general; its dual requitements of both an authoritative teacher figure, and an inquisitive, sensing child: the 'child cannot acquire his knowledge of bird kinds without parental assistance; but neither can he acquire it with his eyes shut.'456 He argues that ostentive, demonstrative - we might add, senSOl1' -learning must be prioritised over a linguistic, deftnitive mode of education, just as nineteenth-century educators derided bookish 'learning' and emphasised that knowledge of the life sciences must be imparted through 'irrefragable' sensory impressions of lobsters; that written chemistry was no use without specimens of reagents and experimental apparatus. However, and as I have demonstrated throughout this dissertation, this is a 'false contrast', highlighted by the paradox of claiming in a book that chemistry call1lof be learned by reading books: as Barnes declares, the real distinction to be drawn is . whether education relied directly or indirectly on the empirical foundations of 'similarity relations ' that are the basis of conventional knowledge.457 Kuhn's and Barnes' analysis of these psychological modes of reasoning resonate with the arguments made by theorists such as Froebel and Pestalozzi at the turn of tl1e nineteenth-century for creating 'natural' educational methods that matched the development of the childish mind. This is not surprising, given that Kuhn's core term, 'paradigm', is of course taken from educational theory. It is, I suggest, especially pertinent to study this period in the nineteenth centu11' when sens011' learning from concrete common objects was especially prevalent and significant; when the sciences and their objects formed an increasingly visible part of everyday life. The lasting legacy of these object-oriented educational philosophies, perhaps, is that they have been taken up by modern scholars as atemporal, as definitive of how we learn and reason. ~;6 Barnes, Kif/m alld Soda! SciwL'C, 25. m Ibid., 27. 250 Reinstituting the object lesson as a central genre of educational practice provides insights into how wide-ranging its implications were for learning one's place in the world. It was emphatically a moral and spiritual as well as a sensory and technical training: just as there was often a slippage between the use of the word 'object' as thing and as ambition, a double meaning was also held in the word 'feeling'. For example, in the SDUK's Exen:ises Jor tbe Improvemellt of tbe SellSes, we fInd the following support for hands-on teaching: . . . [the child] must examine and think for himself; for he will do but little if he only learns by heart the words of a book. He cannot know that which he does not understand, by corrunitting to memory any number of words; and little can he know of feelings he has never felt, how much soever he may learn of their names.458 The images depicted on the cover of Tbe SOllg of tbe Five Se1lSes emphasised how object lessons could teach about 'feelings', as physiological specimens in the form of the parts of the bodY,and the senses themselves were converted into objects of analysis (see fIgure fIfty four). The images read: 'I feel with my hand' - an umbrella, 'I feel with my Eye' - a tree, 'I feel with my Ear' - a drum, 'I feel with my Tongue' - a piece of fruit, 'I feel with my Nose' - a flower. Next to these boxes were more general categories: the 'outward senses' of hand and eye experienced 'all at once' indicated the concept of 'SPACE'; the 'inward senses' 'one after anotl1er' led to the idea of 'TIME'. As a song, the lesson provided was already multi-sensory, as children learnt to speak its lyrics, and hear its (admittedly not terribly tuneful) melody.459 m [Anon.] Exercises for the ImplVvemellt of the Se/lses, 13. 459 Thomas Wirgman [n.d.] Song of the Five SellJ"es (London: Chappell) . 251 FIGURE FIFTY THREE A: Conversion of the parts of the body into objects for "lessons, here on the cover to the Song of the Five Senses. FIGURE FIFTY THREE B: An extract from the song, with its nursery-style simple melody and rhyme scheme. Moreover, the analysis of scientific lessons I have conducted provokes further questions about its use to teach about a range of other subjects: these were interdisciplinary lessons that used the specific level of the particular object to straddle the topics of domestic and political economy, geography and literature, classical allusion, national and scriptural history, and even, as in the previous example, physiology and music. Further study remains to be done on how this type of object- based, sensory learning was used in these other lessons; and, more widely, in the elementary schools founded in the wake of the 1870 Education Act. For example, object lessons were advocated by Government inspectors towards the end of the century, and many manuals for the use of the Board Schools survive. There was also a vogue for object-teaching in America, where even now elementary school 'show- 252 and-tell' using objects taken from the home is arguably the descendant of this mode of instruction.460 Looking beyond just object lesson texts narrowly construed, it can be seen that their generic attributes bled out into other publications, as the practice of thing-based, sensory-led thinking could be applied to other texts to achieve something of the same experience. For example, a stress on learning from particular common things helps explain the significance of encyclopaedias in the mid-nineteenth century, a publication format increasingly organised as alphabetical lists of singular topics, rather than by disciplinary systems of subject classification.461 Looking up the discrete entries in an encyclopaedia involved similar practices of isolating a chosen topic, and moving from definitional to abstract knowledge; if the referencing process was required for more information on an actual object placed in front of the reader, then sensory comparisons also formed part of this reading. Indeed, object lessons books could be used as encyclopaedias themselves: their indexes providing alphabetical lists of the things with which they dealt, that pointed readers to the information they desired. Children learning their letters from alphabet books were also encouraged to use common things, and think in multisensory ways, as an 1870 example entitled Object LeSSOIlJ~ and the Child's O)}m Alphabet made clear. The letter CB' was introduced through the following objects (see frontispiece to tlus dissertation): ~GO For American education later in the century, see especially Sally Kohlstedt (1990) 'Parlors, Primers, and Public Schooling: Education for Science in Nineteenth-Century America', Isis 81,424- 445, and Kohlstedt (2005) 'Nature, Not Books: Scientists and the Origins of the Nature-Study iVlovement in the 1890s', hii 96,324-352. For the kindergar ten movement, see Michael Steven Shapiro (1983) Cbi/dJ- Garden: The J(jndelgm1en Movement from Froebel to DeJJJI!)' (University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press). ~GI For debates over the systematic versus alphabetical systems of organising encyclopaedic material, and their consequences in how audiences could read and learn from such works, see Richard Yeo (1991) 'Reading Encyclopaedias: Science and the Organization of Knowledge in British Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences, 1730-1850', Isis 82, 24-49. The Bi-hIe is the best of all books. You must make haste and learn to spell, that you may be able to read in the Bi-ble. The Broom is made of hair, or of split whale-bone. The han-dle is made of wood. A Bot-de, to hold wine or beer, is made of dark green glass. The cork is cut from the bark of a tree, a sort of oak, in Spain. The Ba-sin holds milk. It is made of clay, dried in an oven. A Hand Bell, if you shake it in your hand, it will ring. Sheep and cows have often a Bell hung round their necks . Some Balls are hard and some soft, a soft one is for use in-doors.462 In this very elementary work, syllables were separated to aid their use when learning . how to read. The sensory impressions of common objects were highlighted, including the ringing of the bell, the dark green colour of the bottle, and the tactile qualities of the ball. The origins (Spanish oak tree), content (hair, whale-bone), production (made of clay, dried in an oven), uses (holding wine, beer, or milk), and different versions (indoor or outdoor, for sheep or cows) of the objects were brought out. And the overarching moral framework within which the lessons were taught was also highlighted in the privileged place of the Bible as fIrst in the list. An education by these object lessons in the sensory, complex, and fanciful ways of reading everyday things, tl1erefore, gave children specifIc bodily and mental skills that, I contend, had profound consequences on how they encountered, imagined, and affected the surrounding material world of Victorian Britain. Recent years have seen conferences and speciahssues of scholarly journals stuffed full of enough things to rival even the most aspirational mantelpiece of the period. ArtifIcial limbs, food and furnishings are taking centre stage in analyses of artefacts, commonly organised -like these lessons - around series of single objects: as museum specimens, ~62 [Anon.] [1870] Objed Lmolls, and the Child's Ol/m Alphabet (London: Dean & Son), [3]. 254 parts of collections, or as they recur in novels. My analysis of object lesson teaching brings important insights to bear on much of this contemporary critical work on what has been called 'the material imagination' and 'Victorian thing culture'. In the ways analysed in this dissertation - through seeing back to the geological past, listening to fairy-tales about the London sewerage system, learning the exotic history of tea, playing with balls and tops - I have shown how the object lesson entrained and demonstrated the transparency of things to many Victorian eyes. They were not opaque marvels, divorced from their origins; rather, in John Ruskin's words, they teemed with 'associations and passions'; they were like that emblematic object of the mid-nineteenth century, the Crystal Palace itself, whose surface could be seen through to a wonderful and multi-sensory hive of industry and empire within . (see figure fifty five).463 Mary Roberts likened her oak to a prism, with its 'many sides' fracturing its meanings into 'numerous associations'; just as scholars have seen the Crystal Palace as a 'Victorian Prism', so too, then, other existing objects were and can be Victorian prisms, multifaceted, refractive, and reflecting points of illumination.46-l Audiences who had been trained by object lessons were familiar with these extended, connected, associative ways of thinking and conversing: they knew how a candle had been made, of its chemical constituents, and the process by which it burned; they could discuss where the contents of a cup of tea came from, how best to ensure a tasty brew, and how like the boiling kettle was to the steam-engines that powered trains and ships; they could relate the historic tales of famous trees held in every acorn-cup, or how water travelled through an oak's trunk, or the religious significances written on its leaves. In these ways, I have shown how audiences could read the multiple meanings of an object; could identify its tangible connections to 463 Ruskin quoted in Bown, Fairies, 122. 464 M. Roberts, VoitujrolJl tbe Ir7ood/al/ds, 68. For the Crystal Place as prism, see J ames Buzard, J oseph W. Childers, and Eileen Gillooly (2007) Victolial/ P,islJJ: R~rmctiol/s of tbe c,)'sta/ Pa/at'e (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press). 255 past, present, and future. Like Annie Carey's Threads of fabrics, grasping the ends of which she hoped would connect her childish readers and their parents to 'the endless web of knowledge', they could follow where objects led to the seething and complex network of multiple people and machines, places and interactions that underpinned contemporary culture.465 FIGURE FIFTY FOUR: George Cruikshank's illustration of 'The Dispersal of the Works of All Nations from the Great Exhibition of18S1', for Henry Mayhew's 1851. Here the Crystal Palace cannot contain the multitude of diverse objects that burst out energetically towards the reader. This sense of tangibility was crucial: audiences had learned about objects through processes of sensory training, and their knowledge was not restricted to the 465 Carey, TbreadJ ojKJ/olll/edge, vii. 256 verbal or conversational. They could physically manipulate an orange to demonstrate its resemblance to the shape of the earth; they could play with toys from the nursery, exploiting centrifugal and centripetal motion to keep a top stable; they could look through a microscope at pieces of pebbles, twigs taken from the common, or water from the pail, and understand the strange sights and minute animalcules that resolved into view; they could conduct elementary experiments that changed colour, exploded or smelled. The object-centred reality of the lessons made these pedagogic relationships a very different kind of connection from the purely in1aginary, or envisioned, that would have been gained from a literary description without a tangible referent. Like the modes of narrative reading Victorians could tap into when looking at a wall of tiles depicting miniatures of various well-known scenes, so too could deeper, complex and, crucially, embodied narratives be read into and evoked by daily encounters with common things . This, I have argued throughout this dissertation, has consequences for our perceptions of the material world of the Victorian period: it was one composed of objects which held, when held, a wealth of meanings. Recent, and highly influential, books such as Bill Brown's A Sense ojThiJ/gs, or Elaine Freedgood's The Ideas iJ/ Things similarly make this point, and fInd in the background of literary works such connections to far-flung corners of the globe, to deftning moments of the day, or stores of knowledge of distant events. This elevation of the seemingly insigniftcant objects in novels - curtains, tables, tobacco - attempts to recapture the physical worlds in which they were set: not the real social and political problems that have been focussed on with studies of realism, but real things, too. They have put everyday objects ftrmly in the spotlight of contemporary Victorian Studies. Yet there appears to be a gap between what Freedgood and Brown can read into these objects - their own understanding gleaned from the archives of furniture manufacturers, from trawling newspaper advertisements, and from years of critical work into Victorian literature - and the signifIcance of such objects for nineteenth-century authors and 257 audiences. It is through the practices of object lesson teaching, I would argue, that contemporary middle-class readers and, indeed, the characters depicted by a Bronte, or a Gaskell, could have themselves acquired such knowledge about their surrounding material environment, and been trained, as I have been detailing, into reading the hidden wonders and interconnected significan~es of their surrounding material world. Most of the Victorian objects from this surrounding material world that have appeared in the pages of this dissertation have been conunonplace items of the household and garden: water, candles, salt, stones, horses, fruit, and soap. As I have demonstrated, they were simultaneously quotidian and philosophical things, and their dual identity and existence as both avowedly scientific and everyday conflated these domestic and expert, banal and specialist realms. Educators and men of science both revealed the presence of scientific facts and forces in ahnost every aspect of contemporary life, and advocated that conflation, inserting their own voices and pedagogy as crucial for understanding the everyday world: cookery was chemistry; a water drop a universe teeming with microscopic life. TIus identification has important consequences for the cultural history of science. Firstly, common things must be considered as potential scientific objects, and even as instruments. Secondly, it is clear that not only things, but also what is done to, with, and around those things should be studied by culturallustorians of science: the activities and practices of daily life such as playing, cooking, and conversation, travelling and storytelling, should be set alongside experimenting, lecturing, theorising, or constructing. Indeed, they are often difficult to distinguish. The identification between scientific and common things was ripe with punning potential, particularly its incarnation in the genre of familiar introductions to specialist subjects. For instance, in 1841 PHI/ells satirical series providing 'Information for the People' began with what it termed a 'Very Familiar Treatise on Astronomy', in wluch celestial objects were compared with their banal counterparts to humorous 258 effect. 466 A sense of familiarity was often evoked through a comic conflation of the humdrum quotidian with the elevated extraordinary: the apparent bathos involved in the mental movement from one to the other delivering (in this case quite literally) a satisfying punch line. That the comparison of scientific and familiar objects, and the notion of the 'familiar treatise', was itself familiar enough to be satirised, is a useful starting point when considering 'familiar science' as a helpful analytic category for the historian of nineteenth-century science. As I discussed in the introduction, recent scholarship in the history of nineteenth-century scientific periodicals and poetry, exhibitions and shows, lectures and societies, has argued that 'popular science' does not provide a helpful way of lumping together a range of often diverse practices, many of which did not have popularising as their main aim; and separates these activities from their assumed twin, 'proper science', which has taken place elsewhere. By foregrounding the practices of education, rather than popularisation, I claimed that some of the assumptions built into this dyad can be exposed and, hopefully, avoided. I now propose that historians add the category of ' familiar science' to this emphasis on educational practices. This analysis of object lessons demonstrates that a popular educational strategy in the mid-nineteenth century was the use of familiar things and analogies to ease the introduction of strange and novel subjects to elementary audiences. By the use of these already-known ideas and already-owned concepts, they hoped to render the potentially abstruse sciences familiar themselves to their audiences . Dickens' M"'cifog satire had relied on the ludicrous conflation of topics such as 'Jack and Jill', or the number of legs on chairs, and the erudite setting and serious diction of scientific society; yet, this conflation was ludicrous because it was on precisely these kinds of topics and objects - the mundane activities of daily life, or the stories of childhood - and in these imaginative and entertaining ways that introductory lessons in the 466 [Anon.] 'Punch's Infonnation for the People - No. 1. Being a Very Familiar Treatise on Astronomy' PI/11th 1 (1841),41. 259 sciences were being given. Thus, when Dickens ended his faux-report with a celebratory feast, he demonstrated that on a serious as well as punning level, household objects and foodstuffs did indeed form an important part of the 'spread of science'. As the satire concluded: 'this is what we meet for; this is what inspires us; this is what keeps us together, and beckons us onward; this is the .rpread of science, and a glorious spread it is.'467 The term 'familiar' appears in numerous titles from the period, as a cursory survey of library catalogues reveals: many were avowedly written 'in a familiar manner'; to provide a 'familiar introduction'; or as 'familiar letters'. It is helpful, I believe, that the phrasing 'familiar science' has fallen from current usage, as it prevents scholars transporting the contemporary connotations of 'popular science' back to the nineteenth century. Indeed, familiar science was not just practiced in a sequestered non-expert realm: specialist research was conducted on or with these common objects. 468 The books and artefacts I have analysed in this dissertation were, as I have demonstrated, more dynamic than diffusive, active claims to domestic territory and expertise. They argued for the inclusion of scientific subjects in elementary, and indeed, in higher, education: they believed a familiarity with scientific knowledge was crucial for existence in the progressive modern world. Yet familiar science is not an all-encompassing category: it co-existed with other educational and commercial strategies for creating an appetite for scientific knowledge that deliberately invoked the unfamiliar, strange, and sublime, most spectacularly in the wonderful panoramic shows of London.4m Museums, increasingly open to the upper- and middle-class families that would have purchased the books 467 Dickens, i'vlllc!Jog, 73. 468 Simon Schaffer, (200-t) 'A Science Whose Business Is Bursting: Soap Bubbles as Commodities in Classical Physics', in Daston, 147-192 is just one example of expert research employing common objects. 469 The classic account of which is Richard D. Altick, The Shol/ls ofLolldoll. (1978) The Shol/ls ofLolldoll (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: Belknap Press of Halyard University Press). 260 and objects studied in this dissertation, displayed novel and bizarre specimens - which could even include the curators themselves.47o Science could also arguably exist outside of the reahn of everyday experience. FIGURE FIFTY FIVE: A family visit the Great Exhibition. The deliberate choice of and emphasis on familiar science also highlights the family unit as a focus of analysis (see figure fifty six). Increasingly defined as integral to middle-class society and the moral foundation of the British Empire, the nuclear family was a vital cultural category in the period addressed by this dissertation.471 Moreover, it was itself a common object: ahnost everyone experienced some form of family life, every day, whereas visits to places such as museums or exhibitions, lecture-halls and - unless one lived by the sea - rock-pools were by definition extraordinary. The family was also a well-defined commercial market: publishers collated sets of volumes to be advertised as a ready-made 'Family Library', such as 470 For more on visits to museums and the exhibiting of curators themselves see, for example, Victoria Carroll (2004) 'The Natural History of Visiting: Responses to Charles Waterton and Walton Hall' Stlldies ill HistoIJI alld PhilosoP0' of Sciellce 35,31-64. 47 1 See especially Karen Chase and lVlichael Levenson (2000) The S pedac/e of IIl/imaD': A Pllblic Life for the Vidonall Ftlmib' (princeton and Oxford: Prince ton University Press). 261 John Murray's series in which David Brewster's Letters on Natllral Magic appeared in 1832.472 Reconfiguring the landscape of scientific participation in this way therefore makes sense of such prominent works as Ebenezer Cobham Brewer's A GlIide to the S,ieJltific KIIOJlJledge of ThiHgs Familiar (first published in 1847), one of the best-selling books of the mid-century.473 Introducing this work, Brewer defIned the style of writing that typified the familiar introduction, and that included the whole family: he would, he claimed, write 'in language so simple that a child may understand it, yet not so childish as to offend the scientific' .474 Moreover, the beginning of Brewer's book defll1ed the subjects with which familiar science dealt, in an evocation of both the sensory knowledge and the questioning, conversational, process through which such knowledge could be augmented: No science is more generally interesting than that which explains the common phenomena of life. We see that salt and snow are both white, a rose red, leaves green, and the violet a deep purple; but how few persons ever ask the reason why! We know that a flute produces a musical sound, and a cracked bell a discordant one - that fire is hot, ice cold, and a candle luminous - that water boils when subjected to hear, and freezes from cold; but when a child looks up into our face and asks us "why" - how many times is it silenced with a frown, or called "very foolish for asking such silly questions!"475 m See Scott Bennett (1976) 'John j\,Iurray's Family Library and the Cheapening of Books in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain', Stl(dieJ ill Bibliograpl!J 29, 139-166. Murray's Family Library included volumes on a range of heroic men, on the natural history of insects, and on Irish folklore. m Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, (1847) A Gllide to the Sciellt[(k KlloJlJ/edge ojThillgJ Familiar (New York: James :Millar, 1865) . See Lightman, Vido/iall Poplllalizm, 66, for more on the publishing history of Brewer's book, of which an astounding 195,000 copies had been printed by 1892, and from which he made 'a small fortune' . m Brewer, ThillgJ Familial; v. m Ibid. 262 As in the lessons I have described throughout this dissertation, familiar science began with what 'we see' - white salt, green leaves - and what 'we know' - shining candles, clanging bells - and then went on to detail why these surrounding objects had such effects on our senses, teaching their hidden scientific content. In these ways, thousands of readers of Brewer's book would go on to rethink the familiar surroundings of their everyday worlds. A deeper consideration of common things affected not only how many Victorians lived their lives but also how they thought about their pasts and futures, as cosmological narratives traded on ways of writing and thinking derived from object lesson teaching. An extraordinary vision that formed one chapter of Charles Babbage's autobiographical Passages from the Life if a Philosopher (1864) linked his own bodily experience to that of both a common foodstuff and the beginnings of the universe, which he entitled 'Parallel Passages in the Creation of the Universe and in the Birth and Education of a Gloucester Cheese'.476 The several experiential stages of tlle vision, at first thought to re-enact the early incarnations of the universe, were mapped onto and revealed as what turned out to be the process of manufacturing cheese.477 Creating everyday comestibles and the entire cosmos were, this comparison demonstrated, analogous processes. The cosmological evolutionary narrative of VestIges if the Natllral History if Creatio1l (1844) also exploited notions of common knowledge and a familiarity with objects: its opening gambit relied on the knowledge entrained through such lessons, that tlle shape and size of the earth, and its position in the solar system, was 'familiar knowledge'.478 Comparisons in the body of the work emphasised the continuities between the small and grand parts of the creation, linked 476 Charles Babbage (1864) Passages from the Life ofa Philosopher (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green), 416. 477 Ibid. 406-417. m [Robert Chambers] (1844) VCJt{ges of the Natllra! History of Creation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1860), 5. The book's very first words were: 'It is familiar knowledge .. .' See James .A. Secord (2000) Victo/iall Sensatioll: The Extmo/dilla!)1 Pllblicatioll, Ret"eptioll, alld Semt AII/hon·hip of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press), 98-100 for discussion of tIlls opening paragraph. 263 by universal laws of force and development; for instance, that 'the tear that falls from childhood's cheek is globular, through the efficacy of that same law of mutual attraction of particles which made the sun and planets round.'479 Charles Darwin's Origill if Species (1859) also employed as its central conceit a comparison between the everyday processes of artificial selection - seen in any domestic breed of dog or horse - with the larger scale process of shaping species themselves, and the development of life on earth; moreover, it was crammed full of concrete conunon things as evidence for this process of natural selection, from pages (and pages) of pigeons to its culminating appeal to the familiar experience of contemplating the plants, birds, insects, and worms on that entangled bank.480 This dissertation has demonstrated how scientific knowledge could be revealed in the most mundane of everyday things. The material trappings of the home and garden, its flowers, furnishings, and food, could be co-opted as instructional devices for sensory training, and used as similes to provide explanations of the most profound phenomena. As the first page of Thomas Carlyle's S mio!' R:.esmitts declared: 'to many a Royal Society, the Creation of a World is little more mysterious than the cooking of a Dumpling'.481 Through tlus two-way educational relationslup, common things were turned into marvels of science, but marvels of science could also become common tllings. The dual vision and sensory skills entrained by these lessons rendered objects at the same time both wonderfully mysterious and utterly familiar. m [Chambers], V es/{ges, 17. Secord argues that 'the emphasis on "familiar knowledge" continues through the first third of Ves/{ges'; and that 'familiar images of birth, childhood, the family, and the home ... are embedded throughout' (Vidorian Sensa/ioll 100; 101) . 480 Charles Darwin (1859) 011 the Oligill of Spedu 1!y Mealls ofNa//I/'(/1 Seledioll, J. W. Burrow (ed.) (London: Penguin, 1968). Especially see 81-89 for pigeons, and 459 for the entangled bank. See Gillian Beer (1983) DanJJill j. Plots: E/JOITI/iollal)' NCllTa/i/le ill DCllJllill, Geolge Elio/ alld N illeteetlth-Cell/III)' Fictioll (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 2nd edn.) chapter three on 'Analogy, met~phor and narrative in The Or{gill', 73-96. 481 Thomas Carlyle (1838) Sa/1or Resar//ls, Kerry McSweeney and Peter Sabor eds . 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