Science and Education | Page 2

put aside, as of
secondary importance, those scientific investigations which he loved so
well, and in which he showed himself so competent to enlarge the
boundaries of natural knowledge and to win fame. In this cause he not
only cheerfully suffered obloquy from the bigoted and the unthinking,
and came within sight of martyrdom; but bore with that which is much
harder to be borne than all these, the unfeigned astonishment and
hardly disguised contempt of a brilliant society, composed of men
whose sympathy and esteem must have been most dear to him, and to
whom it was simply incomprehensible that a philosopher should
seriously occupy himself with any form of Christianity.
It appears to me that the man who, setting before himself such an ideal
of life, acted up to it consistently, is worthy of the deepest respect,
whatever opinion may be entertained as to the real value of the tenets
which he so zealously propagated and defended.
But I am sure that I speak not only for myself, but for all this
assemblage, when I say that our purpose to-day is to do honour, not to
Priestley, the Unitarian divine, but to Priestley, the fearless defender of
rational freedom in thought and in action: to Priestley, the philosophic
thinker; to that Priestley who held a foremost place among "the swift
runners who hand over the lamp of life," [1] and transmit from one

generation to another the fire kindled, in the childhood of the world, at
the Promethean altar of Science.
The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well known that I need
dwell upon them at no great length.
Born in 1733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and brought up among
Calvinists of the straitest orthodoxy, the boy's striking natural ability
led to his being devoted to the profession of a minister of religion; and,
in 1752, he was sent to the Dissenting Academy at Daventry--an
institution which authority left undisturbed, though its existence
contravened the law. The teachers under whose instruction and
influence the young man came at Daventry, carried out to the letter the
injunction to "try all things: hold fast that which is good," and
encouraged the discussion of every imaginable proposition with
complete freedom, the leading professors taking opposite sides; a
discipline which, admirable as it may be from a purely scientific point
of view, would seem to be calculated to make acute, rather than sound,
divines. Priestley tells us, in his "Autobiography," that he generally
found himself on the unorthodox side: and, as he grew older, and his
faculties attained their maturity, this native tendency towards
heterodoxy grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength.
He passed from Calvinism to Arianism; and finally, in middle life,
landed in that very broad form of Unitarianism by which his craving
after a credible and consistent theory of things was satisfied.
On leaving Daventry Priestley became minister of a congregation, first
at Needham Market, and secondly at Nantwich; but whether on account
of his heterodox opinions, or of the stuttering which impeded his
expression of them in the pulpit, little success attended his efforts in
this capacity. In 1761, a career much more suited to his abilities
became open to him. He was appointed "tutor in the languages" in the
Dissenting Academy at Warrington, in which capacity, besides giving
three courses of lectures, he taught Latin, Greek, French, and Italian,
and read lectures on the theory of language and universal grammar, on
oratory, philosophical criticism, and civil law. And it is interesting to
observe that, as a teacher, he encouraged and cherished in those whom
he instructed the freedom which he had enjoyed, in his own student
days, at Daventry. One of his pupils tells us that,
"At the conclusion of his lecture, he always encouraged his students to

express their sentiments relative to the subject of it, and to urge any
objections to what he had delivered, without reserve. It pleased him
when any one commenced such a conversation. In order to excite the
freest discussion, he occasionally invited the students to drink tea with
him, in order to canvass the subjects of his lectures. I do not recollect
that he ever showed the least displeasure at the strongest objections that
were made to what he delivered, but I distinctly remember the smile of
approbation with which he usually received them: nor did he fail to
point out, in a very encouraging manner, the ingenuity or force of any
remarks that were made, when they merited these characters. His object,
as well as Dr. Aikin's, was to engage the students to examine and
decide for themselves, uninfluenced by the sentiments of any other
persons." [2]
It would be difficult to give a better description of a model teacher than
that conveyed in these words.
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