one of entertainment and instruction, and promotive of good feeling on the part of all who participated in it. The influence of these exhibitions was so beneficial, and became so well known, that large numbers flocked to them from a distance, and similar shows were got up in other places.
One of the schemes devised by Prof. Henslow for alleviating the hard, monotonous life of the laboring population, and combining recreation with improvement, was the arrangement of excursions to neighboring places of interest. Knowing that those who always stay at home are apt to become narrow and prejudiced, he sought to afford them the opportunity of observing the ways and habits of other places, and to open to them not merely agreeable sights, but sources of knowledge from which they had been previously shut out. From one to two hundred persons usually accompanied him, and his preparations for these excursions were always very methodical; for he aimed to combine moral discipline with healthful amusement. A "recreation fund" was raised, and the poor always contributed something toward the expenses. Tickets were issued, limiting the number of those attending, and printed circulars were sometimes prepared with plans of the route, regulations for the party, and often copious notes concerning the place and objects to be visited. An eleven-page pocket-guide was got up on one occasion for the use of the visitors at Cambridge, giving an account of the colleges, museums, and libraries of the university. Sometimes they went to the neighboring towns, to manufacturing' places, or to the sea-shore. But the professor was always ready with his interesting "lecturets" to explain every thing to his flock of eager listeners. The impression left by these holiday excursions upon the minds and hearts of the simple laborers was most gratifying, and, as one of them remarked to Prof. Henslow, "Our heads would not be so full of drink if we had such things to occupy our minds."
The task which Prof. Henslow had undertaken was one of immediate and practical social amelioration, and this compelled him to grapple with the adult ignorance and the indurated prejudices of the community. But he did not forget the children. When he went to Hitcham, there was but a single, very poor school in the parish, but he lost no time in establishing a better one. Meeting with but little support from his parishioners, he had to bear the greater part of the expense himself in the erection of a school-house and the payment of a teacher. He had to deal with the children of an ignorant and stolid peasantry, yet he brought his scientific resources to bear upon them with such success that his humble parish-school acquired a national reputation, was visited by people from all parts of the country, and was inquired into by Parliament when settling the policy of its public schools.
Prof. Henslow struck boldly out from the traditional method, and did a thing unheard of in England, which was, to introduce his favorite
