Professor Bickerton

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 12029, 5 September 1903, Page 7

Professor Bickerton

To all who have lived in and about the City of the Plains, the name of Professor Bickerton is as familiar as is that of our renowned Premier. Occupying the Chair of Chemistry in Canterbury College for about 30 years, the influence of the Professor on the minds of many of our younger men has been immense. Coming to the colony with the reputation of being one ot England's ablest scientific teachers, lus colonial work has amply justified the high opinion formed of him and his methods. It has often been said that fortune awaited him in the field of lecturing, and the writer has heard one of our most capable men—an estimable pupil of the worthy Professor—assert that as a lecturer on popular science he stands unrivalled.- Of his great mental grasp there can be no doubt, as one may easily see for themselves in the evidence" of his English successes in the educational field. The Professor has recently given a course of six lectures in Christchurch, which have been particularly successful, and it is to be the good fortune of the people of Wanganui to have an opportunity of hearing the two most popular of these lectures. The first, entitled "The Romance of the Heavens," will be delivered under the auspices of the Wanganui Astronomical Society, in St. Paul's Hall, on Tuesday evening, the Bth instant ; the other, entitled "The Romance of Mankind," which deals with his gradual emergence from the barbaric to the more enlightened and altruistic state, should be cjuite as interesting as the former subject, in which field the Professor carries his hearers into the realms of space as into a land teeming with objects of wonder and beauty.