ABSTRACT
Faraday once wrote that 'a truly popular lecture cannot teach, and a lecture that truly teaches cannot be popular.' Irrespective of the veracity or otherwise of the statement, the Royal Institution continues in its endeavours to popularize, just as it did in 1826 when the practice in its present form first began. Faraday expressed the view that evening lectures should amuse and entertain as well as educate, edify and, above all, inspire. This is still the principle that governs the Royal Institution's numerous educational activities. Because of initiatives taken under the aegis of Sir Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971), Sir George (later Lord) Porter (1920-) and their successor, these activities now extend to mathematics and technology masterclasses for schoolboys and girls (given also in twenty-five other centres throughout the UK as well as at the Institution itself), to school curriculum enhancement projects, and to the making of special video films (on such topics as 'Geometry and Perspective' and 'Colour'). For young people, however, the highlight every year is the series of Christmas Lectures which, since 1966, have been televised nationwide by the BBC,
and are now repeated in abbreviated form to the schoolchildren of Japan during the succeeding summer. Video copies of the Christmas Lectures are now marketed worldwide.1
