1872.
[Dyspepsia, that most distressing of maladies, had laid firm hold upon
him. He was compelled to take entire rest for a time. But his first
holiday produced no lasting effect, and in the summer he was again
very ill. Then the worry of a troublesome lawsuit in connection with
the building of his new house intensified both bodily illness and
mental depression. He had great fears of being saddled with heavy
costs at the moment when he was least capable of meeting any new
expense--hardly able even to afford another much-needed spell of rest.
But in his case, as in others, at this critical moment the circle of
fellow-workers in science to whom he was bound by ties of friendship,
resolved that he should at least not lack the means of recovery. In
their name Charles Darwin wrote him the following letter, of which it
is difficult to say whether it does more honour to him who sent it or
to him who received it:--
Down, Beckenham, Kent, April 23, 1873.
My dear Huxley,
I have been asked by some of your friends (eighteen in number) to
inform you that they have placed through Robarts, Lubbock & Company,
the sum of 2100 pounds sterling to your account at your bankers. We
have done this to enable you to get such complete rest as you may
require for the re-establishment of your health; and in doing this we
are convinced that we act for the public interest, as well as in
accordance with our most earnest desires. Let me assure you that we
are all your warm personal friends, and that there is not a stranger
or mere acquaintance amongst us. If you could have heard what was
said, or could have read what was, as I believe, our inmost thoughts,
you would know that we all feel towards you, as we should to an
honoured and much loved brother. I am sure that you will return this
feeling, and will therefore be glad to give us the opportunity of
aiding you in some degree, as this will be a happiness to us to the
last day of our lives. Let me add that our plan occurred to several of
your friends at nearly the same time and quite independently of one
another.
My dear Huxley, your affectionate friend,
Charles Darwin.
It was a poignant moment.] "What have I done to deserve this?" [he
exclaimed. The relief from anxiety, so generously proffered, entirely
overcame him; and for the first time, he allowed himself to confess
that in the long struggle against ill-health, he had been beaten; but,
as he said, only enough to teach him humility.
His first trip in search of health was in 1872, when he obtained two
months' leave of absence, and prepared to go to the Mediterranean. His
lectures to women on Physiology at South Kensington were taken over by
Dr. Michael Foster, who had already acted as his substitute in the
Fullerian course of 1868. But even on this cruise after health he was
not altogether free from business. The stores of biscuit at Gibraltar
and Malta were infested with a small grub and its cocoons. Complaints
to the home authorities were met by the answer that the stores were
prepared from the purest materials and sent out perfectly free from
the pest. Discontent among the men was growing serious, when he was
requested by the Admiralty to investigate the nature of the grub and
the best means of preventing its ravages. In the end he found that the
biscuits were packed within range of stocks of newly arrived,
unpurified cocoa, from which the eggs were blown into the stores while
being packed, and there hatched out. Thereafter the packing was done
in another place and the complaints ceased.]
January 3, 1872.
My dear Dohrn,
It is true enough that I am somewhat "erkrankt," though beyond general
weariness, incapacity and disgust with things in general, I do not
precisely know what is the matter with me.
Unwillingly, I begin to suspect that I overworked myself last year.
Doctors talk seriously to me, and declare that all sorts of wonderful
things will happen if I do not take some more efficient rest than I
have had for a long time. My wife adds her quota of persuasion and
admonition, until I really begin to think I must do something, if only
to have peace.
What if I were to come and look you up in Naples, somewhere in
February, as soon as my lectures are over?
The "one-plate system" might cure me of my incessant dyspeptic nausea.
A detestable grub--larva of Ephestia elatella--has been devouring Her
Majesty's stores of biscuits at Gibraltar. I have had to look into his
origin, history, and best way of circumventing him--and maybe I shall
visit Gibraltar and perhaps Malta. In that case, you will see me turn
up some of these days at the Palazzo Torlonia.
Herbert Spencer has written a friendly attack on "Administrative
Nihilism," which I will send you; in the same number of the
"Fortnightly" there is an absurd epicene splutter on the same subject
by Mill's step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor. I intended to publish the
paper separately, with a note about Spencer's criticism, but I have
had no energy nor faculty to do anything lately.
Tell Lankester, with best regards, that I believe the teaching of
teachers in 1872 is arranged, and that I shall look for his help in
due course.
The "Happy family" have had the measles since you saw them, but they
are well again.
I write in Jermyn Street, so they cannot send messages; otherwise
there would be a chorus from them and the wife of good wishes and kind
remembrances.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[He left Southampton on January 11, in the "Malta." On the 16th, he
notes in his diary,] "I was up just in time see the great portal of
the Mediterranean well. It was a lovely morning, and nothing could be
grander than Ape Hill on one side and the Rock on the other, looking
like great lions or sphinxes on each side of a gateway."
[The morning after his arrival he breakfasted with Admiral Hornby, who
sent him over to Tangier in the "Helicon," giving the Bishop of
Gibraltar a passage at the same time. This led him to note down,] "How
the naval men love Baxter and all his works." [A letter from Dr.
Hooker to Sir John Hay ensured him a most hospitable welcome, though
continual rain spoiled his excursions. On the 21st he returned to
Gibraltar, leaving three days later in the "Nyanza" for Alexandria,
which was reached on February 1. At that "muddy hole" he landed in
pouring rain, and it was not till he reached Cairo the following day
that he at last got into his longed-for sunshine.
Seeing that three of his eight weeks had been spent in merely getting
to sunshine, his wife and doctor conspired to apply for a third month
of leave, which was immediately granted, so that he was able to accept
the invitation of two friends to go with them up the Nile as far as
Assouan in that most restful of conveyances, a dahabieh.
Cairo more than answered his expectations. He stayed here till the
13th, making several excursions in company with Sir W. Gregory,
notably to Boulak Museum, where he particularly notes the "man with
ape" from Memphis; and, of course, the pyramids, of which he remarks
that Cephren's is cased at the top with limestone, not granite. His
notebook and sketch-book show that he was equally interested in
archeology, in the landscape and scenes of everyday life, and in the
peculiar geographical and geological features of the country. His
first impression of the Delta was its resemblance to Belgium and
Lincolnshire. He has sections and descriptions of the Mokatta hill,
and the windmill mound, with a general panorama of the surrounding
country and an explanation of it. He remarks at Memphis how the
unburnt brick of which the mounds are made up had in many places
become remanie into a stratified deposit--distinguishable from Nile
mud chiefly by the pottery fragments--and notes the bearing of this
fact on the Cairo mounds. It is the same on his trip up the Nile; he
jots down the geology whenever opportunity offered; remarks, as
indication of the former height of the river, a high mud-bank beyond
Edfou, and near Assouan a pot-hole in the granite fifty feet above the
present level. Here is a detailed description of the tomb of Aahmes;
there a river-scene beside the pyramid of Meidum; or vivid sketches of
vulture and jackal at a meal in the desert, the jackal in possession
of the carcass, the vulture impatiently waiting his good pleasure for
the last scraps; of the natives working at the endless shadoofs; of a
group of listeners around a professional story-teller--unfinished, for
he was observed sketching them.
Egypt left a profound impression upon him. His artistic delight in it
apart, the antiquities and geology of the country were a vivid
illustration to his trained eye of the history of man and the
influence upon him of the surrounding country, the link between
geography and history.
He left behind him for a while a most unexpected memorial of his
visit. A friend not long after going to the pyramids, was delighted to
find himself thus adjured by a donkey-boy, who tried to cut out his
rival with "Not him donkey, sah; him donkey bad, sah; my donkey good;
my donkey 'Fessor-uxley donkey, sah." It appears that the Cairo
donkey-boys have a way of naming their animals after celebrities whom
they have borne on their backs.
While at Thebes, on his way down the river again, he received news of
the death of the second son of Matthew Arnold, to whom he wrote the
following letter:--]
Thebes, March 10, 1872.
My dear Arnold,
I cannot tell you how shocked I was to see in the papers we received
yesterday the announcement of the terrible blow which has fallen upon
Mrs. Arnold and yourself.
Your poor boy looked such a fine manly fellow the last time I saw him,
when we dined at your house, that I had to read the paragraph over and
over again before I could bring myself to believe what I read. And it
is such a grievous opening of a wound hardly yet healed that I hardly
dare to think of the grief which must have bowed down Mrs. Arnold and
yourself.
I hardly know whether I do well in writing to you. If such trouble
befell me there are very few people in the world from whom I could
bear even sympathy--but you would be one of them, and therefore I hope
that you will forgive a condolence which will reach you so late as to
disturb rather than soothe, for the sake of the hearty affection which
dictates it.
My wife has told me of the very kind letter you wrote her. I was
thoroughly broken down when I left England, and did not get much
better until I fell into the utter and absolute laziness of dahabieh
life. A month of that has completely set me up. I am as well as ever;
and though very grateful to Old Nile for all that he has done for
me--not least for a whole universe of new thoughts and pictures of
life--I begin to feel strongly
'the need of a world of men for me.'
But I am not going to overwork myself again. Pray make my kindest
remembrances to Mrs. Arnold, and believe me, always yours very
faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Leaving Assouan on March 3, and Cairo on the 18th, he returned by way
of Messina to Naples, taking a day at Catania to look at Etna. At
Naples he found his friend Dohrn was absent, and his place as host was
filled by his father. Vesuvius was ascended, Pozzuoli and Pompeii
visited, and two days spent in Rome.]
Hotel de Grande Bretagne, Naples, March 31, 1872.
My dear Tyndall,
Your very welcome letter did not reach me until the 18th of March,
when I returned to Cairo from my expedition to Assouan. Like Johnny
Gilpin, I "little thought when I set out, of running such a rig"; but
while at Cairo I fell in with Ossory of the Athenaeum, and a very
pleasant fellow, Charles Ellis, who had taken a dahabieh, and were
about to start up the Nile. They invited me to take possession of a
vacant third cabin, and I accepted their hospitality, with the
intention of going as far as Thebes and returning on my own hook. But
when we got to Thebes I found there was no getting away again without
much more exposure and fatigue than I felt justified in facing just
then, and as my friends showed no disposition to be rid of me, I stuck
to the boat, and only left them on the return voyage at Rodu, which is
the terminus of the railway, about 150 miles from Cairo.
We had an unusually quick journey, as I was little more than a month
away from Cairo, and as my companions made themselves very agreeable,
it was very pleasant. I was not particularly well at first, but by
degrees the utter rest of this "always afternoon" sort of life did its
work, and I am as well and vigorous now as ever I was in my life.
I should have been home within a fortnight of the time I had
originally fixed. This would have been ample time to have enabled me
to fulfil all the engagements I had made before starting; and Donnelly
had given me to understand that "My Lords" would not trouble their
heads about my stretching my official leave. Nevertheless I was very
glad to find the official extension (which was the effect of my wife's
and your and Bence Jones's friendly conspiracy) awaiting me at Cairo.
A rapid journey home via Brindisi might have rattled my brains back
into the colloid state in which they were when I left England. Looking
back through the past six months I begin to see that I have had a
narrow escape from a bad breakdown, and I am full of good resolutions.
As the first-fruit of these you see that I have given up the School
Board, and I mean to keep clear of all that semi-political work
hereafter. I see that Sandon (whom I met at Alexandria) and Miller
have followed my example, and that Lord Lawrence is likely to go. What
a skedaddle!
It seems very hard to escape, however. Since my arrival here, on
taking up the "Times" I saw a paragraph about the Lord Rectorship of
St. Andrews. After enumerating a lot of candidates for that honour,
the paragraph concluded, "But we understand that at present Professor
Huxley has the best chance." It is really too bad if any one has been
making use of my name without my permission. But I don't know what to
do about it. I had half a mind to write to Tulloch to tell him that I
can't and won't take any such office, but I should look rather foolish
if he replied that it was a mere newspaper report, and that nobody
intended to put me up.
Egypt interested me profoundly, but I must reserve the tale of all I
did and saw there for word of mouth. From Alexandria I went to
Messina, and thence made an excursion along the lovely Sicilian coast
to Catania and Etna. The old giant was half covered with snow, and
this fact, which would have tempted you to go to the top, stopped me.
But I went to the Val del Bove, whence all the great lava streams have
flowed for the last two centuries, and feasted my eyes with its rugged
grandeur. From Messina I came on here, and had the great good fortune
to find Vesuvius in eruption. Before this fact the vision of good
Bence Jones forbidding much exertion vanished into thin air, and on
Thursday up I went in company with Ray Lankester and my friend Dohrn's
father, Dohrn himself being unluckily away. We had a glorious day, and
did not descend till late at night. The great crater was not very
active, and contented itself with throwing out great clouds of steam
and volleys of red-hot stones now and then. These were thrown towards
the south-west side of the cone, so that it was practicable to walk
all round the northern and eastern lip, and look down into the Hell
Gate. I wished you were there to enjoy the sight as much as I did. No
lava was issuing from the great crater, but on the north side of this,
a little way below the top, an independent cone had established itself
as the most charming little pocket-volcano imaginable. It could not
have been more than 100 feet high, and at the top was a crater not
more than six or seven feet across. Out of this, with a noise exactly
resembling a blast furnace and a slowly-working high pressure steam
engine combined, issued a violent torrent of steam and fragments of
semi-fluid lava as big as one's fist, and sometimes bigger. These shot
up sometimes as much as 100 feet, and then fell down on the sides of
the little crater, which could be approached within fifty feet without
any danger. As darkness set in, the spectacle was most strange. The
fiery stream found a lurid reflection in the slowly-drifting steam
cloud, which overhung it, while the red-hot stones which shot through
the cloud shone strangely beside the quiet stars in a moonless sky.
Not from the top of this cinder cone, but from its side, a couple of
hundred feet down, a stream of lava issued. At first it was not more
than a couple of feet wide, but whether from receiving accessions or
merely from the different form of slope, it got wider on its journey
down to the Atrio del Cavallo, a thousand feet below. The slope
immediately below the exit must have been near fifty, but the lava did
not flow quicker than very thick treacle would do under like
circumstances. And there were plenty of freshly cooled lava streams
about, inclined at angles far greater than those which that learned
Academician, Elie de Beaumont, declared to be possible. Naturally I
was ashamed of these impertinent lava currents, and felt inclined to
call them "Laves mousseuses." [Elie de Beaumont "is said to have
'damned himself to everlasting fame' by inventing the nickname of 'la
science moussante' for Evolutionism." See "Life of Darwin" 2 185.]
Courage, my friend, behold land! I know you love my handwriting. I am
off to Rome to-day, and this day-week, if all goes well, I shall be
under my own roof-tree again. In fact I hope to reach London on
Saturday evening. It will be jolly to see your face again.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
My best remembrances to Hirst if you see him before I do.
[My father reached home on April 6, sunburnt and bearded almost beyond
recognition, but not really well, for as soon as he began work again
in London, his old enemy returned. Early hours, the avoidance of
society and societies, an hour's riding before starting at nine for
South Kensington, were all useless; the whole year was poisoned until
a special diet prescribed by Dr. (afterwards sir) Andrew Clark,
followed by another trip abroad, effected a cure. I remember his
saying once that he learned by sad experience that such a holiday as
that in Egypt was no good for him. What he really required was
mountain air and plenty of exercise. The following letters fill up the
outline of this period:--]
26 Abbey Place, May 20, 1872.
My dear Dohrn,
I suppose that you are now back in Naples, perambulating the Chiaja,
and looking ruefully on the accumulation of ashes on the foundations
of the aquarium! The papers, at any rate, tell us that the ashes of
Vesuvius have fallen abundantly at Naples. Moreover, that abominable
municipality is sure to have made the eruption an excuse for all sorts
of delays. May the gods give you an extra share of temper and
patience!
What an unlucky dog our poor Ray is, to go and get fever when of all
times in the world's history he should not have had it. However, I
hear he is better and on his way home. I hope he will be well enough
when he returns not only to get his Fellowship, but to help me in my
schoolmaster work in June and July.
I was greatly disgusted to miss you in Naples, but it was something to
find your father instead. What a vigorous, genial YOUNGSTER of three
score and ten he is. I declare I felt quite aged beside him. We had a
glorious day on Vesuvius, and behaved very badly by leaving him at the
inn for I do not know how many hours, while we wandered about the
cone. But he had a very charming young lady for companion, and
possibly had the best of it. I am very sorry that at the last I went
off in a hurry without saying "Good-bye" to him, but I desired
Lankester to explain, and I am sure he will have sympathised with my
anxiety to see Rome.
I returned, thinking myself very well, but a bad fit of dyspepsia
seized me, and I found myself obliged to be very idle and very careful
of myself--neither of which things are to my taste. But I am right
again now, and hope to have no more backslidings. However, I am afraid
I may not be able to attend the Brighton meeting. In which case you
will have to pay us a visit, wherever we may be--where, we have not
yet made up our minds, but it will not be so far as St. Andrews.
Now for a piece of business. The new Governor of Ceylon is a friend of
mine, and is proposing to set up a Natural History Museum in Ceylon.
He wants a curator--some vigorous fellow with plenty of knowledge and
power of organisation who will make use of his great opportunities. He
tells me he thinks he can start him with 350 pounds sterling a year
(and a house) with possible increase to 400 pounds sterling. I do not
know any one here who would answer the purpose. Can you recommend me
any one? If you can, let me know at once, and don't take so long in
writing to me as I have been in writing to you.
I await the "Prophecies of the Holy Antonius" anxiously. [His work on
the development of the Arthropoda or Spider family.] Like the Jews of
old, I come of an unbelieving generation, and need a sign. The bread
and the oil, also the chamber in the wall shall not fail the prophet
when he comes in August: nor Donner and Blitzes either.
I leave the rest of the space for the wife.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley.
[The following is in reply to a jest of Dr. Dohrn's--who was still a
bachelor--upon a friend's unusual sort of offering to a young lady.]
I suspected the love affair you speak of, and thought the young damsel
very attractive. I suppose it will come to nothing, even if he be
disposed to add his hand to the iron and quinine, in the next present
he offers...and, oh my Diogenes, happy in a tub of arthropodous
Entwickelungsgeschichte [History of Development.], despise not
beefsteaks, nor wives either. They also are good.
Jermyn Street, June 5, 1872.
My dear Dohrn,
I have written to the Governor of Ceylon, and enclosed the first half
of your letter to me to him as he understands High Dutch. I have told
him that the best thing he can do is to write to you at Naples and
tell you he will be very happy to see you as soon as you can come. And
that if you do come you will give him the best possible advice about
his museum, and let him have no rest until he has given you a site for
a zoological station.
I have no doubt you will get a letter from him in three weeks or so.
His name is Gregory, and you will find him a good-humoured acute man
of the world, with a very great general interest in scientific and
artistic matters. Indeed in art I believe he is a considerable
connoisseur.
I am very grieved to hear of your father's serious illness. At his age
cerebral attacks are serious, and when we spent so many pleasant hours
together at Naples, he seemed to have an endless store of vigour--very
much like his son Anton.
What put it into your head that I had any doubt of your power of work?
I am ready to believe that you are Hydra in the matter of heads and
Briareus in the matter of hands.
...If you go to Ceylon I shall expect you to come back by way of
England. It's the shortest route anywhere from India, though it may
not look so on the map.
How am I? Oh, getting along and just keeping the devil of dyspepsia at
arm's length. The wife and other members of the H.F. are well, and
would send you greetings if they knew I was writing to you.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[A little later Von Willemoes Suhm] ("why the deuce does he have such
a long name, instead of a handy monosyllable are dissyllable like
Dohrn or Huxley?") [was recommended for the post. He afterwards was
one of the scientific staff of the "Challenger," and died during the
voyage.]
Morthoe, near Barnstaple, North Devon, August 5, 1872.
My dear Dohrn,
I trust you have not been very wroth with me for my long delay in
answering your last letter. For the last six weeks I have been very
busy lecturing daily to a batch of schoolmasters, and looking after
their practical instruction in the laboratory which the Government
has, at last, given me. In the "intervals of business" I have been
taking my share in a battle which has been raging between my friend
Hooker of Kew and his official chief...and moreover I have just had
strength enough to get my daily work done and no more, and everything
that could be put off has gone to the wall. Three days ago, the "Happy
Family," bag and baggage, came to this remote corner, where I propose
to take a couple of months' entire rest--and put myself in order for
next winter's campaign. It is a little village five miles from the
nearest town (which is Ilfracombe), and our house is at the head of a
ravine running down to the sea. Our backs are turned to England and
our faces to America with no land that I know of between. The country
about is beautiful, and if you will come we will put you up at the
little inn, and show you something better than even Swanage. There are
slight difficulties about the commissariat, but that is the Hausfrau's
business, and not mine. At the worst, bread, eggs, milk, and rabbits
are certain, and the post from London takes two days!
Morthoe, Ilfracombe, North Devon, August 23, 1872.
My dear Whirlwind,
I promise you all my books, past, present, and to come for the
Aquarium. The best part about them is that they will not take up much
room. Ask for Owen's by all means; "Fas est etiam ab hoste doceri." I
am very glad you have got the British Association publications, as it
will be a good precedent for the Royal Society.
Have you talked to Hooker about marine botany? He may be able to help
you as soon as X. the accursed (may jackasses sit upon his
grandmother's grave, as we say in the East) leaves him alone.
It is hateful that you should be in England without seeing us, and for
the first time I lament coming here. The children howled in chorus
when they heard that you could not come. At this moment the whole
tribe and their mother have gone to the sea, and I must answer your
letter before the post goes out, which it does here about half an hour
after it comes in.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[In 1872 Huxley was at length enabled to establish in his regular
classes a system of science teaching based upon laboratory work by the
students, which he had long felt to be the only true method. It
involved the verification of every fact by each student, and was a
training in scientific method even more than in scientific fact. Had
circumstances only permitted, the new epoch in biological teaching
might have been antedated by many years. But, as he says in the
preface to the "Practical Biology," 1875:--]
Practical work was forbidden by the limitations of space in the
building in Jermyn Street, which possessed no room applicable to the
purpose of a laboratory, and I was obliged to content myself, for many
years, with what seemed the next best thing, namely, as full an
exposition as I could give of the characters of certain plants and
animals, selected as types of vegetable and animal organisation, by
way of introduction to systematic zoology and paleontology.
[There was no laboratory work, but he would show an experiment or a
dissection during the lecture or perhaps for a few minutes after, when
the audience crowded round the lecture table.
The opportunity came in 1871. As he afterwards impressed upon the
great city companies in regard to technical education, the teaching of
science throughout the country turned upon the supply of trained
teachers. The part to be played by elementary science under the
Education Act of 1870, added urgency to the question of proper
teaching. With this in view, he organised a course of instruction for
those who had been preparing pupils for the examinations of the
Science and Art Department, "scientific missionaries," as he described
them to Dr. Dohrn.
In the promotion of the practical teaching of biology (writes the late
Jeffery Parker, "Natural Science" 8 49), Huxley's services can hardly
be overestimated. Botanists had always been in the habit of
distributing flowers to their students, which they could dissect or
not as they chose; animal histology was taught in many colleges under
the name of practical physiology; and at Oxford an excellent system of
zoological work had been established by the late Professor Rolleston.
("Rolleston (Professor Lankester writes to me) was the first to
systematically conduct the study of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in
this country by making use of a carefully selected series of animals.
His 'types' were the Rat, the Common Pigeon, the Frog, the Perch, the
Crayfish, Blackbeetle, Anodon, Snail, Earthworm, Leech, Tapeworm. He
had a series of dissections of these mounted, also loose dissections
and elaborate manuscript descriptions. The student went through this
series, dissecting fresh specimens for himself. After some ten years'
experience Rolleston printed his manuscript directions and notes as a
book, called 'Forms of Animal Life.'
"This all preceded the practical class at South Kensington in 1871. I
have no doubt that Rolleston was influenced in his plan by your
father's advice. But Rolleston had the earlier opportunity of putting
the method into practice.
"Your father's series of types were chosen so as to include plants,
and he gave more attention to microscopic forms and to microscopic
structure than did Rolleston."
It was distinctive of the lectures that they were on biology, on
plants as well as animals, to illustrate all the fundamental features
of living things.)
But the biological laboratory, as it is now understood, may be said to
date from about 1870, when Huxley, with the cooperation of Professors
Foster, Rutherford, Lankester, Martin, and others (T.J. Parker, G.B.
Howes, and the present Sir W. Thiselton Dyer, K.C.M.G., C.I.E.,), held
short summer classes for science teachers at South Kensington, the
daily work consisting of an hour's lecture followed by four hours'
laboratory work, in which the students verified for themselves facts
which they had hitherto heard about and taught to their unfortunate
pupils from books alone. The naive astonishment and delight of the
more intelligent among them was sometimes almost pathetic. One
clergyman, who had for years conducted classes in physiology under the
Science and Art Department, was shown a drop of his own blood under
the microscope. "Dear me!" he exclaimed, "it's just like the picture
in Huxley's 'Physiology.'"
Later, in 1872, when the biological department of the Royal School of
Mines was transferred to South Kensington, this method was adopted as
part of the regular curriculum of the school, and from that time the
teaching "of zoology by lectures alone became an anachronism."
The first of these courses to schoolmasters took place, as has been
said, in 1871. Some large rooms on the ground floor of the South
Kensington Museum were used for the purpose. There was no proper
laboratory, but professor and demonstrators rigged up everything as
wanted. Huxley was in the full tide of that more than natural energy
which preceded his breakdown in health, and gave what Professor Ray
Lankester describes as "a wonderful course of lectures," one every day
from ten to eleven for six weeks, in June and half July. The three
demonstrators (those named first on the list above) each took a third
of the class, about thirty-five apiece. "Great enthusiasm prevailed.
We went over a number of plants and of animals--including microscopic
work and some physiological experiment. The 'types' were more numerous
than in later courses."
In 1872 the new laboratory--the present one--was ready.] "I have a
laboratory," [writes Huxley to Dohrn,] "which it shall do your eyes
good to behold when you come back from Ceylon, the short way." [(i.e.
via England.) here a similar course, under the same demonstrators,
assisted by H.N. Martin, was given in the summer, Huxley, though very
shaky in health, making a point of carrying them out himself.]
26 Abbey Place, June 4, 1872.
My dear Tyndall,
I MUST be at work on examination papers all day to-day, but to-morrow
I am good to lunch with you (and abscond from the Royal Commission,
which will get on very well without me) or to go with you and call on
your friends, whichever may be most convenient.
Many thanks for all your kind and good advice about the lectures, but
I really think they will not be too much for me, and it is of the
utmost importance I should carry them on.
They are the commencement of a new system of teaching which, if I
mistake not, will grow into a big thing and bear great fruit, and just
at this present moment (nobody is necessary very long) I am the
necessary man to carry it on. I could not get a suppleant if I would,
and you are no more the man than I am to let a pet scheme fall through
for the fear of a little risk of self. And really and truly I find
that by taking care I pull along very well. Moreover, it isn't my
brains that get wrong, but only my confounded stomach.
I have read your memorial [In the affair of Dr. Hooker already
referred to.] which is very strong and striking, but a difficulty
occurs to me about a good deal of it, and that is that it won't do to
quote Hooker's official letters before they have been called for in
Parliament, or otherwise made public. We should find ourselves in the
wrong officially, I am afraid, by doing so. However we can discuss
this when we meet. I will be at the Athenaeum at 4 o'clock.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[As for the teaching by "types," which was the most salient feature of
his method, and therefore the most easily applied and misapplied,
Professor Parker continues:--
Huxley's method of teaching was based upon the personal examination by
the student of certain "types" of animals and plants selected with a
view of illustrating the various groups. But, in his lectures, these
types were not treated as the isolated things they necessarily appear
in a laboratory manual or an examination syllabus; each, on the
contrary, took its proper place as an example of a particular grade of
structure, and no student of ordinary intelligence could fail to see
that the types were valuable, not for themselves, but simply as
marking, so to speak, the chapters of a connected narrative. Moreover,
in addition to the types, a good deal of work of a more general
character was done. Thus, while we owe to Huxley more than to any one
else the modern system of teaching biology, he is by no means
responsible for the somewhat arid and mechanical aspect it has assumed
in certain quarters.
The application of the same system to botanical teaching was
inaugurated in 1873, when, being compelled to go abroad for his
health, he arranged that Mr. (now Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer should take
his place and lecture on Botany.
The "Elementary Instruction in Biology," published in 1875, was a
text-book based upon this system. This book, in writing which Huxley
was assisted by his demonstrator, H.N. Martin, was reprinted thirteen
times before 1888, when it was "Revised and Extended by Howes and
Scott," his later assistants. The revised edition is marked by one
radical change, due to the insistence of his demonstrator, the late
Professor Jeffery Parker. In the first edition, the lower forms of
life were first dealt with; from simple cells--amoeba, yeast-plant,
blood-corpuscle--the student was taken through an ascending series of
plants and of animals, ending with the frog or rabbit. But] "the
experience of the Lecture-room and the Laboratory taught me," [writes
Huxley in the new preface,] "that philosophical as it might be in
theory, it had defects in practice." [The process might be regarded as
not following the scientific rule of proceeding from the known to the
unknown; while the small and simple organisms required a skill in
handling high-power microscopes which was difficult for beginners to
acquire. Hence the course was reversed, and began with the more
familiar type of the rabbit or frog. This was Rolleston's practice;
but it may be noted that Professor Ray Lankester has always maintained
and further developed "the original Huxleian plan of beginning with
the same microscopic forms" as being a most important philosophic
improvement on Rolleston's plan, and giving, he considers, "the truer
'twist,' as it were, to a student's mind."
When the book was sent to Darwin, he wrote back (November 12, 1875):--
My dear Huxley,
Many thanks for your biology, which I have read. It was a real stroke
of genius to think of such a plan. Lord, how I wish that I had gone
through such a course.
Ever yours,
Charles Darwin.
A large portion of his time and energy was occupied in the
organisation of this course of teaching for teachers, and its
elaboration before being launched on a larger scale in October, when
the Biological Department of the Jermyn Street school was transferred
to the new buildings at South Kensington, fitted with laboratories
which were to excite his friend Dr. Dohrn's envy. But he was also at
work upon his share of the "Science Primers," so far as his still
uncertain health allowed. This and the affairs of the British
Association are the subject of several letters to Sir Henry Roscoe and
Dr. Tyndall.]
26 Abbey Place, April 8, 1872.
My dear Roscoe,
Many thanks for your kind letter of welcome. My long rest has
completely restored me. As my doctor told me, I was sound, wind and
limb, and had merely worn myself out. I am not going to do that again,
and you see that I have got rid of the School Board. It was an awful
incubus!
Oddly enough I met the Ashtons in the Vatican, and heard about your
perplexities touching Oxford. I should have advised you to do as you
have done. I think that you have a great piece of work to do at Owens
College, and that you will do it. If you had gone to Oxford you would
have sacrificed all the momentum you have gained in Manchester; and
would have had to begin de novo, among conditions which, I imagine, it
is very hard for a non-University man to appreciate and adjust himself
to.
I like the look of the "Primers" (of which Macmillan has sent me
copies to-day) very much, and shall buckle to at mine as soon as
possible. I am very glad you did not wait for me. I remained in a very
shaky condition up to the middle of March, and could do nothing.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
The wife unites with me in kind regards to Mrs. Roscoe and yourself.
Morthoe, Ilfracombe, North Devon, September 9, 1872.
My dear Tyndall,
I was very glad to have news of you, and to hear that you are
vigorous.
My outing hitherto has not been very successful, so far as the inward
man is concerned at least, for the weather has been good enough. But I
have been worried to death with dyspepsia and the hyperchondriacal
bedevilments that follow in its train, until I am seriously thinking
of returning to town to see if the fine air of St. John's Wood (as the
man says in "Punch") won't enable me to recover from the effects of
the country.
I wish I were going with you to Yankee Land, not to do any lecturing,
God forbid! but to be a quiet spectator in a corner of the
enthusiastic audiences. I am as lazy as a dog, and the role of
looker-on would just suit me. However, I have a good piece of work to
do in organising my new work at South Kensington.
I have just asked my children what message they have to send to you,
and they send their love; very sorry they won't see you before you go,
and hope you won't come back speaking through your nose!
I shall be in town this week or next, and therefore shall see you.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
26 Abbey Place, September 17, 1872.
My dear Roscoe,
Your letter has followed me from Morthoe here. We had good enough
weather in Devon--but my stay there was marred by the continuous
dyspepsia and concurrent hyperchondriacal incapacity. At last, I could
not stand it any longer, and came home for "change of air," leaving
the wife and chicks to follow next week. By dint of living on cocoa
and Revalenta, and giving up drink, tobacco, and all other things that
make existence pleasant, I am getting better.
What was your motive in getting kicked by a horse? I stopped away from
the Association without that; and am not sorry to have been out of the
way of the X. business. What is to become of the association if -- is
to monopolise it? And then there was that scoundrel, Louis
Napoleon--to whom no honest man ought to speak--gracing the scene. I
am right glad I was out of it.
I am at my wits' end to suggest a lecturer for you. I wish I could
offer myself, but I have refused everything of that sort on the score
of health; and moreover, I am afraid of my wife!
What do you say to Ramsay? He lectures very well. I have done nothing
whatever to the Primer. Stewart sent me Geikie's letter this morning,
and I have asked Macmillan to send Geikie the proofs of my Primer so
far as they go. We must not overlap more than can be helped.
I have not seen Hooker yet since my return. While all this row has
been going on, I could not ask him to do anything for us. And until X.
is dead and d--d (officially at any rate), I am afraid there will be
little peace for him.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Please remember me very kindly to Mrs. Roscoe.
[In a letter of September 25 is a reference to the way in which his
increasing family had outgrown his house in Abbey Place. Early in the
preceding year, he had come to the decision to buy a small house in
the same neighbourhood, and add to it so as to give elbow-room to each
and all of the family. This was against the advice of his friend and
legal adviser, to whom he wrote announcing his decision, as follows.
The letter was adorned with a sketch of an absurd cottage, "Ye House!"
perched like a windmill on a kind of pedestal, and with members of the
family painfully ascending a ladder to the upper story, above the
ominous legend, "Staircase forgotten."]
March 20, 1871.
My dear Burton,
There is something delightfully refreshing in rushing into a piece of
practical work in the teeth of one's legal adviser.
If the lease of a piece of ground whereon I am going to build mine
house come to you, will you see if it's all right.
Yours wilfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[This house, Number 4 Marlborough Place, stands on the north side of
that quiet street, close to its junction with Abbey Road. It is next
door to the Presbyterian Church, on the other side of which again is a
Jewish synagogue. The irregular front of the house, with the original
cottage, white-painted and deep eaved, joined by a big porch to the
new uncompromising square face of yellow brick, distinguished only by
its extremely large windows, was screened from the road by a high oak
paling, and a well-grown row of young lime-trees. Taken as a whole, it
was not without character, and certainly was unlike most London
houses. It was built for comfort, not beauty; designed, within
stringent limits as to cost, to give each member of the family room to
get away by himself or herself if so disposed. Moreover, the gain in
space made it more possible to see something of friends or put up a
guest, than in the small and crowded house in Abbey Place.
A small garden lay in front of the house; a considerably larger garden
behind, wherein the chief ornament was then a large apple-tree, that
never failed to spread a cloud of blossom for my father's birthday,
the 4th of May.
Over the way, too, for many years we were faced by a long garden full
of blossoming pear-trees in which thrushes and blackbirds sang and
nested, belonging to a desolate house in the Abbey Road, which was
tenanted by a solitary old man, supposed to be a male prototype of
Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations."
The move was accompanied by a unique and unpleasant experience. A
knavish fellow, living in a cottage close to the foot of the garden,
sought to blackmail the new comer, under threat of legal proceedings,
alleging that a catchment well for surface drainage had made his
basement damp. Unfortunately for his case, it could be shown that the
pipes had not yet been connected with the well, and when he carried
out his threat, he gained nothing from his suit in Chancery and his
subsequent appeal, except some stinging remarks from Vice-Chancellor
Malins.]
I am afraid the brute is impecunious [wrote my father after the first
suit failed], and that I shall get nothing out of him. So I shall have
had three months' worry, and be fined 100 pounds sterling or so for
being wholly and absolutely in the right.
[Happily the man turned out to have enough means to pay the bulk of
the costs; but that was no compensation for the mental worry and
consequent ill-health entailed from November to June.
The only amusing point in the whole affair was when the plaintiff's
solicitors had the face to file an affidavit before the
Vice-Chancellor himself in answer to his strictures upon the case,
"about as regular a proceeding," reports Mr. Burton, "as for a middy
to reply upon the Post Captain on his own quarter-deck."
The move was made in the third week of December (1872) amid endless
rain and mud and with workmen still in the house. It was attended by
one inconvenience. He writes to Darwin on December 20, 1872:--]
I am utterly disgusted at having only just received your note of
Tuesday. But the fact is, there is a certain inconvenience about
having FOUR addresses as has been my case for the most part of this
week, in consequence of our moving--and as I have not been to Jermyn
Street before to-day, I have missed your note. I should run round to
Queen Anne Street now on the chance of catching you, but I am bound
here by an appointment.
[One incident of the move, however, was more agreeable. Mr. Herbert
Spencer took the opportunity of sending a New Year's gift for the new
house, in the shape of a handsome clock, wishing, as he said, "to
express in some way more empathic than by words, my sense of the many
kindnesses I have received at your hands during the twenty years of
our friendship. Remembrance of the things you have done in furtherance
of my aims, and of the invaluable critical aid you have given me, with
so much patience and at so much cost of time, has often made me feel
how much I owe you."
After a generous reference to occasions when the warmth of debate
might have betrayed him into more vigorous expressions than he
intended, he concludes:--
But inadequately as I may ordinarily show it, you will (knowing that I
am tolerably candid) believe me when I say that there is no one whose
judgment on all subjects I so much respect, or whose friendship I so
highly value.
It may be remembered that the 1872 address on "Administrative
Nihilism" led to a reply from the pen of Mr. Spencer, as the champion
of Individualism. When my father sent him the volume in which this
address was printed, he wrote back a letter (September 29, 1873) which
is characterised by the same feeling. It expresses his thanks for the
book, "and many more for the kind expression of feeling in the
preface. If you had intended to set an example to the Philistines of
the way in which controversial differences may be maintained without
any decrease of sympathy, you could not have done it more perfectly."
In connection with the building of the house, Tyndall had advanced a
sum of money to his friend, and with his usual generosity, not only
received interest with the greatest reluctance, but would have liked
to make a gift of the principal. He writes, "If I remain a bachelor I
will circumvent you--if not--not. It cleaves to me like dirt--and that
is why you wish to get rid of it." To this he received answer:--
February 26, 1873.
I am not to be deterred by any amount of bribery and corruption, from
bringing you under the yoke of a "rare and radiant,"--whenever I
discover one competent to undertake the ticklish business of governing
you. I hope she will be "radiant,"--uncommonly "rare" she certainly
will be!
Two years later this loan was paid off, with the following letter:--]
4 Marlborough Place, January 11, 1875.
My dear old Shylock,
My argosies have come in, and here is all that was written in the
bond! If you want the pound of flesh too, you know it is at your
service, and my Portia won't raise that pettifogging objection to
shedding a little blood into the bargain, which that other one did.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[On October 24 Miss Jex Blake wrote to him to ask his help for herself
and the other women medical students at Edinburgh. For two years they
had only been able to get anatomical teaching in a mixed class; but
wishing to have a separate class, at least for the present, they had
tried to arrange for one that session. The late demonstrator at the
Surgeons' Hall, who had given them most of their teaching before, had
undertaken to teach this separate class, but was refused recognition
by the University Court, on the ground that they had no evidence of
his qualifications, while refusing to let him prove his qualification
by examination. This the women students understood to be an indirect
means of suppressing their aspirations; they therefore begged Huxley
to examine their instructor with a view to giving him a certificate
which should carry weight with the University Court.
He replied:--]
To Miss Jex Blake.
October 28, 1872.
Dear Madam,
While I fully sympathise with the efforts made by yourself and others,
to obtain for women the education requisite to qualify them for
medical practice, and while I think that women who have the
inclination and the capacity to follow the profession of medicine are
most unjustly dealt with if any obstacles beyond those which are
natural and inevitable are placed in their way, I must nevertheless
add, that I as completely sympathise with those Professors of Anatomy,
Physiology, and Obstetrics, who object to teach such subjects to mixed
classes of young men and women brought together without any further
evidence of moral and mental fitness for such association than the
payment of their fees.
In fact, with rare exceptions, I have refused to admit women to my own
Lectures on Comparative Anatomy for many years past. But I should not
hesitate to teach anything I know to a class composed of women; and I
find it hard to believe that any one should really wish to prevent
women from obtaining efficient separate instruction, and from being
admitted to Examination for degrees upon the same terms as men.
You will therefore understand that I should be most glad to help you
if I could--and it is with great regret that I feel myself compelled
to refuse your request to examine Mr. H--.
In the first place I am in the midst of my own teaching, and with
health not yet completely re-established I am obliged to keep clear of
all unnecessary work. Secondly, such an examination must be practical,
and I have neither dissecting-room available nor the anatomical
license required for human dissection; and thirdly, it is not likely
that the University authorities would attach much weight to my report
on one or two days' work--if the fact that Mr. H-- has already filled
the office of anatomical Demonstrator (as I understand from you) does
not satisfy them as to his competency.
I am, dear Madam, yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[The last event of the year was that he was elected by the students
Lord Rector of Aberdeen University--a position, the duties of which
consist partly in attending certain meetings of the University Court,
but more especially in delivering an address. This, however, was not
required for another twelvemonth, and the address on "Universities,
Actual and Ideal," was delivered in fulfilment of this duty in
February 1874.