1895. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 45 
the removal of the Royal School of Mines from crowded Jermyn 
Street to South Kensington, a matter which is still being 
agitated. Ata public dinner given by the alumni of the School, 
who were naturally attached to the old buildings, the chairman 
was indiscreet enough to make an attack upon the policy of 
removal. He was vigorously applauded, when, to every one’s 
consternation, Huxley, who was sitting at the chairman’s right, 
slowly rose, paused a moment, and then silently skirted the 
tables and walked out of the hall. A solemn pall fell over the 
remainder of the dinner and we were all glad to find an excuse 
to leave early. 
In personal conversation Huxley was full of humor and 
greatly enjoyed stories at his own expense. Such was the fol- 
lowing: “In my early period as a lecturer I had very little con- 
fidence in my general powers, but one thing I prided myself 
upon was clearness. I was once talking of the brain before a 
large, mixed audience and soon began to feel that no one in the 
room understood me. Finally I saw the thoroughly interested 
face of a woman auditor and took consolation in delivering the 
remainder of the lecture directly to her. At the close, my feel- 
ing as to her interest was confirmed when she came up and 
asked if she might put one question upon a single point which 
she had not quite understood. ‘Certainly,’ I replied. ‘ Now 
Professor,’ she said, ‘is the cerebellum inside or outside of the 
skull?’?” A story of his about babies is also characteristic : 
“When a fond mother calls upon me to admire her baby I never 
fail to respond, and, while cooing appropriately, I take advan- 
tage of an opportunity to gently ascertain whether the soles 
of its feet turn in and tend to support my theory of arboreal 
descent.” 
Huxley as a teacher can never be forgotten by any of his 
students. He entered his lecture room promptly as the clock 
was striking nine, rather quickly and with his head bent forward 
“as if oppressive with its mind.” He usually glanced attention 
to his class of about ninety and began speaking before he reached 
his chair. He spoke between his lips, but with perfectly clear 
analysis, with thorough interest and with philosophic insight, 
which was far above the average of his students. He used very 
few charts, but handled the chalk with great skill, sketching out 
the anatomy of an animal as if it werea transparent object. As 
in Darwin’s face, and as in Erasmus Darwin’s or Butfon’s, and 
many other anatomists with a strong sense of form, his eyes 
were heavily overhung by a projecting forehead and eyebrows 
and seemed at times to look inward. His lips were firm and 
closely set, with the expression of positiveness, and the other fea- 
