LINACRE PROFESSORSHIP. xiii 



absence from Oxford had the natural effect of disorganising 

 the school which he had been at so much pains to build up. 



His lectures cost him great pains to prepare. Every avail- 

 able source of information was drawn upon, nothing that 

 seemed of importance was omitted, and as it was characteristic 

 of Moseley that every well ascertained fact assumed great 

 importance in his mind, the lectures were copious in detail. 

 His pupils thoroughly enjoyed them, though they were a 

 fearful tax on the attention, since he rarely lectured less than 

 an hour and three-quarters. 



In the laboratory he diffused a spirit of earnest geniality ; 

 abhorring stiffness and ceremony, he made his pupils thoroughly 

 at home, assisted each in his work, was enchanted if he could 

 get them to perform small offices for him, such as drawing a 

 diagram or cutting a series of sections, and was never wearied of 

 giving advice. The students soon came to look on the laboratory 

 as their chief centre in the University ; I, for one, look back 

 on the days spent there as amongst the happiest of my life. 



Moseley was essentially sceptical ; he would not give his 

 assent to anything that he had not verified himself, and he 

 insisted on his pupils working in the same spirit. He spent an 

 enormous amount of labour in drawing up lengthy practical 

 instructions for the dissection of the types required in the 

 Morphological course — there were eighty-four of them. Every 

 point was first personally verified by him, and he was exceed- 

 ingly annoyed if any one failed, through negligence, to verify 

 any of the details to which he had drawn attention. To do so 

 was often difficult, as he was extremely skilful in dissection, and 

 could see more in a thick and ill-mounted section than any of 

 us could see in the finest preparation. 



These efforts, combined with constant reading — he never 

 allowed any publication to escape his notice — and continuous 

 original research, would have been enough for any man of less 

 robust intellectual and physical constitution ; but unfortunately 

 he did not stop there. 



If there was one subject that he cared for more than Zoology 

 that subject was Anthropology, and as Linacre Professor he had 

 exceptional opportunities of throwing himself into it. His 



