198 huxli:y and natural selfxtiox 



radish as symbols of the unfortunate victims of the 

 'Examiner of all l^xaminers'. With the very best 

 intentions, but with the very worst effects, the idea has 

 taken root in this countr\' that the imaijination must not 

 be allowed free pla\- until some arbitrar)" amount of 

 knowledge has been absorbed, with the result that too 

 often all orii^dnal f^iculty is water-loq^;^ed and drowned in 

 a sea ot facts. We lose sii^du of the educational value 

 of research, and the fact that the imagination needs exer- 

 cise and grows by performance. We frequently hear of 

 the danger of encouraging crude work. 1 he real danger 

 is the other way : it is only too easy to discourage and 

 dishearten, forgetting the great truth that a first research, 

 poor and immature though it be, means a rich intellectual 

 growth — forgetting that to chill the divine spark is often 

 to quench it for ever. 



The home of information is in this countr)- too often 

 the grave of the imagination. The mind of man appeals 

 to the known for instruction, to the unknown for inspira- 

 tion ; and the teacher who understands education, which 

 means development, will continually bring his pupils, 

 however young, with a stimulating shock right up against 

 the boundaries of knowled^re. 



Huxley, in his essay on A Liberal Education, spoke of 

 one ' whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great 

 and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her 

 operations';' but the emphasis is here laid on (juality 

 rather than quantity lie knew full well that no training 

 of an}- man worth calling a man is complete without 

 research. Thus we hnd that on December 31, 1856, at 

 the age of thirty-one. he made this entr}' in his journal,- 

 1856-7-8 must still be " Lehriahre " to complete train- 

 ing in [principles of I listolog), Morphology, Physiology, 

 Zoology, and Geology by l\IonoQ;yapJiic W^ork in each 

 Department.' It must not be concluded that Huxley 

 waited until he was thirty-one before beginning original 

 work. In 1845, '^vhcn he was twent)', he published an 

 account of what has since been known as ' Huxley's layer ' 



' Lay Sermons, &c.. London. 1S77, pp. 34-5. 

 Li/e and LclUrs 0/ T. H. Huxley, vol. i, p. 151. 



3 



