Huxley's Life and Work xvii 



literature is the greatest of all sources of refined pleasure, 

 and there is scope enough for the purposes of liberal educa- 

 tion in the study of the rich treasures of our own lan- 

 guage alone. ... I have said before, and I repeat it 

 here, that if a man cannot get literary culture of the high- 

 est kind out of his Bible, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare, 

 he cannot get it out of anything, and I would assuredly 

 devote a very large portion of the time of every English 

 child to the careful study of models of English writing 

 of such varied and wonderful kind as we possess, and, 

 what is still more important, and still more neglected, 

 the habit of using that language with precision, with 

 force, and with art." 



Moral training should not be neglected. Since each 

 child is " a member of a social and political organization 

 of great complexity, and has, in future, to fit himself 

 into that organization, or be crushed by it, it is needful 

 not only that boys and girls should be made acquainted 

 with the elementary laws of conduct, but that their 

 affections should be trained so as to love with all their 

 hearts that conduct which tends to the attainment of the 

 highest good for themselves and their fellow-men, and to 

 hate with all their hearts that opposite course of action 

 which is fraught with evil." As his own children were 

 taught the Bible, he advocated its use in all elementary 

 schools. He saw no way in which " the religious feeling, 

 which is the essential basis of conduct, was to be kept up, 

 in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion, without the 

 use of the Bible." 



Then follows this eloquent passage: " Consider the great 

 historical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been 

 woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in Eng- 

 lish history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, 

 and is as familiar to noble and simple, from John-o'- 



