72 Selections from Huxley 



worst give what is really next to no education at all. 

 The South London Working Men's College could not 

 copy any of these institutions if it would. I am bold 

 enough to express the conviction that it ought not if it 



5 could. 



For what is wanted is the reality and not the mere 

 name of a liberal education ; and this College must steadily 

 set before itself the ambition to be able to give that educa- 

 tion sooner or later. At present we are but beginning, 



10 sharpening our educational tools, as it were, and, except 

 a modicum of physical science, we are not able to offer 

 much more than is to be found in an ordinary school. 



Moral and social science one of the greatest and most 

 fruitful of our future classes, I hope at present lacks 



15 only one thing in our program, and that is a teacher. A 

 considerable want, no doubt; but it must be recollected 

 that it is much better to want a teacher than to want 

 the desire to learn. 



Further, we need what, for want of a better name, 



20 1 must call physical geography. What I mean is that 

 which the Germans call " Erdkunde." It is a descrip- 

 tion of the earth, of its place and relation to other bodies; 

 of its general structure, and of its great features winds, 

 tides, mountains, plains ; of the chief forms of the vege- 



25 table and animal worlds, of the varieties of man. It is the 

 peg upon which the greatest quantity of useful and enter- 

 taining scientific information can be suspended. 



Literature is not upon the College program; but I 

 hope some day to see it there. For literature is the 



30 greatest of all sources of refined pleasure, and one of 

 the great uses of a liberal education is to enable us to 

 enjoy that pleasure. There is scope enough for the pur- 

 poses of liberal education in the study of the rich treasures 

 of our own language alone. All that is needed is direction, 



