IO4 Selections from Huxley 



myself; and the second, and even greater difficulty, is the 

 danger of saying something different from what one said 

 before, because then, however forgotten your previous 

 speech may be, somebody finds out its existence, and there 



5 goes on that process so hateful to members of Parliament, 

 which may be denoted by the term " Hansardization." 

 Under these circumstances, I came to the conclusion that 

 the best thing I could do was to take the bull by the horns, 

 and to " Hansardize " myself to put before you, in the 



10 briefest possible way, the three or four propositions which 

 I endeavored to support on the occasion of the speech to 

 which I have referred; and then to ask myself, supposing 

 you were asking me, whether I had anything to retract, or 

 to modify, in them, in virtue of the increased experience, 



15 and, let us charitably hope, the increased wisdom of an 

 added fourteen years. 



Now, the points to which I directed particular attention 

 on that occasion were these: in the first place, that in- 

 struction in physical science supplies information of a char- 



20 acter of especial value, both in a practical and a speculative 

 point of view information which cannot be obtained 

 otherwise; and, in the second place, that, as educational 

 discipline, it supplies, in a better form than any other 

 study can supply, exercise in a special form of logic, and a 



25 peculiar method of testing the validity of our processes of 

 inquiry. I said further, that, even at that time, a great 

 and increasing attention was being paid to physical science 

 in our schools and colleges, and that, most assuredly, such 

 attention must go on growing and increasing, until educa- 



30 tion in these matters occupied a very much larger share 

 of the time which is given to teaching and training, than 

 had been the case heretofore. And I threw all the strength 

 of argumentation of which I was possessed into the sup- 

 port of these propositions. But I venture to remind you, 



