438 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. 



in explaining points which there was no excuse for anyone not 

 having understood. 



Still more was I struck with the great pleasure which he 

 showed when he saw that some special points of his teaching 

 had not only been comprehended, but had borne fruit, by their 

 suggestiveness in an appreciative mind. 



To one point I desire specially to bear witness. There were 

 persons who dreaded sending young men to him, fearing lest 

 their young friends' religious beliefs should be upset by what 

 they might hear said. For years I attended his lectures, but 

 never once did I hear him make use of his position as a teacher 

 to inculcate, or even hint at, his own theological views, or to 

 depreciate or assail what might be supposed to be the religion of 

 his hearers. No one could have behaved more loyally in that 

 respect, and a proof that I thought so is that I subsequently 

 sent my own son to be his pupil at South Kensington, where 

 his experience confirmed what had previously been my own. 



As to science, I learnt more from him in two years than 

 I had acquired in any previous decade of biological study. 



The picture is completed by Professor Howes in the 

 Students' Magazine of the Royal College of Science : 



As a class lecturer Huxley was facile princeps, and only 

 those who were privileged to sit under him can form a concep- 

 tion of his delivery. Clear, deliberate, never hesitant nor un- 

 duly emphatic, never repetitional, always logical, his every word 

 told. Great, however, as were his class lectures, his working- 

 men's were greater. Huxley was a firm believer in the "' dis- 

 tillatio per ascensum " of scientific knowledge and culture, and 

 spared no pains in approaching the artisan and so-called " work- 

 ing classes." He gave the workmen of his best. The substance 

 of his " Man's Place in Nature," one of the most successful and 

 popular of his writings, and of his " Crayfish," perhaps the most 

 perfect zoological treatise ever published, was first communi- 

 cated to them. In one of the last conversations I had with him, 

 I asked his views on the desirability of discontinuing the work- 

 men's lectures at Jermyn Street, since the development of work- 

 ing-men's colleges and institutes is regarded by some to have 

 rendered their continuance unnecessary. He replied, almost 

 with indignation, " With our central situation and resources, 

 we ought to be in a position to give the workmen that which 

 they cannot get elsewhere," adding that he would deeply deplore 

 any such discontinuance. 



