10 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAi>. I 



4 Marlborough Place, 

 June 29, 1887. 



My dear Roscoe — I have scrawled a variety of 

 tomments on the paper you sent me. Deal with them as 

 you think fit. 



Ever since I was on the London School Board I have 

 seen that the key of the position is in the Sectarian 

 Training Colleges and that wretched imposture, the pupil 

 teacher system. As to the former Delendae sunt no truce 

 or pact to be made with them, either Church or 

 Dissenting. Half the time of their students is occupied 

 with grinding into their minds their tweedle-dum and 

 tweedle-dee theological idiocies, and the other half in 

 cramming them with boluses of other things to be duly 

 spat out on examination day. Whatever is done do not 

 let us be deluded by any promises of theirs to hook on 

 science or technical teaching to their present work. 



I am greatly disgusted that I cannot come to Tyndall's 

 dinner to-night ^ — but my brother-in-law's death would 

 have stopped me (the funeral to-day) — even if my doctor 

 had not forbidden me to leave my bed. He says I have 

 some pleuritic effusion on one side and must mind my P's 

 and Q's. — Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



A good deal of correspondence at this time with 

 Sir M. Foster relates to the examinations of the 

 Science and Art Department. He was still Dean, it 

 will be remembered, of the Eoyal College of Science, 

 and further kept up his connection with the Depart- 

 ment by acting in an honorary capacity as Examiner, 

 setting questions, but less and less looking over 

 papers, acting as the channel for official communica- 

 tions, as when he writes (April 24), "I send you 



1 See p. 25. 



