232 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY cHAP. IX 



A new Commission was promised to look into the 

 whole question of the London University. This is 

 referred to in a letter to Sir J. Donnelly of March 

 30, 1892. 



Unless you want to kill Foster, don't suggest him for 

 the Commission. He is on one already. 



The whole affair is a perfect muddle of competing 

 crude projects and vested interests, and is likely to end in 

 a worse muddle, as anything but a patch up is, I believe, 

 outside practical politics at present. 



If I had carte blanche, I should cut away the technical 

 "Faculties" of Medicine, Law, and Theology, and set up 

 first-class chairs in Literature, Art, Philosophy, and pure 

 Science — a sort of combination of Sorbonne (without 

 Theology) and College de France. 



Thank Heaven I have never been asked to say any- 

 thing, and my chimeras remain in petto. They would 

 be scouted. 



On the other hand, he was most anxious to keep 

 the School of Science at South Kensington entirely 

 independent. He writes again on May 26 : — 



I trust Riicker and Thorpe are convinced by this time 

 that I knew what I was talking about when I told them, 

 months ago, that there would be an effort to hook us 

 into the new University hotch-potch. 



I am ready to ojipose any such project tooth and nail 

 I have not been striving these tliirty years to get Science 

 clear of their schoolmastering sham-literary peddling to 

 give up the game without a fight. I hope my Lords will 

 be staunch. 



I am glad my opinion is already on record. 



And similarly to Sir M. Foster on October 30 : — 



