242 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. X 



ill any career, there is a great deal to be said for sending 

 a clever boy to Oxford or Cambridge. There are not only 

 the exhibitions and scholarships, but there is the rubbing 

 shoulders with the coming generation which puts a man 

 in touch with his contemporaries as hardly anything else 

 can do. A very good scientific education is to be had at 

 both Cambridge and Oxford, especially Cambridge now. 



In the case of sending to the university, putting 

 through the Latin and Greek mill will be indispensable. 

 And if he is not going to make the classics a serious 

 study, there will be a serious waste of time and energy. 



So much in all these matters depends on the x con- 

 tained in the boy himself. If he has the physical and 

 mental energy to make a mark in science, I should drive 

 him straight at science, taking care that he got a literary 

 training through English, French, and German. An 

 average capacity, on the other hand, may be immensely 

 helped by university means of flotation. 



But who in the world is to say how the x will turn 

 out, before the real strain begins ? One might as well 

 prophesy the effect of a glass of "hot-with" when the 

 relative quantities of brandy, water, and sugar are un- 

 known. I am sure the large quantity of brandy and the 

 very small quantity of sugar in my composition were sus- 

 pected neither by myself, nor any one else, until the rows 

 into which wicked men persisted in involving me began ! 



And that reminds me that I forgot to teU the 

 publishers to send you a copy of my last peace-offering,^ 

 and that one will be sent you by to-morro\\''s post. There 

 is nothing new except the prologue, the sweet reasonable- 

 ness of which wiU, I hope, meet your approbation. 



It is not my fault if you have had to toil through this 

 frightfully long screed ; Mrs. Riviere, to whom our love, 

 said you wanted it. " Tu I'as voulu, Georges Dandin." — 

 Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



^ The Essays on Controverted Questioiis. 



