XV 



AS A LECTURER 377 



with none of the small jocularity in which it is such a 

 temptation to a lecturer to indulge. As one listened to 

 him one felt that comj^arative anatomy was indeed 

 worthy of the devotion of a life, and that to solve a 

 morphological problem was as fine a thing as to win a 

 battle. He was an admirable draughtsman, and his 

 blackboard illustrations were always a great feature of 

 his lectures, especially when, to show the relation of two 

 animal types, he would, by a few rapid strokes and 

 smudges, evolve the one into the other before our eyes. 

 He seemed to have a real affection for some of the 

 specimens illustrating his lectures, and would handle 

 them in a peculiarly loving manner ; when he was 

 lecturing on man, for instance, he would sometimes 

 throw his arm over the shoulder of the skeleton beside 

 him and take its hand, as if its silent companionship 

 were an inspiration. To me his lectures before his 

 small class at Jermyn Street or South Kensington were 

 almost more impressive than the discourses at the Royal 

 Institution, where for an hour and a half he poured 

 forth a stream of dignified, earnest, sincere words in 

 perfect literary form, and without the assistance of a 

 note. 



Another description is from the pen of an old 

 pupil in the autumn of 1876, Professor H. Fairfield 

 Osborn, of Columbia College : — 



Huxley, as a teacher, can never be forgotten by any 

 of his students. He entered the lecture-room promptly 

 as the clock was striking mne,^ rather quickly, and with 

 his head bent forward " as if oppressive with its mind." 

 He usually glanced attention to his class of about ninety, 

 and began speaking before he reached his chair. He 

 spoke between his lips, but with perfectly clear analysis, 



^ In most years the lectures begau at ten. 



