Science and Culture l^^y 



colleges, sometimes in the scientific departments of uni- 

 versities. The interesting general point of view is that 

 Huxley, although himself a biologist and teacher of 

 biology, took too broad an outlook on the general 

 policy of education to insist upon his own subject to 

 the detriment of the precise practical objects of the •>\r' 

 training of medical students. ~C^ 



In the days of Huxley's greatest activity, while by 

 the natural force of events and b}^ his special efforts 

 science was becoming more and more recognised as a 

 necessary and important branch of general education, 

 the cry was raised against it that scientific education 

 was not capable of giving what is called culture. A 

 scientific man was regarded as a mere scientific special- 

 ist, and science was considered to have no place in, and 

 in fact to be an enemy of, "liberal education." In 1880, 

 at Birmingham, Huxley attacked this view in a .speech 

 delivered at the opening of the Ma.son College. Sir 

 Josiah Ma.son, the benevolent founder of that great in- 

 stitution, had made it one of the conditions of the 

 foundation that the College should make no provi-sion 

 for "mere literary instruction and education." This 

 gave Huxley a text for raising the whole question of 

 the relation of science to culture. He declared that he 

 held verv .stronglv bv two convictions. 



'a' J 



"The first is, that neither the discipline nor the subject- 

 matter of classical education is of such direct value to the 

 student of physical science as to justify the expenditure of 

 valuable time on either ; and the second is, that for the pur- 

 pose of attaining real culture, au exclusively scientific educa- 

 tion is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education." 



He quoted from Matthew Arnold, then in the zenith 

 of his fame as a chief apostle of culture, and shewed 



