190 Thomas Henry Huxley 



than the l^attle was renewed again over the interpreta- 

 tion of the clanse. Many of the Church controversial- 

 ists held that the liberal or more advanced party 

 intended to exclude all reference to the Bible or to 

 religion, on the plea that some sect could be found to 

 which the most attenuated expression of religion would 

 appear to be against the plain meaning of the clause, 

 and Huxley, who had been in the forefront of the con- 

 troversy, and who was a candidate for the first I^ondon 

 School Board, was decried as an enemy of the Bible 

 and of all religion and morality because he had ex- 

 pressed what he called a secular interpretation of the 

 clause. In an article published in the Contemporary 

 \ Revieiv immediately after the election, Huxley ex- 

 plained precisely what he took the clause to mean, and, 

 afterwards, at all events during the existence of the 

 Board to which he was elected, succeeded in carrying 

 out his intentions in the main. 



His first general point was to deprecate the action of 

 those extremists of both sides who tried to make the 

 education of children a mere battle-ground of religious 

 dogmas. He then laid down what he conceived to be 

 the lines of most general utility upon which, under the 

 provisions of the Act, the education of children should 

 be conducted. In the foreground he placed physical 

 training and drill, as of supreme importance to young 

 children, especially in the case of the poor children of 

 large towns. 



" All the conditions of the lives of such are unfavourable to, 

 their physical well-being. They are badly lodged, badly 

 housed, badly fed, and live from one year's end to another in 

 bad air, without a chance of a change. They have no play- 

 grounds ; they amuse themselves with marbles and chuck- 

 farthing, instead of cricket and hare-and-hounds ; and if it were 



