Physical Training 191 



not for the wonderful instinct which leads all poor children of 

 tender years to throw themselves under the feet of cab-horses 

 whenever they can, I know not how they would learn to use 

 their limbs with agility." 



This, humanitarianism as it was, was not the mere 

 emotional sentiment of the typical humanitarian ; he 

 went on to give the soundest practical reasons for 

 physical development. 



"Whatever doubts people may entertain about the efEcacy 

 of natural selection, there can be none about artificial selec- 

 tion ; and the breeder who should attempt to make, or keep 

 up, a fine stock of pigs, or sheep, under the conditions to 

 which the children of the poor are exposed, would be the 

 laughing stock even of the bucolic mind. Parliament has 

 already done something in this direction by declining to be an 

 accomplice in the asphyxiation of school children. It refuses 

 to make any grant to a school in which the cubical con- 

 tents of the school-room are inadequate to allow of proper 

 respiration." 



He wished to see physical training put on the same 

 system. 



The second great point upon which he laid stress 

 was the necessity of providing training in domestic 

 economy, cookery, and other household accomplish- 

 ments, for poor girls. These demands of Huxley seem 

 simple and obvious, now that by his efforts and the 

 efforts of others they have been accomplished, but in 

 England, even thirty j^ears ago, it required more than 

 an ordinary prevision and boldness to insist upon them. 



Huxley passed next to the burning question of the 

 time. He treated it in the broadest and least sectarian 

 spirit, 



" The boys and girls for whose education the School Boards 

 have to provide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, 



