4 Teaohifgs of Thomas Huxley 



brief resume of Huxley's early life will not 

 be amiss as enabling as to follow more closely 

 the trend of his thoughts and the purposes by 

 which he was actuated. 



Thomas JLenrv Huxley first saw the light 

 at Baling, at that time a country village but 

 since grown to be a suburb of London, on May 

 4th, 1825. lie remarks humorously that "The 

 windows of my mother's room were open in 

 consequence of the unusual warmth of the 

 weather. For the same reason, probably, a 

 neighboring beehive had swarmed, and the new 

 colony pitching on the window-sill was making 

 its way into the room when the horrified aurse 

 shut down the sash. If thai well-meaning 

 woman had only abstained from her ill-timed 



%j 



interference, the swarm might have settled on 

 my lips, and I should have l>eeii endowed with 

 that mellifluous eloquence which, in this coun- 

 try, leads far more surely than worth, capacity 

 or honest work, to the highest places in Church 

 and Stat-/'* 



ili< early childhood seems to have been of 

 the ordinary Bort, but he possesses certain in- 

 herited characteristics which make him differ- 

 ent from his playmates. From his father, who 

 was, by the way, a master in a semi-public 



•Autobiography. "Method and Results" in 

 Collected Essays by T. II. Huxley. VoL 

 I. D. Appleton, 1897. 



