Teachings of Thomas Huxley 5 



school of the town, came a talent for drawing, 

 a rather ungovernable temper, and a fondness 

 for dispute which bordered closely on the ob- 

 stinate. His mother gets most of the credit 

 for passing on her good traits, which were: 

 an excellent mental capacity, force of char- 

 acter, energy, and rapidity of thought, which 

 latter sometimes "played him sad tricks and 

 was always a danger," but which he would not 

 have parted with at any cost. For some reason 

 his school training was brief, he "studied him- 

 self," an ambiguity which contains a paradox 

 of truth, meaning that he was wholesomely 

 introspective, and grasping enough to under- 

 stand things without the aid of a teacher. A 

 fondness for mechanics led him to take up 

 electricity in a desultory fashion, while a de- 

 sire to know something of the functions of the 

 human body introduced him to the basic sub- 

 ject of later scientific work, viz., Physiology 

 as taught by Mr. Wharton Jones at the Char- 

 ing Cross School of Medicine, a man who was 

 extremely kind and helpful to the youthful 

 student, and who made a lasting impression by 

 the extent and precision of his knowledge. 

 About this time Huxley began to study Ger- 

 man and soon became so proficient that he 

 read without the least difficulty the latest ad- 

 vances in scientific thought as given in the 

 periodical literature of that tongue. Carlyle 

 was an early favorite and doubtless contrib- 



