82 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. Ill 



might have been antedated by many years. But, as 

 he says in the preface to the Practical Biology, 1875 



Practical work was forbidden by the limitations of 

 space in the building in Jermyn Street, which possessed 

 no room applicable to the purpose of a laboratory, and I 

 was obliged to content myself, for many years, with what 

 seemed the next best thing, namely, as full an exposition 

 as I could give of the characters of certain plants and 

 animals, selected as types of .vegetable and animal organis- 

 ation, by way of introduction to systematic zoology and 

 paleontology. 



There was no laboratory work, but he would show 

 an experiment or a dissection during the lecture or 

 perhaps for a few minutes after, when the audience 

 crowded round the lecture table. 



The opportunity came in 1871. As he afterwards 

 impressed upon the great city companies in regard to 

 technical education, the teaching of science through- 

 out the country turned upon the supply of trained 

 teachers. The part to be played by elementary 

 science under the Education Act of 1870, added 

 urgency to the question of proper teaching. With 

 this in view, he organised a course of instruction for 

 those who had been preparing pupils for the examina- 

 tions of the Science and Art Department, " scientific 

 missionaries," as he described them to Dr. Dohrn. 



In the promotion of the practical teaching of biology 

 (writes the late Jeffery Parker, Nat. Sci. viii. 49), Huxley's 

 services can hardly be overestimated. Botanists had 

 always been in the habit of distributing flowers to their 

 students, which they could dissect or not as they chose ; 



