64 HUXLEY 



contents in the volume, 1854) ; and A Lecture on the 

 Study of Zoology. 



In these four chapters, which comprise lectures 

 given to very different audiences, we get Huxley's 

 ideas of what education was in his day, and what 

 he thought it ought to be ; and he certainly spares 

 no pains to make himself plain. His well-known 

 vigorous methods of speech are here seen at their 

 best, and some of his sarcastic and scornful remarks 

 make splendid reading. " I believe we should have 

 com nulsorv educa tion in the course of next session 

 if there were the least probability that haK-a-dozen 

 statesmen of different parties would agree what 

 that education should be." What is our idea of a 

 liberal education ? he asks ; and his answer is, 

 that education is learning the rules of the mighty 

 game of life, and these rules are what we call t he law s 

 of_^^ature. His summary of what is taught in the 

 primary schools of his time is a scathing indictment 

 of the system, and especially does he deplore the 

 absence of any teaching which would impart to the 

 child that there is a reason for every moral law, as 

 well as for every physical law. " If I am a knave 

 or a fool, teaching me to read and write won't make 

 me less of either one or the other — unless somebody 

 shows me how to put my reading and writing to wise 

 and good purpose." 



The higher schools and the universities are dealt 

 with in no less severe style. " I believe there can 

 be no doubt that the foreigner who should wish to 

 [become acquainted with the scientific or the literary 

 activity of modern England, would simply lose liis 

 time and his pains if he visited our universities with 

 that object." Several times in these chapters he 



