CHAPTEE III 



1846-1849 



IT is a curious coincidence that, like two other leaders 

 of science, Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 

 their close friend Huxley began his scientific career 

 on board one of Her Majesty's ships. He was, how- 

 ever, to learn how little the British Government 

 of that day, for all its professions, really cared for 

 the advancement of knowledge. 1 But of the immense 

 value to himself of these years of hard training, the 

 discipline, the knowledge of men and of the capabili- 

 ties of life, even without more than the barest 



1 The key to this attitude on the part of the Admiralty is to 

 be found in the scathing description in Briggs' Naval Administra- 

 tion from 1827 to 1892, p. 92, of the ruinous parsimony of either 

 political party at this time with regard to the navy a policy the 

 results of which were only too apparent at the outbreak of the 

 Crimean War. I quote a couple of sentences, " The navy estimates 

 were framed upon the lowest scale, and reduction pushed to the 

 very verge of danger." "Even from a financial point of view the 

 course pursued was the reverse of economical, and ultimately led 

 to wasteful and increased expenditure." Thus the liberal pro- 

 fessions of the Admiralty were not fulfilled ; its goodwill gave the 

 young surgeon three and a half years of leave from active service ; 

 with an obdurate Treasury, it could do no more. 



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