390 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. Xix 



John Stuart Mill, however, refused to join, consider- 

 ing that this was not the most needed reform in 

 education, and that he could not support a school in 

 which the ordinary theology was taught. 



An article in the Reader for June 17, 1865, 

 sketches the plan. The design was to give a liberal 

 education to boys whether intended for a profession 

 or for commerce. The education for both was the 

 same up to a certain point, corresponding to that 

 given in our higher schools, together with foreign 

 languages and the elements of physical and social 

 science, after which the courses bifurcated. 1 Special 

 stress was laid on modern languages, both for them- 

 selves and as a preparation and help for classical 

 teaching. Accordingly, the International College 

 was one of three parallel institutions in England, 

 France, and Germany, where a boy could in turn 

 acquire a sound knowledge of all three languages 

 while continuing the same course of education. The 

 Franco-Prussian war of 1870, however, proved fatal 

 to the scheme. 



Some letters to his friend Dr. W. K. Parker, 2 

 show the good-fellowship which existed between 

 them, as well as the interest he took in the style and 



1 For a fuller account of the scientific education see p. 444. 



2 A man of whom he wrote (preface to Prof. Jeffery Parker's 

 Life of W. K. Parker, 1893), that "in him the genius of an artist 

 struggled with that of a philosopher, and not unfrequently the 

 latter got the worst of the contest. " He speaks too of his " minute 

 accuracy in observation and boxindless memory for details and 

 imagination which absolutely rioted in the scenting out of subtle 

 and often far-fetched analogies." 



