446 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XXIII 



All I have to stipulate is that we shall have a clear 

 understanding on the part of the boys and teachers that 

 the discourses are to [be] Lessons and not talkee-talkee 

 lectures. I should like it to be understood that the boys 

 are to take notes and to be examined at the end of the 

 course. Of course I cannot undertake to be examiner, 

 but the schools might make some arrangement on this 

 point. 



You see my great object is to set going something 

 which can be worked in every school in the country in 

 a thorough and effectual way, and set an example of the 

 manner in which I think this sort of introduction to 

 science ought to be managed. 



Unless this can be done I would rather not embark in 

 a project which will involve much labour, worry, and 

 interruption to my regular line of work. 



I met Mr. [illegible] last night, and discussed the 

 subject briefly with him. Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



I enclose a sort of rough programme of the kind of 

 thing I mean, cut up from a project of instruction for a 

 school about which I am now busy. The managers 

 might like to see it. But I shall be glad to have it 

 returned. 



These lectures were repeated in November at 

 South Kensington Museum, as the first part of a 

 threefold course to women on the elements of 

 physical science, and the Times reporter naively 

 remarks that under the rather alarming name of 

 Physiography, many of the audience were no doubt 

 surprised to hear an exceedingly simple and lucid 

 description of a river-basin. Want of leisure pre- 

 vented him from bringing out the lectures in book 

 form until November 1877. When it did appear, 



