Dbcebibee 13, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



im 



This school subsequently became the Royal 

 School of Mines. It was transferred to 

 South Kensington in lS81,an(l there merged 

 in the Royal College of Science. Prof. 

 Huxley was the first Dean of the College, 

 and on his retirement from the public ser- 

 vice, in 1885, he was requested by the heads 

 of the Department to retain the office in an 

 honorary capacity, and that he did to the 

 day of his death, attending the meetings of 

 the Council and giving assistance in other 

 ways. He was also honorary professor of 

 biology in the College and retained a gen- 

 eral charge of the biological section. While 

 professor at the College he developed his 

 system of biological teaching, which has 

 had so marked an influence on biolog- 

 ical teaching in all parts of the world. On 

 his retirement, in 1885, he presented to the 

 College his large and valuable collection 

 of books on natural history. The room 

 which he occupied was, by the author- 

 ity of the Lords of the Committee of Coun- 

 cil on Education, devoted to a Huxley 

 biological laboratory for research, and it is 

 in constant use by advanced students of 

 biology. A scholarship has been endowed 

 in connection with the College, and the his- 

 tory of the endowment may be of some in- 

 terest. Prof. Huxley on one occasion 

 met in society Miss Marshall, daughter of 

 Mr. Matthew Marshall, for many years chief 

 cashier of the Bank of England, and in 

 consequence of her conversation with Prof. 

 Huxley on that occasion Miss Marshall 

 left to the department a large number 

 of books and other instruments, and in ad- 

 dition a bequest of £1,000, from the pro- 

 ceeds of which a scholarship has been 

 endowed. Prof. Huxley was for more 

 than 40 years intimately connected with 

 the Science and Art Department. The 

 museum in Jermyn-street, in which we are 

 met to-day, is a section of that department, 

 and both in the lecture theatre and in 

 the class-rooms upstairs Prof. Huxley for 



many years delivered his lectures. It was 

 almost my first duty — and I need not say 

 my painful duty — on becoming President 

 of the Council to addi-ess, on behalf of 

 the Committee of Council on Education, a 

 letter of condolence to Mrs. Huxley, in 

 which the committee placed on record its 

 high appreciation of the services to science 

 and art rendered by Prof. Huxley, in 

 the capacities to which I have referred and 

 on the many inquiries by Royal Commission 

 in which he had taken part. 



Prof. M. Foster said that the history of 

 the movement for a memorial to Prof. 

 Huxley, he thought, would be of interest. 

 The movement was initiated by a few 

 friends of Prof. Huxley, who met at the 

 Royal Society, and a provisional committee 

 of representative men was formed. The 

 invitations which they issued to a large 

 number of influential persons to form a 

 general committee were cordially accepted, 

 and the Prince of Wales consented to join 

 the committee and undertake the duties of 

 honorary president. At that time it was 

 too late in the summer to take active steps; 

 so the meeting of the general committee 

 was postponed till the present date. The 

 provisional committee had given much time 

 to the consideration of the form which the 

 proposed memorial should take, but, of 

 course, the decision would rest with the 

 general committee. 



Lord Kelvin then moved the following 

 resolution : 



" That it is desirable to establish a memo- 

 rial to the late Right Hon. T. H. Huxley." 

 He said that, as an original investigator in 

 biology, Huxley had, by his life-long per- 

 severance in work for the increase of 

 knowledge, left to the world a monument 

 more enduring than any bronze or marble 

 in which his survivors might give ma- 

 terial expression to their gratitude. Of 

 his originality Huxley gave early proof. 

 His first writings were not done in a 



