228 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xiii 



based. He replies to some proposed changes in a letter to 

 Sir M. Foster of December 12 : — 



I am very sorry I cannot agree with your clients about the 

 examination. They should recollect the late Master of Trinity's 

 aphorism that even the youngest of us is not infallible. 



I know exactly upon what principles I am going, and so far 

 as I am at present informed that advantage is peculiar to my 

 side. Two points I am quite clear about — one is the exclusion 

 of Amphioxus, and the other the retention of so much of the 

 Bird as will necessitate a knowledge of Sauropsidan skeletal char- 

 acters and the elements of skeletal homologies in skull and limbs. 



I have taken a good deal of pains over drawing up a new 

 syllabus — including dogfish — and making room for it by exclud- 

 ing Amphioxus and all of bird except skeleton. I have added 

 Lamprey (cranial and spinal skeleton, not face cartilages), so 

 that the intelligent student may know what a notochord means 

 before he goes to embryology. I have excluded Distoma and 

 kept Helix. 



The Committee must now settle the matter. I have done 

 with it. 



On December 27 he writes : — 



I have been thinking over the Examinership business with- 

 out coming to any, very satisfactory result. The present state 

 of things is not satisfactory so far as I am concerned. I do not 

 like to appear to be doing what I am not doing. 



would of course be the successor indicated, if he had 



not so carefully cut his own throat as an Examiner. ... He 

 would be bringing an action against the Lord President before 

 he had been three years in office ! ... As I told Forster, when 

 he was Vice-President, the whole value of the Exr. system de- 

 papids on the way the examiners do their work. I have the 

 gravest doubt about steadily plodding through the disgust- 

 ful weariness of it as you and I have done, or observing any 

 regulation that did not suit his fancy. 



With this may be compared the letter of May 19, 1889, 

 to Sir J. Donnelly, when he finally resolved to give up the 

 " sleeping partnership " in the examination. 



His last letter of the year was written to Sir J. Hooker, 

 when transferring to him the " archives " of the x Club, as 

 the new Treasurer. 



