2 c LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xiv 



Do you see any chance of educating the white corpuscles of 

 the human race to destroy the theological bacteria which are 

 bred in parsons ? — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



3 Jevington Gardens, Eastbourne, 

 May 19, 1889. 



My dear Donnelly — The Vice-President's letter has 

 brought home to me one thing very clearly, and that is, that I 

 had no business to sign the Report. Of course he has a right 

 to hold me responsible for a document to which my name is 

 attached, and I should look more like a fool than I ever wish 

 to do, if I had to tell him that I had taken the thing entirely 

 on trust. I have always objected to the sleeping partnership in 

 the Examination; and unless it can be made quite clear that I 

 am nothing but a " consulting doctor," I really must get out of 

 it entirely. 



Of course I cannot say whether the Report is justified by the 

 facts or not, when I do not know anything about them. But 

 from my experience of what the state of things used to be, I 

 should say that it is, in all probability, fair. 



The faults mentioned are exactly those which always have 

 made their appearance, and I expect always will do so, and I 

 do not see why the attention of the teachers should not as con- 

 stantly be directed to them. You talk of Eton. Well, the reports 

 of the Examiners to the governing body, year after year, had 

 the same unpleasing monotony, and I do not believe that there 

 is any educational body, from the Universities downwards, which 

 would come out much better, if the Examiners' reports were 

 published and if they did their duty. 



I am unable to see my way (and I suppose you are) to any 

 better method of State encouragement of science teaching than 

 payment by results. The great and manifest evil of that system, 

 however, is the steady pressure which it exerts in the develop- 

 ment of every description of sham teaching. And the only check 

 upon this kind of swindling the public seems to me to lie in the 

 hands of the Examiners. I told Mr. Forster so, ages ago, when 

 he talked to me about the gradual increase of the expenditure, 

 and I have been confirmed in my opinion by all subsequent ex- 

 perience. What the people who read the reports may say, I 

 should not care one 2d. d — if I had to administer the thing. 



Nine out of ten of them are incompetent to form any opinion 

 on an educational subject; and as a mere matter of policy, I 



