1892 LETTER TO PROFESSOR WELDON 327 



to establish a second examining body in London. The 

 signatories also begged the Government to grant further 

 enquiry before legislating on the subject. 



The protest, which received over 100 signatures of 

 weight, contributed something towards the rejection of the 

 Bill in the House of Commons. It became possible to hope 

 that there might be established in London a University 

 which should be something more than a mere collection of 

 teachers, having as their only bond of union the preparation 

 of students for a common examination. It was proposed to 

 form an association to assist in the promotion of a teaching 

 university for the metropolis ; but the first draft of a scheme 

 to reconcile the complication of interests and ideals involved 

 led Huxley to express himself as follows : — 



Hodeslea, Eastbourne, March 27, 1892. 



Dear Professor Weldon * — I am sorry to have kept you 

 waiting so long for an answer to your letter of the 17th : but 

 your proposal required a good deal of consideration, and I have 

 had a variety of distractions. 



So long as I am a member of the Senate of the University 

 of London, I do not think I can with propriety join any Asso- 

 ciation which proposes to meddle with it. Moreover, though I 

 have a good deal of sympathy with the ends of the Association, 

 I have my doubts about many propositions set forth in your 

 draft. 



I took part in the discussions preliminary to Lord Justice 

 Fry's scheme, and I was so convinced that that scheme would 

 be wrecked amidst the complication of interests and ideals that 

 claimed consideration, that I gave up attending to it. In fact, 

 living so much out of the world now, and being sadly deaf, I 

 am really unfit to intervene in business of this kind. 



Worse still, I am conscious that my own ideal is, for the 

 present at any rate, hopelessly impracticable. I should cut away 

 medicine, law, and theology as technical specialities in charge 

 of corporations which might be left to settle (in the case of 

 medicine, in accordance with the State) the terms on which 

 they grant degrees. 



The university or universities should be learning and teach- 



* Then at University College, London ; now Linacre Professor of 

 Physiology at Oxford. 



