1 8 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, n 



pacity should be caught and led to a position where it might 

 be useful instead of dangerous to social order. 



After some time, however, he left Mr. Chandler to join 

 his second brother-in-law,* who had set up in the north of 

 London, and to whom he was duly apprenticed, as his 

 brother James had been before him. This change gave him 

 more time and opportunity to pursue his medical education. 

 He attended lectures at the Sydenham College, and, as has 

 been seen, began to prepare for the matriculation examina- 

 tion of the University of London. At the Sydenham Col- 

 lege he met with no little success, winning, besides certifi- 

 cates of merit in other departments, a prize — his first prize 

 — for botany. His vivid recollections, given below, of this 

 entry into the scientific arena are taken from a journal he 

 kept for his fiancee during his absence from Sydney on the 

 cruises of the Rattlesnake. 



On Board H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Christmas 1847. 



Next summer it will be six years since I made my first trial 

 in the world. My first public competition, small as it was, was 

 an epoch in my life. I had been attending (it was my first sum- 

 mer session) the botanical lectures at Chelsea. One morning I 

 observed a notice stuck up — a notice of a public competition for 

 medals, etc., to take place on the ist August (if I recollect right). 

 It was then the end of May or thereabouts. I remember looking 

 longingly at the notice, and some one said to me, " Why don't 

 you go in and try for it ? " I laughed at the idea, for I was very 

 young, and my knowledge somewhat of the vaguest. Neverthe- 

 less I mentioned the matter to S.f when I returned home. He 

 likewise advised me to try, and so I determined I would. I set 

 to work in earnest, and perseveringly applied myself to such 

 works as I could lay my hands on, Lindley's and Decandolle's 

 Systems and the Annales des Sciences Naturelles in the British 

 Museum. I tried to read Schleiden, but my German was insuf- 

 ficient. 



For a young hand I worked really hard from eight or nine 

 in the morning until twelve at night, besides a long hot sum- 

 mer's walk over to Chelsea two or three times a week to hear 

 Lindley. A great part of the time I worked till sunrise. The 



* John Godwin ScoU. f His brother-in-law. 



