332 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxiii 



native lines of study according to their tastes and caRacities ; 

 but of the earlier part, which was to be obligatory upon all, 

 the report says: — These four years study, if properly em- 

 ployed by the teachers, will constitute a complete prepara- 

 tory scientific course. However slight the knowledge of 

 details conferred, a wise teacher of any of these subjects will 

 be able to make that teaching thorough ; and to give the 

 scholar a notion of the methods and of the ideas which he 

 will meet with in his further progr^ess in all branches of 

 physical science. 



In fact, the fundamental principle was to begin with 

 Observational Science, facts collected ; to proceed to Classi- 

 ficatory Science, facts arranged ; and to end with Induc- 

 tive Science, facts reasoned upon and laws deduced. 



While he was much occupied with the theoretical and 

 practical difficulties of such a scheme of science teaching 

 for general use, he was asked by his friend, the Rev. W. 

 Rogers of Bishopsgate, if he would not deliver a course of 

 lectures on elementary science to boys of the schools in 

 which the latter was interested. 



He finally accepted in the following letter, and as the 

 result, delivered twelve lectures week by week from April 

 to June to a large audience at the London Institution in 

 Finsbury Circus, lectures not easily forgotten by the chil- 

 dren who listened to them nor by their elders : — 



Jermyn Street, Feb. 5, 1869. 



My dear Rogers — Upon due reflection I am not indisposed 

 to undertake the course of lessons we talked about the other 

 day, though they will cost me a good deal of trouble in various 

 ways, and at a time of the year when I am getting to the end 

 of my tether and don't much like trouble. 



But the scheme is too completely in harmony with what (in 

 conjunction with Tyndall and others) I have been trying to 

 bring about in schools in general — not to render it a great 

 temptation to me to try to get it into practical shape. 



All I have to stipulate is that we shall have a clear under- 

 standing on the part of the boys and teachers that the discourses 

 are to [be] Lessons and not talkee-talkee lectures. I should 

 like it to be understood that the boys are to take notes and to 

 be examined at the end of the course. Of course I cannot 



