i872 CLASSES FOR SCIENCE TEACHERS 405 



(which is Ilfracombe), and our house is at the head of a ravine 

 running down to the sea. Our backs are turned to England 

 and our faces to America with no land that I know of between. 

 The country about is beautiful, and if you will come we will 

 put you up at the little inn, and show you something better than 

 even Swanage. There are slight difficulties about the commis- 

 sariat, but that is the Hausfrau's business, and not mine. At 

 the worst, bread, eggs, milk, and rabbits are certain, and the 

 post from London takes two days ! 



MORTHOE, Il.FRACOMBE, N. DEVON, 



Aii^. 23, 1872. 



My dear Whirlwind — I promise you all my books, past, 

 present, and to come for the Aquarium. The best part about 

 them is that they will not take up much room. Ask for Owen's 

 by all means ; " Fas est etiam ab hoste doceri." I am very glad 

 you have got the British Association publications, as it will be a 

 good precedent for the Royal Society. 



Have you talked to Hooker about marine botany? He may 

 be able to help you as soon as X. the accursed (may jackasses 

 sit upon his grandmother's grave, as we say in the East) leaves 

 him alone. 



It is hateful that you should be in England without seeing 

 us, and for the first time I lament coming here. The children 

 howled in chorus when they heard that you could not come. At 

 this moment the whole tribe and their mother have gone to the 

 sea, and I must answer your letter before the post goes out, 

 which it does here about half an hour after it comes in. — Ever 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



In 1872 Huxley was at length enabled to establish in 

 his regular classes a system of science teaching based upon 

 laboratory work by the students, which he had long felt to 

 be the only true method. It involved the verification of 

 every fact by each student, and was a training in scientific 

 method even more than in scientific fact. Had circum- 

 stances only permitted, the new epoch in biological teaching 

 might have been antedated by many years. But, as he says 

 in the preface to the Practical Biology, 1875 — 



Practical work was forbidden by the limitations of space in 

 the building in Jerniyn Street, which possessed no room ap- 

 plicable to the purpose of a laboratory, and I was obliged to 



