DARWIN'S STATUE 155 



so that from the side a correct idea of their form 

 and dimensions could be obtained without unduly 

 crowding the gallery in which they were placed. 



Six months after his appointment as Director, 

 Flower assisted at the ceremony of installing the 

 fine statue of Charles Darwin, by Sir Edgar Boehm, 

 on the grand staircase, from which his pondering 

 face now looks down on the Great Hall, in which 

 Flower was later to give the most graphic exposition 

 of his interpretation of the laws of living nature. 



Flower as Director, with the executive com- 

 mittee, received the Prince of Wales and the other 

 distinguished visitors at the entrance. The Prince 

 and the President of the Royal Society stood on 

 either side of the statue, which Professor Huxley 

 then unveiled, and as chairman of the committee 

 formally presented it to the Trustees.^ In his 

 speech, though holding that Darwin no more 

 needed a statue to perpetuate his memory than 

 did Copernicus or Harvey, he affirmed that its 

 presence would remind every student who entered 

 the doors opposite of an idea according to which 

 they might shape their lives, if they wished to use 

 the opportunities offered by the Museum to the best 

 account. 



During the earlier years of his Directorship 

 Flower was steadily engaged in four principal lines 

 of activity, to which must be added the calls made 

 upon his time as President of the Zoological 



1 The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Benson, as principal Trustee, receiving it. 



