202 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



ters in a large semi-public school " (the father of 

 Herbert Spencer, it will be remembered, was also a 

 schoolmaster), Huxley has little to say in the slight 

 autobiographical sketch reprinted as an introduction 

 to the first volume of the Collected Essays. On that 

 side, he tells us, he could find hardly any trace in 

 himself, except a certain faculty for drawing, and a 

 certain hotness of temper. " Physically and men- 

 tally," he was the son of his mother, " a slender 

 brunette, of an emotional and energetic tempera- 

 ment." His school training was brief and profitless; 

 his tastes were mechanical, and but for lack of means, 

 he would have started life in the same profession 

 which Herbert Spencer followed till he forsook 

 Messrs. Fox's office forjournalism. So, with a cer- 

 tain shrinking from anatomical work, Huxley studied 

 medicine for a time under a relative, and in his seven- 

 teenth year entered the Charing Cross Hospital- 

 School as a student. In those days there was no in- 

 struction in physics, and only in such branch of 

 chemistry as dealt with the nature of drugs. Non 

 multa, sed multum, and what was lacking in breadth 

 was, perhaps, gained in thoroughness. Huxley had 

 as excellent a teacher in Wharton Jones as the latter 

 had a promising pupil in Huxley, and in working 

 with the microscope, the evidence of that came in 

 his discovery of a certain root-sheath in the hair, 

 which has since then been known as " Huxley's 

 layer." 



Up to the time of his studentship, he had been 



