40 
MEMOIR 
the notebooks devoted to the sterner purposes of science, 
he had the wherewithal to revive the full memory of his more 
casual experiences when, turning from analysis to narrative, 
he would unfold the story of his travels; though it is to be 
noticed that his epic seems destitute of a hero, so little does 
he obtrude his personality on the reader, as if the recital of 
the bare facts were wonder-tale enough. 
It remains to take note of Spencer’s professional and other 
avocations at Melbourne. Although it is doubtless to his 
anthropology that he will chiefly owe his permanent fame, 
yet officially and to some extent even in his own eyes this was 
a side-line. Never did he allow it to interfere with his more 
immediate duties. In a word, he deserved well of his Uni¬ 
versity, even as it deserved well of him in allowing him to 
throw a substantial part of his weight into what were in 
a strict sense secondary pursuits. After all, it would be a 
short-sighted policy on the part of any teaching body to 
keep its leading men with their noses continually to the 
grindstone. The hard-worked professor from time to time 
needs a holiday, even if it take the form, as in such a case it is 
likely to do, of more hard work, for the sake of a change. 
Spencer refers several times in his letters, though always 
quite uncomplainingly, to academic duties that keep him in 
his laboratory from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout the week, so 
that he looks forward to his Sundays as his only intervals of 
freedom. He also mentions examinations as affording a 
certain vexation of spirit to himself no less than, presumably, 
to others. The constant labour of teaching and research, 
however, never prevented him from taking a sincere interest 
and, as far as possible, participating in the various activities 
of the students of the University. Dr. G. Sweet, one of his 
old pupils, speaks of his personal knowledge of individuals, 
and of his willingness to give his undivided attention to 
their problems, and Mrs. T. a Beckett, another pupil, has 
