Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 4

The next matter of importance in which he took part was on June 14, when the Committee on the Scheme of Education presented its first report. Dr. Gladstone writes:--

It was a very voluminous doc.u.ment. The Committee had met every week, and, in the words of Huxley,] "what it had endeavoured to do, was to obtain some order and system and uniformity in important matters, whilst in comparatively unimportant matters they thought some play should be given for the activity of the bodies of men into whose hands the management of the various schools should be placed." [The recommendations were considered on June 21 and July 12, and pa.s.sed without any material alterations or additions. They were very much the same as existed in the best elementary schools of the period. Huxley's chief interest, it may be surmised, was in the subjects of instruction. It was pa.s.sed that, in infants' schools there should be the Bible, reading, writing, arithmetic, object lessons of a simple character, with some such exercise of the hands and eyes as is given in the Kindergarten system, music, and drill. In junior and senior schools the subjects of instruction were divided into two cla.s.ses, essential and discretionary, the essentials being the Bible, and the principles of religion and morality, reading, writing, and arithmetic, English grammar and composition, elementary geography, and elementary social economy, history of England, the principles of book-keeping in senior schools, with mensuration in senior boys' schools. All through the six years there were to be systematised object lessons, embracing a course of elementary instruction in physical science, and serving as an introduction to the science examinations conducted by the Science and Art department. An a.n.a.logous course of instruction was adopted for elementary evening schools. In moving] "that the formation of science and art cla.s.ses in connection with public elementary schools be encouraged and facilitated," [Huxley contended strongly for it, saying,] "The country could not possibly commit a greater error than in establis.h.i.+ng schools in which the direct applications of science and art were taught before those who entered the cla.s.ses were grounded in the principles of physical science." [In advocating object lessons he said,] "The position that science was now a.s.suming, not only in relation to practical life, but to thought, was such that those who remained entirely ignorant of even its elementary facts were in a wholly unfair position as regarded the world of thought and the world of practical life." [It was, moreover,] "the only real foundation for technical education."

[Other points in which he was specially concerned were, that the universal teaching of drawing was accepted, against an amendment excluding girls; that domestic economy was made a discretionary subst.i.tute for needlework and cutting-out; while he spoke in defence of Latin as a discretionary subject, alternatively with a modern language. It was true that he would not have proposed it in the first instance, not because a little Latin is a bad thing, but for fear of]

"overloading the boat." [But, on the other hand, there was great danger if education were not thrown open to all without restriction.

If it be urged that a man should be content with the state of life to which he is called, the obvious retort is, How do you know what is your state of life, unless you try what you are called to? There is no more frightful] "sitting on the safety valve" [than in preventing men of ability from having the means of rising to the positions for which they, by their talents and industry, could qualify themselves.

Further, although the committee as a whole recommended that discretionary subjects should be extras, he wished them to be covered by the general payment, in which sense the report was amended.

This Education Committee (proceeds Dr. Gladstone) continued to sit, and on November 30 brought up a report in favour of the Prussian system of separate cla.s.srooms, to be tried in one school as an experiment. This reads curiously now that it has become the system almost universally adopted in the London Board Schools.

In regard to examinations Huxley strongly supported the view that the teaching in all subjects, secular or sacred, should be periodically tested.

On December 13, Huxley raised the question whether the selection of books and apparatus should be referred to his Committee or to the School Management Committee, and on January 10 following, a small sub-committee for that object was formed. Almost immediately after this he retired from the Board.

One more speech of his, which created a great stir at the time, must be referred to, namely his expression of undisguised hostility to the system of education maintained by the Ultramontane section of the Roman Catholics. (Cp. "Scientific Education" "Collected Essays" 3 page 111.) In October the bye-laws came up for consideration. One of them provided that the Board should pay over direct to denominational schools the fees for poor children. This he opposed on the ground that it would lead to repeated contests on the Board, and further, might be used as a tool by the Ultramontanes for their own purposes. Believing that their system as set forth in the syllabus, of securing complete possession of the minds of those whom they taught or controlled, was destructive to all that was highest in the nature of mankind, and inconsistent with intellectual and political liberty, he considered it his earnest duty to oppose all measures which would lead to a.s.sisting the Ultramontanes in their purpose.

Hereupon he was vehemently attacked, for example, in the "Times" for his "injudicious and even reprehensible tone" which "aggravated the difficulties his opponents might have in giving way to him." Was this, it was asked, the way to get Roman Catholic children to the Board schools? Was it not an abandonment of the ideal of compulsory education?

It is hardly necessary to point out that the question was not between the compulsory inclusion or exclusion of poor children, but between their admission at the cost of the Board to schools under the Board's own control or outside it. In any case the children of Roman Catholics were not likely to get their own doctrines taught in Board Schools, and without this they declared they would rather go without education at all.

Early in 1872 Huxley retired. For a year he had continued at this task; then his health broke down, and feeling that he had done his part, from no personal motives of ambition, but rather at some cost to himself, for what he held to be national ends, he determined not to resume the work after the rest which was to restore him to health, and made his resignation definite.

Dr. Gladstone writes:--

On February 7 a letter of resignation was received from him, stating that he was] "reluctantly compelled, both on account of his health and his private affairs, to insist on giving up his seat at the Board."

[The Reverend Dr. Rigg, Canon Miller, Mr. Charles Reed, and Lord Lawrence expressed their deep regret. In the words of Dr. Rigg, "they were losing one of the most valuable members of the Board, not only because of his intellect and trained acuteness, but because of his knowledge of every subject connected with culture and education, and because of his great fairness and impartiality with regard to all subjects that came under his observation."

Though Huxley quitted the Board after only fourteen months' service, the memory of his words and acts combined to influence it long afterwards. In various ways he expressed his opinion on educational matters, publicly and privately. He frequently talked with me on the subject at the Athenaeum Club, and shortly after my election to the Board in 1873, I find it recorded in my diary that he insisted strongly on the necessity of our building infants' schools,--] "People may talk about intellectual teaching, but what we princ.i.p.ally want is the moral teaching."

As to the sub-committee on books and apparatus, it did little at first, but at the beginning of the second Board, 1873, it became better organised under the presidency of the Reverend Benjamin Waugh.

At the commencement of the next triennial term I became the chairman, and continued to be such for eighteen years. It was our duty to put into practice the scheme of instruction which Huxley was mainly instrumental in settling. We were thus able indirectly to improve both the means and methods of teaching. The subjects of instruction have all been retained in the Curriculum of the London School Board, except, perhaps, "mensuration" and "social economy." The most important developments and additions have been in the direction of educating the hand and eye. Kindergarten methods have been promoted.

Drawing, on which Huxley laid more stress than his colleagues generally did, has been enormously extended and greatly revolutionised in its methods. Object lessons and elementary science have been introduced everywhere, while shorthand, the use of tools for boys, cookery and domestic economy for girls are becoming essentials in our schools. Evening continuation schools have lately been widely extended. Thus the impulse given by Huxley in the first months of the Board's existence has been carried forward by others, and is now affecting the minds of the half million of boys and girls in the Board Schools of London, and indirectly the still greater number in other schools throughout the land.

I must further express my thanks to Bishop Barry for permission to make use of the following pa.s.sages from the notes contributed by him to Dr. Gladstone:--

I had the privilege of being a member of his committee for defining the curriculum of study, and here also--the religious question being disposed of--I was able to follow much the same line as his, and I remember being struck not only with his clear-headed ability, but with his strong commonsense, as to what was useful and practicable, and the utter absence in him of doctrinaire aspiration after ideal impossibilities. There was (I think) very little under his chairmans.h.i.+p of strongly-accentuated difference of opinion.

In his action on the Board generally I was struck with these three characteristics:--First, his remarkable power of speaking--I may say, of oratory--not only on his own scientific subjects, but on all the matters, many of which were of great practical interest and touched the deepest feelings, which came before the Board at that critical time. Had he chosen--and we heard at that time that he was considering whether he should choose--to enter political life, it would certainly have made him a great power, possibly a leader, in that sphere. Next, what constantly appears in his writings, even those of the most polemical kind--a singular candour in recognising truths which might seen to militate against his own position, and a power of understanding and respecting his adversaries' opinions, if only they were strongly and conscientiously held. I remember his saying on one occasion that in his earlier experience of sickness and suffering, he had found that the most effective helpers of the higher humanity were not the scientist or the philosopher, but] "the parson, and the sister, and the Bible woman." [Lastly, the strong commonsense, which enabled him to see what was] "within the range of practical politics,"

[and to choose for the cause which he had at heart the line of least resistance, and to check, sometimes to rebuke, intolerant obstinacy even on the side which he was himself inclined to favour. These qualities over and above his high intellectual ability made him, for the comparatively short time that he remained on the Board, one of its leading members.

No less vivid is the impression left, after many years, upon another member of the first School Board, the Reverend Benjamin Waugh, whose life-long work for the children is so well known. From his recollections, written for the use of Professor Gladstone, it is my privilege to quote the following paragraphs:--

I was drawn to him most, and was influenced by him most, because of his att.i.tude to a child. He was on the Board to establish schools for children. His motive in every argument, in all the fun and ridicule he indulged in, and in his occasional anger, was the child. He resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for churches or hands for factories. He was on the Board as a friend of children.

What he sought to do for the child was for the child's sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier life. If ever his great tolerance with men with whom he differed on general principles seemed to fail him for a moment, it was because they seemed to him to seek other ends than the child for its own sake...

His contempt for the idea of the world into which we were born being either a sort of clergyhouse or a market-place, was too complete to be marked by any eagerness. But in view of the market-place idea he was the less calm.

Like many others who had not yet come to know in what high esteem he held the moral and spiritual nature of children, I had thought he was the advocate of mere secular studies, alike in the nation's schools, and in its families. But by contact with him, this soon became an impossible idea. In very early days on the Board a remark I had made to a mutual friend which implied this unjust idea was repeated to him.] "Tell Waugh that he talks too fast," [was his message to me. I was not long in finding out that this was a very just reproof...

The two things in his character of which I became most conscious by contact with him, were his childlikeness and his consideration for intellectual inferiors. His arguments were as transparently honest as the arguments of a child. They might or might not seem wrong to others, but they were never untrue to himself. Whether you agreed with them or not, they always added greatly to the charm of his personality. Whether his face was lighted by his careless and playful humour or his great brows were shadowed by anger, he was alike expressing himself with the honesty of a child. What he counted iniquity he hated, and what he counted righteous he loved with the candour of a child...

Of his consideration for intellectual inferiors I, of course, needed a large share, and it was never wanting. Towering as was his intellectual strength and keenness above me, indeed above the whole of the rest of the members of the Board, he did not condescend to me. The result was never humiliating. It had no pain of any sort in it. He was too spontaneous and liberal with his consideration to seem conscious that he was showing any. There were many men of religious note upon the Board, of some of whom I could not say the same.

In his most trenchant attacks on what he deemed wrong in principles, he never descended to attack either the sects which held them or the individuals who supported them, even though occasionally much provocation was given him. He might not care for peace with some of the theories represented on the Board, but he had certainly and at all times great good-will to men.

As a speaker he was delightful. Few, clear, definite, and calm as stars were the words he spoke. n.o.body talked whilst he was speaking.

There were no tricks in his talk. He did not seem to be trying to persuade you of something. What convinced him, that he transferred to others. He made no attempt to misrepresent those opposed to him. He sought only to let them know himself...Even the sparkle of his humour, like the sparkle of a diamond, was of the inevitable in him, and was as fair as it was enjoyable.

As one who has tried to serve children, I look back upon having fallen in with Mr. Huxley as one of the many fortunate circ.u.mstances of my life. It taught me the importance of making acquaintance with facts, and of studying the laws of them. Under his influence it was that I most of all came to see the practical value of a single eye to those in any pursuit of life. I saw what effect they had on emotions of charity and sentiments of justice, and what simplicity and grandeur they gave to appeals.

My last conversation with him was at Eastbourne some time in 1887 or 1888. I was there on my society's business.] "Well, Waugh, you're still busy about your babies," [was his greeting. "Yes," I responded "and you are still busy about your pigs." One of the last discussions at which he was present at the School Board for London had been on the proximity of a piggery to a site for a school, and his attack on Mr.

Gladstone on the Gadarene swine had just been made in the "Nineteenth Century."] "Do you still believe in Gladstone?" [he continued.] "That man has the greatest intellect in Europe. He was born to be a leader of men, and he has debased himself to be a follower of the ma.s.ses. If working men were to-day to vote by a majority that two and two made five, to-morrow Gladstone would believe it, and find them reasons for it which they had never dreamed of." [He said it slowly and with sorrow.

Two more incidents are connected with his service on the School Board.

A wealthy friend wrote to him in the most honourable and delicate terms, begging him, on public grounds, to accept 400 pounds sterling a year to enable him to continue his work on the Board. He refused the offer as simply and straightforwardly as it was made; his means, though not large, were sufficient for his present needs.

Further, a good many people seemed to think that he meant to use the School Board as a stalking horse for a political career. To one of those who urged him to stand for Parliament, he replied thus:--]

November 18, 1871.

Dear Sir,

It has often been suggested to me that I should seek for a seat in the House of Commons; indeed I have reason to think that many persons suppose that I entered the London School Board simply as a road to Parliament.

But I a.s.sure you that this supposition is entirely without foundation, and that I have never seriously entertained any notion of the kind.

The work of the School Board involves me in no small sacrifices of various kinds, but I went into it with my eyes open, and with the clear conviction that it was worth while to make those sacrifices for the sake of helping the Education Act into practical operation. A year's experience has not altered that conviction; but now that the most difficult, if not the most important, part of our work is done, I begin to look forward with some anxiety to the time when I shall be relieved of duties which so seriously interfere with what I regard as my proper occupation.

No one can say what the future has in store for him, but at present I know of no inducement, not even the offer of a seat in the House of Commons, which would lead me, even temporarily and partially, to forsake that work again.

I am, dear sir, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[I give here a letter to me from Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, who also at one period was anxious to induce him to enter Parliament:--

Lexden Park, Colchester, 4th November, 1898.

Dear Mr. Huxley,

I have met men who seemed to me to possess powers of mind even greater than those of your father--his friend Henry Smith for example; but I never met any one who gave me the impression so much as he did, that he would have gone to the front in any pursuit in which he had seen fit to engage. Henry Smith had, in addition to his astonis.h.i.+ng mathematical genius, and his great talents as a scholar, a rare faculty of persuasiveness. Your father used to speak with much admiration and some amus.e.m.e.nt of the way in which he managed to get people to take his view by appearing to take theirs; but he never could have been a power in a popular a.s.sembly, nor have carried with him by the force of his eloquence, great ma.s.ses of men. I do not think that your father, if he had entered the House of Commons and thrown himself entirely into political life, would have been much behind Gladstone as a debater, or Bright as an orator. Whether he had the stamina which are required not only to reach but to retain a foremost place in politics, is another question. The admirers of Prince Bismarck would say that the daily prayer of the statesman should be there "une bonne digestion et un mauvais coeur." "Le mauvais coeur"

does not appear to be "de toute necessite," but, a.s.suredly, the "bonne digestion" is. Given an adequate and equal amount of ability in two men who enter the House of Commons together, it is the man of strong digestion, drawing with it, as it usually does, good temper and power of continuous application, who will go furthest. Gladstone, who was inferior to your father in intellect, might have "given points" to the Dragon of Wantley who devoured church steeples. Your father could certainly not have done so, and in that respect was less well equipped for a lifelong parliamentary struggle.

I should like to have seen these two pitted against each other with that "substantial piece of furniture" between them behind which Mr.

Disraeli was glad to shelter himself. I should like to have heard them discussing some subject which they both thoroughly understood. When they did cross swords the contest was like nothing that has happened in our times save the struggle at Omdurman. It was not so much a battle as a ma.s.sacre, for Gladstone had nothing but a bundle of antiquated prejudices wherewith to encounter your father's luminous thought and exact knowledge.

You know, I daresay, that Mr. William Rathbone, then M.P. for Liverpool, once proposed to your father to be the companion of my first Indian journey in 1874-5, he, William Rathbone, paying all your father's expenses. (Of this, Dr. Tyndall wrote to Mrs. Huxley:--"I want to tell you a pleasant conversation I had last night with Jodrell. He and a couple more want to send Hal with Grant Duff to India, taking charge of his duties here and of all necessities ghostly and bodily there!") Mr. Rathbone made this proposal when he found that Lubbock, with whom I travelled a great deal at that period of my life, was unable to go with me to India. How I wish your father had said "Yes." My journey, as it was, turned out most instructive and delightful; but to have lived five months with a man of his extraordinary gifts would have been indeed a rare piece of good fortune, and I should have been able also to have contributed to the work upon which you are engaged a great many facts which would have been of interest to your readers. You will, however, I am sure, take the will for the deed, and believe me, very sincerely yours,