Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/357

Rh of the great and fundamental truths of nature and the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness and to respect others as himself."

He was also strongly of opinion that colleges should be places of research as well as of teaching.

"The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge; its professors have to be at the top of the wave of progress. Research and criticism must be the breath of their nostrils; laboratory work the main business of the scientific student; books his main helpers."

Education has been advocated for many good reasons: by statesmen because all have votes, by Chambers of Commerce because ignorance makes bad workmen, by the clergy because it makes bad men, and all these are excellent reasons; but they may all be summed up in Huxley's words that "the masses should be educated because they are men and women with unlimited capacities of being, doing and suffering, and that it is as true now as ever it was that the people perish for lack of knowledge."

Huxley once complained to Tyndall, in joke, that the clergy seemed to let him say anything he liked, 'while they attack me for a word or a phrase.' But it was not always so.

Tyndall and I went, in the spring of 1874, to Naples to see an eruption of Vesuvius. At one side the edge of the crater shelved very gradually to the abyss, and, being anxious to obtain the best possible view, I went a little over the ridge. In the autumn Tyndall delivered his celebrated address to the British Association at Belfast. This was much admired, much read, but also much criticised, and one of the papers had an article on Huxley and Tyndall, praising Huxley very much at Tyndall's expense, and ending with this delightful little bit of bathos: "In conclusion, we do not know that we can better illustrate Professor Tyndall's foolish recklessness, and the wise, practical character of Professor Huxley, than by mentioning the simple fact that last spring, at the very moment when Professor Tyndall foolishly entered the crater of "Vesuvius during an eruption, Professor Huxley, on the contrary, took a seat on the London School Board."

Tyndall, however, returned from Naples with fresh life and health, while the strain of the School Board told considerably on Huxley's health.

Huxley's attitude on the School Board with reference to Bible teaching came as a surprise to those who did not know him well. He supported Mr. W. H. Smith's motion in its favor, which, indeed, was voted