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Page 19
I enclose a prospectus of some People's Lectures (_Popular_
Lectures I hold to be an abomination unto the Lord) I am about
to give here. I want the working classes to understand that
Science and her ways are great facts for them--that physical
virtue is the base of all other, and that they are to be clean
and temperate and all the rest, not because fellows in black
with white ties tell them so, but because these are plain and
patent laws of nature which they must obey "under penalties."
I am sick of the _dilettante_ middle class, and mean to try
what I can do with these hard-handed fellows who live among
facts.
And in May, after referring to his Preliminary Course and the
earnestness and attention of his audience, he adds that he has begun
his similar course to working men exclusively--a series of six, given
in turn by each Professor:--
The theatre holds 600, and is crammed full. I believe in the
fustian, and can talk better to it than to any amount of gauze
and Saxony; and to a fustian audience (but to that only) I
would willingly give some when I come to Tenby [Dr. Dyster's
home].
Moreover, he took a practical interest in the corresponding movement
set afoot by F.D. Maurice, and gave occasional addresses at the
Working Men's College between 1857 and 1877, the last of which was
that delightful discourse on science as "trained and organized common
sense" which bears the alluring title of "The Method of Zadig."
IX
POPULAR EDUCATION
These lectures to working men, no less than his profound interest and
exhausting work on behalf of popular education, illustrate his intense
belief that science is not solely a thing of the laboratory, but a
vital factor in right living. It was still true that the people perish
for want of knowledge. And as he said when talking of posthumous fame:
"If I am to be remembered at all, I should like to be remembered as
one who did his best to help the people."
Nor did he lack appreciation among those whom he tried thus to aid.
Professor Mivart tells the following story:--
I recollect going [in 1874] with him and Mr. John Westlake,
Q.C., to a meeting of artisans in the Blackfriars Road, to
whom he gave a friendly address. He felt a strong interest in
working men, and was much beloved by them. On one occasion,
having taken a cab home, on his arrival there, when he held
out his fare to the cabman, the latter replied: "Oh no,
Professor; I have had too much pleasure and profit from
hearing you lecture to take any money from your pocket; proud
to have driven you, Sir!"
Another story is told by Mr. Raymond Blaythwayt:--
Only to-day I had a most striking instance of sentiment come
beneath my notice. I was about to enter my house, when a
plain, simply dressed working man came up to me with a note in
his hand, and, touching his hat, he said: "I think this is for
you, Sir"; and then he added: "Will you give me the envelope,
Sir, as a great favour?" I looked at it, and, seeing it bore
the signature of Professor Huxley, I replied: "Certainly I
will; but why do you ask for it?" "Well," said he; "it's got
Professor Huxley's signature, and it will be something for me
to show my mates and keep for my children. He has done me and
my like a lot of good; no man more."
In these special lectures of his very best and in his other essays,
which, however far-reaching, were always intelligible to plain
readers, may be seen one side of his desire to spread clear thinking
among the less instructed masses; another was his work on the first
School Board. By 1870 his health was already shaken by the heavy work
which filled his days and nights; nevertheless, whatever the cost in
time and labour and health, he felt it imperative to try, with all his
power, to give rational shape to the new lines of universal education,
and to revivify it with the fresh breath of the new renascence in
aim and method. Science must be represented in the new Parliament
of Education, and there was no one else ready to undertake the part.
Moreover, he had already enjoyed some practical experience of the
workings of elementary education while examiner under the Science and
Art Department, the establishment of which he considered
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