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
a measure which came into existence unnoticed, but which will, I believe, turn out to be of more importance to the welfare of the people than many political changes over which the noise of battle has rent the air.
On the proper working of the new Act depended the physical, moral, and intellectual betterment of the nation; in particular, "book-learning" needed to be tempered with not merely handcraft, but with something of the direct knowledge of nature; for in itself, if properly applied, this is an admirable instrument of education, and by its method promotes an attitude of mind capable of understanding the reasons for the vast changes at work in human thought.
Accordingly, he stood as a candidate for Marylebone, and, without canvassing, for which he had neither time nor inclination, he was elected second on the list. He had addressed several meetings, and, as an amplification of his election address, he included extracts from his forthcoming article, "The School Boards: What They Can Do, and What They May Do," which were sent to the papers by the editor of the Contemporary Review. (See Coll. Ess., iii, 374.) Here was his programme, a great part of which he saw carried out:—Physical training, for health and as a basis for further training; Domestic training, especially for girls; Moral training, in a knowledge of moral and social laws, and an engaging of the affections for what is good instead of what is evil; Intellectual training, in knowledge and the means of acquiring knowledge, alike for practical purposes and for recreation.
The opponents of popular education raised their still familiar outcry about "cramming children full of nonsense" and "unfitting them for the state of life to which they were called." But one cannot say what state of life they may be called to without opportunity of testing their capacities, and as for cramming them with nonsense, such a scheme, if properly carried out, ought rather to expel nonsense. Above all, it set the interests of humanity above the mere development of skill, which would simply turn the child of man into the subtlest beast of the field.