To use the only forcible expression, I "twig" your meaning perfectly, but I venture to think the parable does not apply. For the Geological Society is not, to my mind, a place of education for students, but a place of discussion for adepts; and the more it is applied to the former purpose the less competent it must become to fulfil the latter—its primary and most important object.
I am far from wishing to place any obstacle in the way of the intellectual advancement and development of women. On the contrary, I don't see how we are to make any permanent advancement while one-half of the race is sunk, as nine-tenths of women are, in mere ignorant parsonese superstitions; and to show you that my ideas are practical I have fully made up my mind, if I can carry out my own plans, to give my daughters the same training in physical science as their brother will get, so long as he is a boy. They, at any rate, shall not be got up as man-traps for the matrimonial market. If other people would do the like the next generation would see women fit to be the companions of men in all their pursuits—though I don't think that men have anything to fear from their competition. But you know as well as I do that other people won't do the like, and five-sixths of women will stop in the doll stage of evolution to be the stronghold of parsondom, the drag on civilisation, the degradation of every important pursuit with which they mix themselves—"intrigues" in politics, and "friponnes" in science.
If my claws and beak are good for anything they shall be kept from hindering the progress of any science I have to do with.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
[Three letters to Mr. Spencer show that he had been reading and criticising the proofs of the "First Principles." With regard to the second letter, which gives reasons for rejecting Mr. Spencer's remarks about the power of inflation in birds during flight, it is curious to note Mr. Spencer's reply:—
How oddly the antagonism comes out even when you are not conscious of it! My authority was Owen! I heard him assign this cause for the falling of wounded birds in one of his lectures at the College of Surgeons.]
14 Waverley Place, September 3, 1860.
My dear Spencer,
I return your proofs by this post. To my mind nothing can be better than their contents, whether in matter or in manner, and as my wife arrived, independently, at the same opinion, I think my judgment is not one-sided.