Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1

by Thomas Henry Huxley

I dined with the company, and bore my share in both pudding and praise, but the charm of success lay in Lizzie's warm congratulation and sympathy. Since then she always took upon herself to prophesy touching the future fortunes of "the boy."

[The haphazard, unsystematic nature of preliminary medical study here presented cannot fail to strike one with wonder. Thomas Huxley was now seventeen; he had already had two years' "practice in pharmacy" as a testimonial put it. After a similar apprenticeship, his brother had made the acquaintance of the director of the Gloucester Lunatic Asylum, and was given by him the post of dispenser or "apothecary," which he filled so satisfactorily as to receive a promise that if he went to London for a couple of years to complete his medical training, a substitute should be appointed meanwhile to keep the place until he returned.

The opportunity to which both the brothers looked came in the shape of the Free Scholarships offered by the Charing Cross Hospital to students whose parents were unable to pay for their education. Testimonials as to the position and general education of the candidates were required, and it is curious that one of the persons applied to by the elder Huxley was J.H. Newman, at that time Vicar of Littlemore, who had been educated at Dr. Nicholas' School at Ealing.

The application for admission to the lectures and other teaching at the Hospital states of the young T.H. Huxley that "He has a fair knowledge of Latin, reads French with facility, and knows something of German. He has also made considerable progress in the Mathematics, having, as far as he has advanced, a thorough not a superficial knowledge of the subject." The document ends in the following confident words:—

I appeal to the certificates and testimonials that will be herewith submitted for evidence of their past conduct, offering prospectively that these young men, if elected to the Free Scholarships of the Charing Cross Hospital and Medical College, will be diligent students, and in all things submit themselves to the controul and guidance of the Director and Medical Officers of the establishment. A father may be pardoned, perhaps, for adding his belief that these young men will hereafter reflect credit on any institution from which they may receive their education.

The authorities replied that "although it is not usual to receive two members of the same family at the same time, the officers taking into consideration the age of Mr. Huxley, sen., the numerous and satisfactory testimonials of his respectability, and of the good conduct and merits of the candidates, have decided upon admitting Mr. J.E. and Mr. T. Huxley on this occasion."

The brothers began their hospital course on October 1, 1842. Here, after a time, my father seems to have begun working more steadily and systematically than he had done before, under the influence of a really good teacher.]

Looking back [he says] on my "Lehrjahre," I am sorry to say that I do not think that any account of my doings as a student would tend to edification. In fact, I should distinctly warn ingenuous youth to avoid imitating my example. I worked extremely hard when it pleased me, and when it did not, which was a very frequent case, I was extremely idle (unless making caricatures of one's pastors and masters is to be called a branch of industry), or else wasted my energies in wrong directions. I read everything I could lay hands upon, including novels, and took up all sorts of pursuits to drop them again quite as speedily. No doubt it was very largely my own fault, but the only instruction from which I obtained the proper effect of education was that which I received from Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on physiology at the Charing Cross School of Medicine. The extent and precision of his knowledge impressed me greatly, and the severe exactness of his method of lecturing was quite to my taste. I do not know that I have ever felt so much respect for anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked hard to obtain his approbation, and he was extremely kind and helpful to the youngster who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had any right to do. It was he who suggested the publication of my first scientific paper—a very little one—in the "Medical Gazette" of 1845, and most kindly corrected the literary faults which abounded in it, short as it was; for at that time, and for many years afterwards, I detested the trouble of writing, and would take no pains with it.

[He never forgot his debt to Wharton Jones, and years afterwards was delighted at being able to do him a good turn, by helping to obtain a pension for him. But although in retrospect he condemns the fitfulness of his energies and his want of system, which left much to be learned afterwards, which might with advantage have been learned then, still it was his energy that struck his contemporaries. I have a story from one of them that when the other students used to go out into the court of the hospital after lectures were over, they would invariably catch sight of young Huxley's dark head at a certain window bent over a microscope while they amused themselves outside. The constant silhouette framed in the outlines of the window tickled the fancy of the young fellows, and a wag amongst them dubbed it with a name that stuck, "The Sign of the Head and Microscope."

The scientific paper, too, which he mentions, was somewhat remarkable under the circumstances. It is not given to every medical student to make an anatomical discovery, even a small one. In this case the boy of nineteen, investigating things for himself, found a hitherto undiscovered membrane in the root of the human hair, which received the name of Huxley's layer.