[The corresponding movement set going by F.D. Maurice also claimed his
interest, and in 1857 he gave his first address at the Working Men's
College to an audience, as he notes, of some fifty persons, including
Maurice himself.
Other work of importance was connected with the Royal Institution. He had been elected to deliver the triennial course as Fullerian Professor, and for his subject in 1856-57 chose Physiology and Comparative Anatomy; in 1858, the Principles of Biology.
He was extremely glad of the additional "grist to the mill" brought in by these lectures. As he wrote in 1890:—]
I have good reason to know what difference a hundred a year makes when your income is not more than four or five times that. I remember when I was candidate for the Fullerian professorship some twenty-three years ago, a friend of mine asked a wealthy manager to support me. He promised, but asked the value of the appointment, and when told, said, "Well, but what's the use of a hundred a year to him?" I suppose he paid his butler that.
[A further attempt to organise scientific work throughout the country and make its results generally known, dates from this time. Huxley, Hooker, and Tyndall had discussed, early in 1858, the possibility of starting a "Scientific Review," which should do for science what the "Quarterly" or the "Westminster" did for literature. The scheme was found not to be feasible at the time, though it was revived in another form in 1860; so in the meanwhile it was arranged that science should be laid before the public every fortnight, through the medium of a scientific column in the "Saturday Review." The following letter bears on this proposal:—]
April 20, 1858.
My dear Hooker,
Before the dawn of the proposal for the ever-memorable though not-to-be "Scientific Review," there had been some talk of one or two of us working the public up for science through the "Saturday Review." Maskelyne (you know him, I suppose) was the suggester of the scheme, and undertook to talk to the "Saturday" people about it.
I think the whole affair had dropped through, but yesterday Maskelyne came to me and to Ramsay with definite propositions from the "Saturday" editor.
He undertakes to put in a scientific article in the intermediate part between Leaders and Reviews once a fortnight if we will supply him. He is not to mutilate or to alter, but to take what he gets and be thankful.