Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2

by Thomas Henry Huxley

CHAPTER 2.9.

1877.

[In this year he delivered lectures and addresses on the "Geological History of Birds," at the Zoological Society's Gardens, June 7; on "Starfishes and their Allies," at the Royal Institution, March 7; at the London Institution, December 17, on "Belemnites" (a subject on which he had written in 1864, and which was doubtless suggested anew by his autumn holiday at Whitby, where the Lias cliffs are full of these fossils); at the Anthropological Conference, May 22, on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology" ("Collected Essays" 3 294), with special reference to the recent legislation as to experiments on living animals; and on "Technical Education" to the Working Men's Club and Institute, December 1 ("Collected Essays" 3 404): a perilous subject, indeed, considering, as he remarks, that] "any candid observer of the phenomena of modern society will readily admit that bores must be classed among the enemies of the human race; and a little consideration will probably lead him to the further admission, that no species of that extensive genus of noxious creatures is more objectionable than the educational bore…In the course of the last ten years, to go back no farther, I am afraid to say how often I have ventured to speak of education; indeed, the only part of this wide region into which, as yet, I have not adventured, is that into which I propose to intrude to-day."

[The choice of subject for this address was connected with a larger campaign for the establishment of technical education on a proper footing, which began with his work on the School Board, and was this year brought prominently before the public by another address delivered at the Society of Arts. The Clothworkers Company had already been assisting the Society of Arts in their efforts for the spread of technical education; and in July 1877 a special committee of the Guilds applied to him, amongst half a dozen others, to furnish them with a report as to the objects and methods of a scheme of technical education. This paper fills sixteen pages in the Report of the Livery Companies' Committee for 1878. The fundamental principles on which he bases his practical recommendations are contained in the following paragraph:—]

It appears to me that if every person who is engaged in an industry had access to instruction in the scientific principles on which that industry is based; in the mode of applying these principles to practice; in the actual use of the means and appliances employed; in the language of the people who know as much about the matter as we do ourselves; and lastly, in the art of keeping accounts, Technical Education would have done all that can be required of it.

[And his suggestions about buildings was at once adopted by the Committee, namely, that they should be erected at a future date, regard being had primarily rather to what is wanted in the inside than what will look well from the outside.

Now the Guilds formed a very proper body to set such a scheme on foot, because only such wealthy and influential members of the first mercantile city in the world could afford to let themselves be despised and jeered at for professing to teach English manufacturers and English merchants that they needed to be taught; and to spend 25,000 pounds a year towards that end for some time without apparent result.

That they eventually succeeded, is due no little to the careful plans drawn out by Huxley. He may be described as "really the engineer of the City and Guilds Institute; for without his advice," declared one of the leading members, "we should not have known what to have done."

At the same time he warned them against indiscriminate zeal;] "though under-instruction is a bad thing, it is not impossible that over-instruction may be worse." [The aim of the Livery Companies should specially be to aid the PRACTICAL teaching of science, so that at bottom the question turns mainly on the supply of teachers.

On December 11, 1879, he found a further opportunity of urging the cause of Technical Education. A lecture on Apprenticeships was delivered before the Society of Arts by Professor Silvanus Thompson. Speaking after the lecturer (see report in "Nature" 1879 page 139) he discussed the necessity of supplying the place of the old apprenticeships by educating children in the principles of their particular crafts, beyond the time when they were forced to enter the workshops. This could be done by establishing schools in each centre of industry, connected with a central institution, such as was to be found in Paris or Zurich. As for complaints of deficient teaching of handicrafts in the Board Schools, it was more important for them to make intelligent men than skilled workmen, as again was indicated in the French system.