It is hardly necessary to point out that the question was not between the compulsory inclusion or exclusion of poor children, but between their admission at the cost of the Board to schools under the Board's own control or outside it. In any case the children of Roman Catholics were not likely to get their own doctrines taught in Board Schools, and without this they declared they would rather go without education at all.
Early in 1872 Huxley retired. For a year he had continued at this task; then his health broke down, and feeling that he had done his part, from no personal motives of ambition, but rather at some cost to himself, for what he held to be national ends, he determined not to resume the work after the rest which was to restore him to health, and made his resignation definite.
Dr. Gladstone writes:—
On February 7 a letter of resignation was received from him, stating that he was] "reluctantly compelled, both on account of his health and his private affairs, to insist on giving up his seat at the Board." [The Reverend Dr. Rigg, Canon Miller, Mr. Charles Reed, and Lord Lawrence expressed their deep regret. In the words of Dr. Rigg, "they were losing one of the most valuable members of the Board, not only because of his intellect and trained acuteness, but because of his knowledge of every subject connected with culture and education, and because of his great fairness and impartiality with regard to all subjects that came under his observation."
Though Huxley quitted the Board after only fourteen months' service, the memory of his words and acts combined to influence it long afterwards. In various ways he expressed his opinion on educational matters, publicly and privately. He frequently talked with me on the subject at the Athenaeum Club, and shortly after my election to the Board in 1873, I find it recorded in my diary that he insisted strongly on the necessity of our building infants' schools,—] "People may talk about intellectual teaching, but what we principally want is the moral teaching."
As to the sub-committee on books and apparatus, it did little at first, but at the beginning of the second Board, 1873, it became better organised under the presidency of the Reverend Benjamin Waugh. At the commencement of the next triennial term I became the chairman, and continued to be such for eighteen years. It was our duty to put into practice the scheme of instruction which Huxley was mainly instrumental in settling. We were thus able indirectly to improve both the means and methods of teaching. The subjects of instruction have all been retained in the Curriculum of the London School Board, except, perhaps, "mensuration" and "social economy." The most important developments and additions have been in the direction of educating the hand and eye. Kindergarten methods have been promoted. Drawing, on which Huxley laid more stress than his colleagues generally did, has been enormously extended and greatly revolutionised in its methods. Object lessons and elementary science have been introduced everywhere, while shorthand, the use of tools for boys, cookery and domestic economy for girls are becoming essentials in our schools. Evening continuation schools have lately been widely extended. Thus the impulse given by Huxley in the first months of the Board's existence has been carried forward by others, and is now affecting the minds of the half million of boys and girls in the Board Schools of London, and indirectly the still greater number in other schools throughout the land.
I must further express my thanks to Bishop Barry for permission to make use of the following passages from the notes contributed by him to Dr. Gladstone:—
I had the privilege of being a member of his committee for defining the curriculum of study, and here also—the religious question being disposed of—I was able to follow much the same line as his, and I remember being struck not only with his clear-headed ability, but with his strong commonsense, as to what was useful and practicable, and the utter absence in him of doctrinaire aspiration after ideal impossibilities. There was (I think) very little under his chairmanship of strongly-accentuated difference of opinion.
In his action on the Board generally I was struck with these three characteristics:—First, his remarkable power of speaking—I may say, of oratory—not only on his own scientific subjects, but on all the matters, many of which were of great practical interest and touched the deepest feelings, which came before the Board at that critical time. Had he chosen—and we heard at that time that he was considering whether he should choose—to enter political life, it would certainly have made him a great power, possibly a leader, in that sphere. Next, what constantly appears in his writings, even those of the most polemical kind—a singular candour in recognising truths which might seen to militate against his own position, and a power of understanding and respecting his adversaries' opinions, if only they were strongly and conscientiously held. I remember his saying on one occasion that in his earlier experience of sickness and suffering, he had found that the most effective helpers of the higher humanity were not the scientist or the philosopher, but] "the parson, and the sister, and the Bible woman." [Lastly, the strong commonsense, which enabled him to see what was] "within the range of practical politics," [and to choose for the cause which he had at heart the line of least resistance, and to check, sometimes to rebuke, intolerant obstinacy even on the side which he was himself inclined to favour. These qualities over and above his high intellectual ability made him, for the comparatively short time that he remained on the Board, one of its leading members.
No less vivid is the impression left, after many years, upon another member of the first School Board, the Reverend Benjamin Waugh, whose life-long work for the children is so well known. From his recollections, written for the use of Professor Gladstone, it is my privilege to quote the following paragraphs:—