Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3

by Thomas Henry Huxley

As Professor (writes the late Professor Jeffery Parker), Huxley's rule was characterised by what is undoubtedly the best policy for the head of a department. To a new subordinate, "The General," as he was always called, was rather stern and exacting, but when once he was convinced that his man was to be trusted, he practically let him take his own course; never interfered in matters of detail, accepted suggestions with the greatest courtesy and good humour, and was always ready with a kindly and humorous word of encouragement in times of difficulty. I was once grumbling to him about how hard it was to carry on the work of the laboratory through a long series of November fogs, "when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared.">[ "Never mind, Parker," [he said, instantly capping my quotation], "cast four anchors out of the stern and wish for day."

[Nothing, indeed, better illustrates this willingness to listen to suggested improvements than the inversion of the order of studies in the biological course which he inaugurated in 1872, namely, the substitution of the anatomy of a vertebrate for the microscopic examination of a unicellular organism as the opening study. This was entirely Parker's doing. "As one privileged at the time to play a minor part," writes Professor Howes ("Nature" January 6, 1898 page 228), "I well recall the determination in Parker's mind that the change was desirable, and in Huxley's, that it was not. Again and again did Parker appeal in vain, until at last, on the morning of October 2, 1878, he triumphed."

On his students he made a deep and lasting impression.

His lectures (writes Jeffery Parker) were like his writings, luminously clear, without the faintest disposition to descend to the level of his audience; eloquent, but with no trace of the empty rhetoric which so often does duty for that quality; full of a high seriousness, but with no suspicion of pedantry; lightened by an occasional epigram or flashes of caustic humour, but with none of the small jocularity in which it is such a temptation to a lecturer to indulge. As one listened to him one felt that comparative anatomy was indeed worthy of the devotion of a life, and that to solve a morphological problem was as fine a thing as to win a battle. He was an admirable draughtsman, and his blackboard illustrations were always a great feature of his lectures, especially when, to show the relation of two animal types, he would, by a few rapid strokes and smudges, evolve the one into the other before our eyes. He seemed to have a real affection for some of the specimens illustrating his lectures, and would handle them in a peculiarly loving manner; when he was lecturing on man, for instance, he would sometimes throw his arm over the shoulder of the skeleton beside him and take its hand, as if its silent companionship were an inspiration. To me his lectures before his small class at Jermyn Street or South Kensington were almost more impressive than the discourses at the Royal Institution, where for an hour and a half he poured forth a stream of dignified, earnest, sincere words in perfect literary form, and without the assistance of a note.

Another description is from the pen of an old pupil in the autumn of 1876, Professor H. Fairfield Osborn, of Columbia College:—

Huxley, as a teacher, can never be forgotten by any of his students. He entered the lecture-room promptly as the clock was striking nine (In most years the lectures began at ten.), rather quickly, and with his head bent forward "as if oppressive with its mind." He usually glanced attention to his class of about ninety, and began speaking before he reached his chair. He spoke between his lips, but with perfectly clear analysis, with thorough interest, and with philosophic insight which was far above the average of his students. He used very few charts, but handled the chalk with great skill, sketching out the anatomy of an animal as if it were a transparent object. As in Darwin's face, and as in Erasmus Darwin's or Buffon's, and many other anatomists with a strong sense of form, his eyes were heavily overhung by a projecting forehead and eyebrows, and seemed at times to look inward. His lips were firm and closely set, with the expression of positiveness, and the other feature which most marked him was the very heavy mass of hair falling over his forehead, which he would frequently stroke or toss back. Occasionally he would light up the monotony of anatomical description by a bit of humour.

Huxley was the father of modern laboratory instruction; but in 1879 he was so intensely engrossed with his own researches that he very seldom came through the laboratory, which was ably directed by T. Jeffery Parker, assisted by Howes and W. Newton Parker, all of whom are now professors, Howes having succeeded to Huxley's chair. Each visit, therefore, inspired a certain amount of terror, which was really unwarranted, for Huxley always spoke in the kindest tones to his students, although sometimes he could not resist making fun at their expense. There was an Irish student who sat in front of me, whose anatomical drawings in water-colour were certainly most remarkable productions. Huxley, in turning over his drawing-book, paused at a large blur, under which was carefully inscribed, "sheep's liver," and smilingly said], "I am glad to know that is a liver; it reminds me as much of Cologne cathedral in a fog as of anything I have ever seen before." [Fortunately the nationality of the student enabled him to fully appreciate the humour.

The same note is sounded in Professor Mivart's description of these lectures in his Reminiscences:—

The great value of Huxley's anatomical ideas, and the admirable clearness with which he explained them, led me in the autumn of 1861 to seek admission as a student to his course of lectures at the School of Mines in Jermyn Street. When I entered his small room there to make this request, he was giving the finishing touches to a dissection of part of the nervous system of a skate, worked out for the benefit of his students. He welcomed my application with the greatest cordiality, save that he insisted I should be only an honorary student, or rather, should assist at his lectures as a friend. I availed myself of his permission on the very next day, and subsequently attended almost all his lectures there and elsewhere, so that he one day said to me, "I shall call you my 'constant reader.'" To be such a reader was to me an inestimable privilege, and so I shall ever consider it. I have heard many men lecture, but I never heard any one lecture as did Professor Huxley. He was my very ideal of a lecturer. Distinct in utterance, with an agreeable voice, lucid as it was possible to be in exposition, with admirably chosen language, sufficiently rapid, yet never hurried, often impressive in manner, yet never otherwise than completely natural, and sometimes allowing his audience a glimpse of that rich fund of humour ever ready to well forth when occasion permitted, sometimes accompanied with an extra gleam in his bright dark eyes, sometimes expressed with a dryness and gravity of look which gave it a double zest.

I shall never forget the first time I saw him enter his lecture-room. He came in rapidly, yet without bustle, and as the clock struck, a brief glance at his audience and then at once to work. He had the excellent habit of beginning each lecture (save, of course, the first) with a recapitulation of the main points of the preceding one. The course was amply illustrated by excellent coloured diagrams, which, I believe, he had made; but still more valuable were the chalk sketches he would draw on the blackboard with admirable facility, while he was talking, his rapid, dexterous strokes quickly building up an organism in our minds, simultaneously through ear and eye. The lecture over, he was ever ready to answer questions, and I often admired his patience in explaining points which there was no excuse for any one not having understood.