Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3

by Thomas Henry Huxley

On January 27, a letter from him appeared in the "Times," guarding against a wrong interpretation of his speech, in the general uncertainty as to the intentions of the proposers of the scheme.]

I had no intention [he writes] of expressing any enthusiasm on behalf of the establishment of a vast permanent bazaar. I am not competent to estimate the real utility of these great shows. What I do see very clearly is that they involve difficulties of site, huge working expenses, the potentiality of endless squabbles, and apparently the cheapening of knighthood.

[As for the site proposed at South Kensington,] "the arguments used in its favour in the report would be conclusive if the dry light of reason were the sole guide of human action." [But it would alienate other powerful and wealthy bodies, which were interested in the Central Institute of the City and Guilds Technical Institute,] "which looks so portly outside and is so very much starved inside."

[He wrote again to the "Times" on March 21:—]

The Central Institute is undoubtedly a splendid monument of the munificence of the city. But munificence without method may arrive at results indistinguishably similar to those of stinginess. I have been blamed for saying that the Central Institute is "starved." Yet a man who has only half as much food as he needs is indubitably starved, even though his short rations consist of ortolans and are served upon gold plate.

[Only half the plan of operations as drawn up by the Committee was, or could be, carried out on existing funds.

The later part of his letter was printed by the Committee as defining the functions of the new Institute:—]

That with which I did intend to express my strong sympathy was the intention which I thought I discerned to establish something which should play the same part in regard to the advancement of industrial knowledge which has been played in regard to science and learning in general, in these realms, by the Royal Society and the Universities…I pictured the Imperial Institute to myself as a house of call for all those who are concerned in the advancement of industry; as a place in which the home-keeping industrial could find out all he wants to know about colonial industry and the colonist about home industry; as a sort of neutral ground on which the capitalist and the artisan would be equally welcome; as a centre of intercommunication in which they might enter into friendly discussion of the problems at issue between them, and, perchance, arrive at a friendly solution of them. I imagined it a place in which the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made accessible to the public; in which the higher questions of commerce and industry would be systematically studied and elucidated; and where, as in an industrial university, the whole technical education of the country might find its centre and crown. If I earnestly desire to see such an institution created, it is not because I think that or anything else will put an end to pauperism and want—as somebody has absurdly suggested,—but because I believe it will supply a foundation for that scientific organisation of our industries which the changed conditions of the times render indispensable to their prosperity. I do not think I am far wrong in assuming that we are entering, indeed, have already entered, upon the most serious struggle for existence to which this country has ever been committed. The latter years of the century promise to see us embarked in an industrial war of far more serious import than the military wars of its opening years. On the east, the most systematically instructed and best-informed people in Europe are our competitors; on the west, an energetic offshoot of our own stock, grown bigger than its parent, enters upon the struggle possessed of natural resources to which we can make no pretension, and with every prospect of soon possessing that cheap labour by which they may be effectually utilised. Many circumstances tend to justify the hope that we may hold our own if we are careful to "organise victory." But to those who reflect seriously on the prospects of the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire—should the time ever arrive when the goods which are produced by their labour and their skill are to be had cheaper elsewhere—to those who remember the cotton famine and reflect how much worse a customer famine would be, the situation appears very grave.

[On February 19 and 22, he wrote again to the "Times" declaring against the South Kensington site. It was too far from the heart of commercial organisation in the city, and the city people were preparing to found a similar institution of their own. He therefore wished to prevent the Imperial Institute from becoming a weak and unworthy memorial of the reign.

A final letter to the "Times" on March 21, was evoked by the fact that Lord Hartington, in giving away the prizes at the Polytechnic Y.M.C.A., had adopted Huxley's position as defined in his speech, and declared that science ought to be aided on precisely the same grounds on which we aid the army and navy.