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.

In this letter he asks, how do we stand prepared for the task thus imperatively set us? We have the machinery for providing instruction and information, and for catching capable men, but both in a disjointed condition]--"all mere torsos--fine, but fragmentary." "The ladder from the School Board to the Universities, about which I dreamed dreams many years ago, has not yet acquired much more substantiality than the ladder of Jacob's vision," [but the Science and Art Department, the Normal School of Science, and the Central Institute only want the means to carry out the recommendations already made by impartial and independent authority.] "Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely."

[He concluded with an appeal to Lord Hartington to take up this task of organising industrial education and bring it to a happy issue.

A proposal was also made to the Royal Society to co-operate, and Sir M. Foster writes on February 19: "We have appointed a Committee to consider and draw up a draft reply with a view of the Royal Society following up your letter."

To this Huxley replied on the 22nd:--]

...My opinion is that the Royal Society has no right to spend its money or pledge its credit for any but scientific objects, and that we have nothing to do with sending round the hat for other purposes.

The project of the Institute Committee as it stands connected with the South Kensington site--is condemned by all the city people and will receive none but the most grudging support from them. They are going to set up what will be practically an Institute of their own in the city.

The thing is already a failure. I daresay it will go on and be varnished into a simulacrum of success--to become eventually a ghost like the Albert Hall or revive as a tea garden.

[The following letter also touches upon the function of the Institute from the commercial side:--]

4 Marlborough Place, February 20, 1887.

My dear Donnelly,

Mr. Law's suggestion gives admirable definition to the notions that were floating in my mind when I wrote in my letter to the "Times", that I imagined the Institute would be a "place in which the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made accessible to the public." A man of business who wants to know anything about the prospects of trade with, say, Boorioboola-Gha (vide Bleak House) ought to be able to look into the Institute and find there somebody who will at once fish out for him among the documents in the place all that is known about Boorioboola.

But a Commercial Intelligence Department is not all that is wanted, vide valuable letter aforesaid.

I hope your appetite for the breakfast was none the worse for last night's doings--mine was rather improved, but I am dog-tired.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

I return Miss --'s note. she evidently thinks my cage is labelled "These animals bite."

[Later in the year, the following letters show him continuing the campaign. But an attack of pleurisy, which began the very day of the Jubilee, prevented him from coming to speak at a meeting upon Technical Education. In the autumn, however, he spoke on the subject at Manchester, and had the satisfaction of seeing the city "go solid," as he expressed it, for technical education. The circumstances of this visit are given later.]

4 Marlborough Place, May 1, 1887.

My dear Roscoe,

I met Lord Hartington at the Academy Dinner last night and took the opportunity of urging upon him the importance of following up his technical education speech. He told me he had been in communication with you about the matter, and he seemed to me to be very well disposed to your plans.

I may go on crying in the wilderness until I am hoarse, with no result, but if he and you and Mundella will take it up, something may be done.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, June 28, 1887.

My dear Roscoe,

Donnelly was here on Sunday and was quite right up to date. I felt I ought to be better, and could not make out why the deuce I was not. Yesterday the mischief came out. There is a touch of pleurisy--which has been covered by the muscular rheumatism.

So I am relegated to bed and told to stop there--with the company of cataplasms to keep me lively.

I do not think the attack in any way serious--but M. Pl. is a gentleman not to be trifled with, when you are over sixty, and there is nothing for it but to obey my doctor's orders.

Pray do not suppose I would be stopped by a trifle, if my coming to the meeting [Of July 1, on Technical Education.] would really have been of use. I hope you will say how grieved I am to be absent.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, June 29, 1887.

My dear Roscoe,

I have scrawled a variety of comments on the paper you sent me. Deal with them as you think fit.

Ever since I was on the London School Board I have seen that the key of the position is in the Sectarian Training Colleges and that wretched imposture, the pupil teacher system. As to the former Delendae sunt no truce or pact to be made with them, either Church or Dissenting. Half the time of their students is occupied with grinding into their minds their tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee theological idiocies, and the other half in cramming them with boluses of other things to be duly spat out on examination day. Whatever is done do not let us be deluded by any promises of theirs to hook on science or technical teaching to their present work.

I am greatly disgusted that I cannot come to Tyndall's dinner to-night--but my brother-in-law's death would have stopped me (the funeral to-day)--even if my doctor had not forbidden me to leave my bed. He says I have some pleuritic effusion on one side and must mind my P's and Q's.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[A good deal of correspondence at this time with Sir M. Foster relates to the examinations of the Science and Art Department. He was still Dean, it will be remembered, of the Royal College of Science, and further kept up his connection with the Department by acting in an honorary capacity as Examiner, setting questions, but less and less looking over papers, acting as the channel for official communications, as when he writes (April 24),] "I send you some Department documents--nothing alarming, only more worry for the Assistant Examiners, and that WE do not mind"; and finally signing the Report. But to do this after taking so small a share in the actual work of examining, grew more and more repugnant to him, till on October 12 he writes:--]

I will read the Report and sign it if need be--though there really must be some fresh arrangement.

Of course I have entire confidence in your judgment about the examination, but I have a mortal horror of putting my name to things I do not know of my own knowledge.

[In addition to these occupations, he wrote a short paper upon a fossil, Ceratochelys, which was read at the Royal Society on March 31; while on April 7 he read at the Linnean ("Botany" volume 24 pages 101-124), his paper, "The Gentians: Notes and Queries," which had sprung from his holiday amusement at Arolla.

Philosophy, however, claimed most of his energies. The campaign begun in answer to the incursion of Mr. Lilly was continued in the article "Science and Pseudo-Scientific Realism" ("Collected Essays" 5 59-89) which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for February 1887. The text