Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1Huxley, Thomas Henry
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Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
It strikes me that it will not do to be content with a single
representative of each tribe. At least four or five will be needed to
eliminate the chances of accident, and even then much will depend upon
the discretion and judgment of the local agent who makes the suggestion.
This difficulty, however, applies chiefly if not solely to physical
ethnology. To the philologer the opportunities for comparing dialects
and checking pronunciation will be splendid, however [few] the
individual speakers of each dialect may be. The most difficult task of
all will be to prevent the assembled Savans from massacring the
"specimens" at the end of the exhibition for the sake of their skulls
and pelves!
I am really afraid that my own virtue might yield if so tempted!
Jesting apart, I heartily wish your plans success, and if there are any
more definite ways in which I can help, let me know, and I will do my
best. You will want, I should think, a physical and a philological
committee to organise schemes: (1) for systematic measuring, weighing,
and portraiture, with observation and recording of all physical
characters; and (2) for uniform registering of sounds by Roman letters
and collection of vocabularies and grammatical forms upon an uniform
system.
I should advise you to look into the Museum of the Societe
d'Anthropologie of Paris, and to put yourself in communication with M.
Paul Broca, one of its most active members, who has lately been
organising a scheme of general anthropological instructions. But don't
have anything to do with the quacks who are at the head of the
"Anthropological Society" over here. If they catch scent of what you are
about they will certainly want to hook on to you.
Once more I wish I had the chance of being able to visit your congress.
I have been lecturing on Ethnology this year [As Fullerian Professor at
the Royal Institution.], and shall be again this year, and I would give
a good deal to be able to look at the complex facts of Indian Ethnology
with my own eyes.
But as the sage observed, "what's impossible can't be," and what with
short holidays--a wife and seven children--and miles of work in arrear,
India is an impossibility for me.
You say nothing about yourself, so I trust you are well and hearty, and
all your belongings flourishing.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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