Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
As President of the Ethnological Society, he delivered an inaugural
address "On the Ethnology and Archeology of India," on March 9, and
another "On the Ethnology and Archeology of North America," on April 13.
As president of the Society, moreover, he urged upon the Government the
advisability of forming a systematic series of photographs of the
various races comprehended in the British Empire, and was officially
called upon to offer suggestions for carrying out the project. This
appears to be an amplification of Sir Joseph Fayrer's plan in 1866, with
respect to all the tribes of India (see Appendix 1.)
On April 7 he delivered his "Scientific Education: Notes of an
After-Dinner Speech" before the Philomathic Society at Liverpool
("Collected Essays" 3 3), one part of which deals with the attitude of
the clergy towards physical science, and expresses the necessary
antagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine which appears
more forcibly in one of his speeches at the School Board in 1871.
In this and other educational addresses, he had suggested that one of
the best ways of imparting to children a preliminary knowledge of the
phenomena of nature would be a course of what the Germans call
"Erdkunde," or general information about the world we live in. It should
reach from our simplest everyday observations to wide generalisations of
physical science; and should supply a background for the study of
history. To this he gave the name "Physiography," a name which he
believed to be original, until in 1877 his attention was called to the
fact that a "Physiographie" had been published in Paris thirty years
before.
The idea was no new one with him. Part of his preliminary lectures at
the School of Mines had been devoted to something of the kind for the
last dozen years; he had served on the Committee of the British
Association, appointed in 1866 as the result of a paper by the present
Dean Farrar, then a Harrow master, "On the Teaching of Science in the
Public Schools," to report upon the whole question. Moreover, in
consultation with Dr. Tyndall, he had drawn up a scheme in the winter
1868-69, for the science teaching in the International College, on the
Council of which they both were.
Seven yearly grades were arranged in this scheme, proceeding from the
simplest account of the phenomena of nature taught chiefly by object
lessons, largely through the elements of Physics and Botany, Chemistry
and Human Physiology--all illustrated with practical demonstrations--to
more advanced work in these subjects, as well as in Social Science,
which embraced not only the theory of commerce and government, but the
Natural History of Man up to the point at which Ethnology and Archeology
touch history.
It is interesting to note that the framers of this report thought it
necessary to point out that one master could not teach all these
subjects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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