Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3Huxley, Thomas Henry
History
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895; Naturalists -- England -- Biography
Only to-day I had a most striking instance of sentiment come beneath my
notice. I was about to enter my house, when a plain, simply-dressed
working-man came up to me with a note in his hand, and touching his
hat, he said, "I think this is for you, sir," and then he added, "Will
you give me the envelope, sir, as a great favour?" I looked at it, and
seeing it bore the signature of Professor Huxley, I replied, "Certainly
I will; but why do you ask for it?" "Well," said he, "it's got
Professor Huxley's signature, and it will be something for me to show
my mates and keep for my children. He have done me and my like a lot of
good; no man more."
In practical administration, his judgment of men, his rapid perception
of the essential points at issue, his observance of the necessary
limits of official forms, combined with the greatest possible
elasticity within these limits, made him extremely successful.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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