Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1895 — PROF. HUXLEY'S LIFE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PROF. HUXLEY'S LIFE.

All Honors in tha Gift of Nations Cams to Him. Americans heard Professor Huxley lecture In New York when he was in all the brightness of his honors. He was unrivaled as a lecturer on scientific subjects, and one who was a good judge of eloquence said that ha was, “next to John Bright, the best orator in England.” This he was, undoubtedly, in exposition and in power of elucidating a complex subject before a popular audience. He spoke clearly, deliberately, and with much force. He says in his autobiography, which is the slightest but the most Interesting record which may be made of his life, that “physically and mentally I am the son of my mother so completely that I can hardly find trace of my father in myself, except an inborn faculty for drawing, which, unfortunately in my case, lias never been cultivated.” He says: “My regular school training was of the briefest, perhaps fortunately, for though my way of life has made me acquainted with all sorts and conditions of men, from the highest to

the lowest, I deliberately affirm that the society I fell into at school was the worst I have over come across. “We boys wore average lads, with much the same inherent capacity for good and evil as any others; but the people who were sot over us cared about as much for our Intellectual and moral welfare as If they wore baby fanners. Wo wore left to the operation of a struggle for existence among ourselves, and bullying was the loast 6? tho ill practices current among us. “As I grew older my great desire was to be a mochanicul engineer, but tho fates wore against this, and while very young I commenced tho study of medicine under u medical brother In law. “I am now occasionally horrified to think how very little I cared about medicine as the art of healing. “lam sorry to say that I do not think that any account of my doings as a student would tond to edificatatlng my exumple. I labored extremely hnrd when it pleased me, and when It did not—which very often was the case—l was extremely idle, unless making caricatures of one’s pastors and masters Is to bo called a branch of industry, or else wastod my energies In the wrong direction, I road everything I could lav my hands upon, Including novels, and took up ull sorts of pursuits, to drop them again quite as speedily. No doubt It was largely my own fault, hut the only instructlod” from which I obtained the proper effoct of education was that which I received from Mr. Wharton Jonos, the lecturer on physiology at the Charing Cross School of Medicine. “The extent and preciseness of his knowledge Impressed me greatly, and the severe exactness of his method of lecturing was quite to my taste. 1 do not know that I have over felt so much respect for anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked hard to obtain his approbation, and he was extremely kind and helpful to the youngster who, I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had any right to do. “The last thing it would be proper for me to do would be to speak of the work of my life, or to say at the end of th? dov whether I think I earned my salary or not. Men nre ?nld to be partial judges of selves. Young men may be ; 1 doubt If old men are. Life seems terribly foreshortened when they look back and the mountain they set themselves to climb in youth turns out to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges, when, with a failing breath, £hey reach the top. “But if I may speak of the objects I have had more or less definitely in view, since I began the ascent of my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote the increase of natural knowledge|and to forward the application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life to the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength, that there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action and the resolute facing of tho world as it is when the garment of make believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier feature is stripped off.”

PROFESSOR HUXLEY.