The Project Gutenberg eBook, Huxley and Education, by Henry Fairfield
Osborn


This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.




Title: Huxley and Education
       Address at the Opening of the College Year, Columbia University, September 28, 1910


Author: Henry Fairfield Osborn



Release Date: October 29, 2015  [eBook #50338]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUXLEY AND EDUCATION***


E-text prepared by MWS, Adrian Mastronardi, Martin Pettit, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
(https://archive.org/details/americana)



Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
      https://archive.org/details/huxleyandeducat01osbogoog





HUXLEY AND EDUCATION

Address at the Opening of the College Year
Columbia University
September 28, 1910

by

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
LL.D., Hon. D.Sc, Camb.
Da Costa Professor of Zoology







New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1910

Copyright, 1910
By Henry Fairfield Osborn

The De Vinne Press




HUXLEY AND EDUCATION

     "The stars come nightly to the sky;
     The tidal wave comes to the sea;
     Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high
     Can keep my own away from me."

                          --BURROUGHS.


The most sanguine day of the college year is the opening one: the
student has not yet faced the impossible task annually presented of
embracing the modern world of knowledge; his errors and failures of
earlier years are forgotten; he faces the coming months full of new
hope.

How would my old master, Huxley, address you if he were to find you in
this felicitous frame of mind, sharpening your wits and your pencils for
the contest which will begin to-morrow morning in every hall and
laboratory of this great University? May I speak for him as I heard him
during the winter of 1879-80 from his lecture desk and as he kindly in
conversation gave me of his stores of wisdom and experience? May I add
from his truly brilliant essays entitled "Science and Education,"
delivered between 1874 and 1887? May I contribute also from my own
thirty-seven years of life as a student and teacher, beginning in 1873
and reaching a turning point in 1910 when Columbia enrolled me among its
research professors? It was Huxley's life, his example, the tone of his
writings, rather than his actual precepts which most influenced me, for
in 1879 he was so intensely absorbed in public work and administration,
as well as in research and teaching, that little opportunity remained
for laboratory conferences with his students. How I happened to go to
him was as follows:

Unlucky--as they appeared to me at the time, but lucky as I look back
upon them--were my own early flounderings and blunderings in seeking the
true method of education. Huxley has observed of his "Voyage of the
Rattlesnake" that it is a good thing to get down to the bare bones of
existence. The same is true of self-education. As compared with the
hosts of to-day, few men in 1877 knew how to guide the graduate youth;
the Johns Hopkins was still nascent; the creative force of Louis Agassiz
had spent itself in producing the first school of naturalists, including
the genius, William James. One learnt one's errors through falling into
pitfalls. With two companions I was guided by a sort of blind instinct
to feel that the most important thing in life was to make a discovery of
some kind. On consulting one of our most forceful and genial professors
his advice was negative and discouraging: "Young men," he said, "go on
with your studies for ten or twelve years until you have covered the
whole subject; you will then be ready for research of your own." There
appeared to be something wrong about this, although we did not know
exactly what. We disregarded the advice, left the laboratory of this
professor, and at the end of the year did succeed in writing a paper
which subsequently attracted the attention of Huxley and was the
indirect means of an introduction to Darwin. It was a lame product, but
it was ours, and in looking back upon it, one feels with Touchstone in
his comment upon Audrey:


     "A poor virgin, Sir,
     An ill favored thing, Sir,
     But mine own."


I shall present in this brief address only one idea, namely, the lesson
of Huxley's life and the result of my own experience is that _productive
thinking_ is the chief _means_ as well as the chief _end_ of education,
and that the natural evolution of education will be to develop this kind
of thinking earlier and earlier in the life of the student.

One of the most marvelous of the manifold laws of evolution is what is
called '_acceleration_.' By this law the beginning of an important organ
like the eye of the chick, for example, is thrust forward into a very
early stage of embryonic development. This is, first, because the eye
is a very complex organ and needs a long time for development, and
second because the fully formed eye of most animals is needed
immediately at birth. I predict that the analogy in the evolution of
education will be very close. Productive thinking may be compared to the
eye; it is needed by the student the moment he graduates, or is hatched,
so to speak; it is now developed only in the graduate schools. It is
such an integral and essential part of education that the spirit of it
is destined to be 'accelerated,' or thrust forward into the opening and
preparatory years.

If the lines of one's life were to be cast afresh, if by some
metempsychosis one were moulded into what is known as a "great
educator," a man of conventions and platforms, and were suddenly to
become more or less responsible for 3,000 minds and souls, productive
thinking, or the "centrifugal method" of teaching, would not be
postponed to graduation or thereafter, but would begin with the
Freshman, yes, among these humble men of low estate! It may be _apropos_
to recall a story told of President McCosh of Princeton, a man who
inspired all his students to production and enlivened them with a
constant flow of humor. On one occasion he invited his predecessor,
ex-President McLean, to offer prayers in the College Chapel. Dr.
McLean's prayer was at once all embracing and reminiscent; it descended
from the foreign powers to the heads of the United States government, to
the State of New Jersey, through the Trustees, the Faculty, and, in a
perfectly logical manner, finally reached the entering class. This
naturally raised a great disturbance among the Sophomores, who were
evidently jealous of the divine blessing. The disturbance brought the
prayer to an abrupt close, and Dr. McCosh was heard to remark: "I should
think that Dr. McLean would have more sense than to pray for the
Freshmen."

As regards the raw material into which 'productive thinking' is to be
instilled, I am an optimist. I do not belong to the 'despair school' of
educators, and have no sympathy with the army of editorial writers and
prigs who are depreciating the American student. The chief trouble lies
not with our youth, nor with our schools, but with our adults. How can
springs rise higher than their sources? On the whole, you students are
very much above the average American. You are not driven to these doors;
certainly in these days of youthful freedom and choice you came of your
own free will. The very fact of your coming raises you above the general
level, and while you are here you will be living in a world of
ideas,--the only kind of a world at all worth living in. You are
temporarily cut off more or less from the world of dollars and cents,
shillings and pence. Here Huxley helps you in extolling the sheer sense
of joy in thinking truer and straighter than others, a kind of
superiority which does not mean conceit, the possession of something
which is denied the man in the street. You redound with original
impulses and creative energy, which must find expression somehow or
somewhere; if not under the prevailing incurrent, or 'centripetal
system' of academic instruction, it must let itself out in
extra-academic activities, in your sports, your societies, your
committees, your organizations, your dramatics, all good things and
having the highest educational value in so far as they represent your
output, your outflow, your centrifugal force.

You are, in fact, in a contest with your intellectual environment
outside of these walls. Morally, according to Ferrero, politically,
according to Bryce, and economically, according to Carnegie, you are in
the midst of a 'triumphant democracy.' But in the world of ideas such as
sways Italy, Germany, England, and in the highest degree France, you are
in the midst of a 'triumphant mediocrity.' Paris is a city where
_ideas_ are at a premium and money values count for very little in
public estimation. The whole public waits breathless upon the production
of 'Chanticleer.' That Walhalla of French ambition, 'la Gloire,' may be
reached by men of ideas, but not by men of the marts. Is it conceivable
that the police of New York should assemble to fight a mob gathered to
break up the opera of a certain composer? Is it conceivable that you
students should crowd into this theatre to prevent a speaker being
heard, as those of the Sorbonne did some years ago in the case of
Brunetiere? If you should, no one in this city would understand you, and
the authorities would be called on promptly to interfere.

A fair measure of the culture of your environment is the depth to which
your morning paper prostitutes itself for the dollar, its shades of
yellowness, its frivolity or its unscrupulousness, or both. I sometimes
think it would be better not to read the newspapers at all, even when
they are conscientious, because of their lack of a sense of proportion,
in the news columns at least, of the really important things in American
life. Our most serious evening mentor of student manners and morals
gives six columns to a football game and six lines to a great
intercollegiate debate. Such is the difference between precept and
practice. American laurels are for the giant captain of industry; when
his life is threatened or taken away acres of beautiful forest are cut
down to procure the paper pulp necessary to set forth his achievements,
while our greatest astronomer and mathematician passes away and perhaps
the pulp of a single tree will suffice for the brief, inconspicuous
paragraphs which record his illness and death.

Your British cousin is in a far more favorable atmosphere, beginning
with his morning paper and ending with the conversation of his seniors
over the evening cigar. As a Cambridge man, having spent two years in
London and the university, I would not describe the life so much as
serious as _worth while_. There are humor and the pleasures of life in
abundance, but what is done, is done thoroughly well. Contrast the
comments of the British and American press on such a light subject as
international polo; the former alone are well worth reading, written by
experts and adding something to our knowledge of the game. In the more
novel subject of aviation we look in vain in our press for any solid
information about construction. Or take the practical subject of
politics; the British student finds every great speech delivered in
every part of the Empire published in full in his morning paper; as an
elector he gets his evidence at first hand instead of through the medium
of the editor.

I believe the greatest fault of the American student lies in the
over-development of one of his greatest virtues, namely, his
collectivism. His strong _esprit de corps_ patterns and moulds him too
far. The rewards are for the 'lock-step' type of man who conforms to the
prevailing ideals of his college. He must parade, he must cheer, to
order. Individualism is at a discount; it debars a man from the social
rewards of college life. In my last address to Columbia students on the
life of Darwin,[1] I asked what would be thought of that peculiar,
ungainly, beetle collector if he were to enter one of our colleges
to-day? He would be lampooned and laughed out of the exercise of his
preferences and predispositions. The mother of a very talented young
honor man recently confessed to me that she never spoke of her son's
rank because she found it was considered "queer." This is not what young
America generates, but what it borrows or reflects from the environment
of its elders.

Thus the young American is not lifted up by the example of his seniors,
he has to lift it up. If he is a student and has serious ambitions he
represents the young salt of his nation, and the college brotherhood in
general is a light shining in the darkness. Thus stumbling, groping,
often misled by his natural leaders, he does somehow or other, through
sheer force, acquire an education, and is just as surely coming to the
front in the leadership of the American nation as the Oxford or
Cambridge man is leading the British nation.

Our student body is as fine as can be, it represents the best blood and
the best impulses of the country; but there may be something wrong, some
loss, some delay, some misdirection of educational energy.

Bad as the British university system may be, and it has been vastly
improved by the influence of Huxley, it is more effective than ours
because more centrifugal. English lads are taught to compose, even to
speak in Latin and Greek. The Greek play is an anomaly here, it is an
annual affair at Cambridge. There are not one but many active and
successful debating clubs in Cambridge.

The faults with our educational design are to be discovered through
study of the lives of great men and through one's own hard and stony
experience. The best text-books for the nurture of the mind are these
very lives, and they are not found in the lists of the pedagogues.
Consult your Froebel, if you will, but follow the actual steps to
Parnassus of the men whose political, literary, scientific, or
professional career you expect to follow. If you would be a missionary,
take the lives of Patterson and Livingstone; if an engineer, 'The Lives
of Engineers;' if a physician, study that of Pasteur, which I consider
by far the noblest scientific life of the nineteenth century; if you
would be a man of science, study the recently published lives and
letters of Darwin, Spencer, Kelvin, and of our prototype Huxley.

Here you may discover the secret of greatness, which is, first, to be
born great, unfortunately a difficult and often impossible task; second,
to possess the _instinct of self-education_. You will find that every
one of these masters while more or less influenced by their tutors and
governors was led far more by a sort of internal, instinctive feeling
that they must do certain things and learn certain things. They may
fight the battle royal with parents, teachers, and professors, they may
be as rebellious as ducklings amidst broods of chickens and give as much
concern to the mother fowls, but without exception from a very early age
they do their own thinking and revolt against having it done for them,
and they seek their own mode of learning. The boy Kelvin is taken to
Germany by his father to study the mathematics of Kelland; he slips down
into the cellar to the French of Fourier, and at the age of fifteen
publishes his first paper to demonstrate that Fourier is right and
Kelland is wrong. Pasteur's first research in crystallography is so
brilliant that his professor urges him to devote himself to this branch
of science, but Pasteur insists upon continuing for five years longer
his general studies in chemistry and physics.

This is the true empirical, or laboratory method of getting at the
trouble, if trouble there be in the American _modus operandi_; but a
generation of our great educators have gone into the question as if no
experiments had ever been made. In the last thirty years one has seen
rise up a series of 'healers,' trying to locate the supposed weakness in
the American student: one finds it in the classic tongues and
substitutes the modern; one in the required system and substitutes the
elective; one in the lack of contact between teacher and student and
brings in preceptors, under whom the patient shows a slight improvement.
Now the kind of diagnosis which comes from examining such a life as that
of Huxley shows that the real trouble lies in the prolongation to mature
years of what may be styled the 'centripetal system,' namely, that
afferent, or inflowing mediaeval and oriental kind of instruction in
which the student is rarely if ever forced to do his own thinking.

You will perceive by this that I am altogether on your side, an
insurgent in education, altogether against most of my profession,
altogether in sympathy with the over-fed student, and altogether against
the prevailing system of overfeeding, which stuffs, crams, pours in,
spoon-feeds, and as a sort of deathbed repentance institutes creative
work after graduation.

How do you yourself stand on this question? Is your idea of a good
student that of a good 'receptacle'? Do you regard your instructors as
useful grain hoppers whose duty it is to gather kernels of wisdom from
all sources and direct them into your receptive minds? Are you content
to be a sort of psychic _Sacculina_, a vegetative animal, your mind a
vast sack with two systems, one for the incurrent, the other for the
outcurrent of predigested ideas? If so, all your mental organs of combat
and locomotion will atrophy. Do you put your faith in reading, or in
book knowledge? If so, you should know that not a five foot shelf of
books, not even the ardent reading of a fifty foot shelf aided by
prodigious memory will give you that enviable thing called culture,
because the yardstick of this precious quality is not what you take in
but what you give out, and this from the subtle chemistry of your brain
must have passed through a mental metabolism of your own so that you
have lent something to it. To be a man of culture you need not be a man
of creative power, because such men are few, they are born not made; but
you must be a man of some degree of centrifugal force, of individuality,
of critical opinion, who must make over what is read into conversation
and into life. Yes, one little idea of your own well expressed has a
greater cultural value than one hundred ideas you absorb; one page that
you produce, finely written, new to science or to letters and really
worth reading, outweighs for your own purposes the five foot shelf. On
graduation, _presto_, all changes, then of necessity must your life be
independent and centrifugal; and just in so far as it has these powers
will it be successful; just in so far as it is merely imitative will it
be a failure.

There is no revolution in the contrary, or outflowing design. Like all
else in the world of thought it is, in the germ at least, as old as the
Greeks and its illustrious pioneer was Socrates (469-399 B. C.), who led
the approach to truth not by laying down the law himself but by means of
answers required of his students. The efferent outflowing principle,
moreover, is in the program of the British mathematician, Perry and many
other reformers to-day.

Against the centripetal theory of acquiring culture Huxley revolted with
all his might. His daily training in the centrifugal school was in the
genesis of opinion; and he incessantly practiced the precept that
forming one's own opinion is infinitely better than borrowing one. Our
sophisticated age discourages originality of view because of the
plenitude of a ready-made supply of editorials, of reviews, of reviews
of reviews, of critiques, comments, translations and cribs. Study
political speeches, not editorials about them; read original debates,
speeches, and reports. If you purpose to be a naturalist get as soon as
you can at the objects themselves; if you would be an artist, go to your
models; if a writer, on the same principle take your authors at first
hand, and, after you have wrestled with the texts, and reached the full
length of your own fathom line, then take the fathom line of the critic
and reviewer. Do not trust to mental peptones. Carry the independent,
inquisitive, skeptical and even rebellious spirit of the graduate school
well down into undergraduate life, and even into school life. If you are
a student force yourself to think independently; if a teacher compel
your youth to express their own minds. In listening to a lecture weigh
the evidence as presented, cultivate a polite skepticism, not affected
but genuine, keep a running fire of interrogation marks in your mind,
and you will finally develop a mind of your own. Do not climb that
mountain of learning in the hope that when you reach the summit you will
be able to think for yourself; think for yourself while you are
climbing.

In studying the lives of your great men you will find certain of them
were veritable storehouses of facts, but Darwin, the greatest of them
all in the last century, depended largely upon his inveterate and
voluminous powers of note-taking. Thus you may pray for the daily bread
of real mental growth, for the future paradise is a state of mind and
not a state of memory. The line of thought is the line of greatest
resistance; the line of memory is the line of least resistance; in
itself it is purely imitative, like the gold or silver electroplating
process which lends a superficial coating of brilliancy or polish to
what may be a shallow mind.

The case is deliberately overstated to give it emphasis.

True, the accumulated knowledge of what has been thought and said,
serves as the gravity law which will keep you from flying off at a
tangent. But no warning signals are needed, there is not the least
danger that constructive thinking will drive you away from learning; it
will much more surely drive you to it, with a deeply intensified
reverence for your intellectual forebears; in fact, the eldest
offspring of centrifugal education is that keen and fresh appetite for
knowledge which springs only from trying to add your own mite to it. How
your Maxwell, Herz, Roentgen, Curie, with their world-invigorating
discoveries among the laws of radiant matter, begin to soar in your
estimation when you yourself wrest one single new fact from the
reluctant world of atoms! How your modern poets, Maeterlinck and
Rostand, take on the air of inspiration when you would add a line of
prose verse to what they are delving for in this mysterious human
faculty of ours. Regard Voltaire at the age of ten in 'Louis-le-Grand,'
the Eton of France, already producing bad verses, but with a passionate
voracity for poetry and the drama. Regard the youthful Huxley returning
from his voyage of the 'Rattlesnake' and laying out for himself a ten
years' course in search of pure information.

This route of your own to opinions, ideas, and the discovery of new
facts or principles brings you back again to Huxley as the man who
always had something of his own to say and labored to say it in such a
way as to force people to listen to him. His wondrous style did not come
easily to him; he himself told me it cost him years of effort, and I
consider his advice about style far wiser than that of Herbert Spencer.
Why forego pleasures, turn your back on the world, the flesh, and the
devil, and devote your life to erudition, observation, and the pen if
you remain unimpressive, if you cannot get an audience, if no one cares
to read what you write? This moral is one of the first that Huxley has
impressed upon you, namely, _write to be read_; if necessary "stoop to
conquer," employ all your arts and wiles to get an audience in science,
in literature, in the arts, in politics. Get an audience you must,
otherwise you will be a cipher and not a force.

Pursuant of the constructive design, the measure of the teacher's
success is the degree in which ideas come not from him but from his
pupils. A brilliant address may produce a temporary emotion of
admiration, a dry lecture may produce a permanent productive impulse in
the hearers. One may compare some who are popularly known as gifted
teachers to expert swimmers who sit on the bank and talk inspiringly on
analyses of strokes; the centrifugal teacher takes the pupils into the
water with him, he may even pretend to drown and call for a rescue. In
football parlance the coach must get into the scrimmage with the team.
This was the lesson taught me by the great embryologist Francis Balfour
of Cambridge, who was singularly noted for doing joint papers with his
men. An experiment I have tried with marked success in order to
cultivate centrifugal power and expression at the same time is to get
out of the lecture chair and make my students in turn lecture to me.
This is virtually the famous method of teaching law re-discovered by the
educational genius of Langdell; the students do all the lecturing and
discoursing, the professor lolls quietly in his chair and makes his
comments; the stimulus upon ambition and competition is fairly magical;
there is in the classroom the real intellectual struggle for existence
which one meets in the world of affairs. I would apply this very
Socratic principle in every branch of instruction, early and late, and
thus obey the 'acceleration' law in education which I have spoken of
above as bringing into earlier and earlier stages those powers which are
to be actually of service in after life.

There is then no mystery about education if we plan it along the actual
lines of self-development followed by these great leaders and shape its
deep under-current principles after our own needs and experience. Look
early at the desired goal and work toward it from the very beginning.
The proof that the secret does not lie in subject, or language, but in
preparation for the living productive principle is found in the fact
that there have been _relatively_ educated men in every stage of
history. The wall painters in the Magdalenian caves were the producers
and hence the educated men of their day. This goal of production was
sought even earlier by the leaders of Eolithic men 200,000 years ago and
is equally magnetic for the men of dirigible balloons and aeroplanes of
our day. It is, to follow in mind-culture the principle of addition and
accretion characteristic of all living things, namely, to develop the
highest degree of productive power, centrifugal force, original,
creative, individual efficiency. Through this the world advances; the
Neolithic man with his invention of polished implements succeeds the
Palaeolithic, and the man of books and printing replaces the savage.

The standards of a liberal mind are and always have been the same,
namely, the sense of Truth and Beauty, both of which are again in
conformity with Nature.


     "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
     Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

                KEATS' _Ode on a Grecian Urn_.


The sources of our facts are and always have been the same, namely, the
learning of what men before you have observed and recorded, and the
advance only through the observation of new truth, that is, old to
nature but new to man. The handling of this knowledge has always been
the same, namely, through human reason. The giving forth of this
knowledge and thus the furthering of ideas and customs has and always
will be the same, namely, through expression, vocal, written, or manual,
that is, in symbols and in design.

It follows that the all round liberally educated man, from Palaeolithic
times to the time when the earth shall become a cold cinder, will always
be the same, namely, _the man who follows his standards of truth and
beauty, who employs his learning and observation, his reason, his
expression, for purposes of production, that is, to add something of his
own to the stock of the world's ideas_. This is the author's conception
of a liberal education.

One cannot too often quote the rugged insistence of Carlyle: "Produce!
Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a
product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee:
out with it, then."

Now note that whereas there are the above six powers, namely, truth and
beauty, learning and observation, reason, and expression, which
subserve the seventh, production or constructive thinking, and whereas
the giving out of ideas is the object to be attained, only one power
figures prominently in our modern system of college and school
education, namely, the learning of facts and the memory thereof. It is
no exaggeration to say that this makes up 95% of modern education. Who
are the meteors of school and college days? For the most part those with
precocious or well trained memories. Why do so many of these meteors
flash out of existence at graduation? The answer is simple if you accept
my conception of education. Whereas it takes six powers to make a
liberally educated man or woman, and seven to make a productive man or
woman, only one power has been cultivated assiduously in the
'centripetal' education; whereas there are two great gateways of
knowledge, learning and observation, only one has been continuously
passed through; whereas there are two universal standards of truth and
beauty, only truth has constantly been held up to you, and that in
precept rather than in practice. For nothing is surer than this, that
the sense of truth must come as a daily personal experience in the life
of the student through testing values for himself, as it does in the
life of the scientist, the artist, the physician, the engineer, the
merchant. Note that whereas you are powerless unless you can by the
metabolism of logic make the sum of acquired and observed knowledge your
own, that kind of work-a-day efficient logic has never been forced upon
you and you are daily, perhaps hourly, guilty of the _non sequitur_,
the _post hoc ergo propter hoc_, the 'undistributed middle,' and all
those innocent sins against truth which come through the illogical mind.

"That man," says Huxley, "has had a liberal education ... whose
intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal
strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam-engine, to be
turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the
anchors of the mind."

Note that whereas you are a useless member of society unless you can
give forth something of what you know and feel in writing, speaking, or
design, your expressive powers may have been atrophied through
insufficient use. In brief, you may have shunned individual opinion,
observation, logic, expression, because they are each and every one on
the lines of greatest resistance. And your teachers not only allowed you
but actually encouraged and rewarded you for following the lines of
least resistance in the accurate reproduction, in examination papers and
marking systems, of their own ideas and those you found in books.

May you, therefore, write down these seven words and read them over
every morning: Truth, Beauty, Learning, Observation, Reason, Expression,
Production.

In the wondrous old quilt work of inherited, or ancestral
predispositions which make your being you may be gifted with all these
seven powers in equal and well balanced degree; if you are so blessed
you have a great career before you. If, as is more likely, you have in
full measure only a part of each, or some in large measure, some in
small, keep on the daily examination of your chart as giving you the
canons of a liberal education and of a productive mind.

Remember that as regards the somewhat overworked word 'service' every
addition in every conceivable department of human activity which is
constructive of society is service; that the spirit of science is to
transfer something of value from the unknown into the realm of the
known, and is, therefore, identical with the spirit of literature; that
the moral test of every advance is whether or not it is constructive,
for whatever is constructive is moral.

I would not for a moment take advantage of the present opportunity to
discourage the study of human nature and of the humanities, but for what
is called the best opening for a constructive career let it be Nature.

The ground for my preference is that human nature is an exhaustible
fountain of research; Homer understood it well; Solomon fathomed it;
Shakespeare divined it, both normal and abnormal; the modernists have
been squeezing out the last drops of abnormality.

Nature, studied since Aristotle's time, is still full to the brim; no
perceptible falling of its tides is evident from any point at which it
is attacked, from nebulae to protoplasm; it is always wholesome,
refreshing, and invigorating. Of the two creative literary artists of
our time, Maeterlinck, jaded with human abnormality, comes back to the
bee and the flowers and the 'blue bird,' with a delicious renewal of
youth, while Rostand turns to the barnyard.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Life and Works of Darwin. Pop. Sci. Monthly, Apr., 1909, pp.
315-340. (Address delivered at Columbia University on the one hundredth
anniversary of Darwin's birth, as the first of a series of nine lectures
on "Charles Darwin and His Influence on Science.")



***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUXLEY AND EDUCATION***


******* This file should be named 50338.txt or 50338.zip *******


This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/0/3/3/50338


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
  are located before using this ebook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
  Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
  works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
  receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org 

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary 
Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:

    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
    Chief Executive and Director
    gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.