when Huxley, as by far the most important man among those who advocated a secular education, was an advocate and not in the least an opponent of Bible teaching, they were well content to let the matter rest.  There were, it is true, a certain number of zealots who entered the boards with the avowed purpose, on the one hand, of getting as much dogmatic teaching and interpretation added as it might be possible to smuggle in, and, on the other, to reduce the simplest Bible teaching to a minimum.  But the vast majority of persons were out of sympathy with these fanaticisms.  Since 1870, however, a gradual change has occurred in the attitude of the majority to the Bible in England.  The growth of the new criticism and of knowledge of it has produced the result that now only a small minority of reflecting people in England accept the Bible in the old simple way; the majority thinks that it requires interpretation and explanation by the authority of the Church.  And so a new battle over dogma has begun; moderate Church people no longer accept the compromise of Huxley, but strive for an interpretation which must be dogmatic, and there is a new dispute as to what may be regarded as undenominational religion.  When a majority of reasonable persons accepted Huxley’s suggestions of simple Bible teaching they did so not because they believed, as he did, that the Bible was simply great literature, great tradition, and great morality, but because they believed it to be direct, inspired authority.  It is a curious coincidence that Huxley himself did so much to spread knowledge of the new criticism, and that a first result of this diffusion was to overthrow the compromise arranged largely by his influence, and which for many years provided a middle way in which sensible persons avoided the extremes of theological and anti-theological zealots.

Early in the course of his career as a member of the London School Board, Huxley crystallised his views as to the general policy of education in a phrase which perhaps has done more than any other phrase ever invented to bring home to men’s minds the ideal of a national system of education.  “I conceive it to be our duty,” he said, “to make a ladder from the gutter to the university along which any child may climb.”  We have seen the nature of his views as to the lowest rungs of this ladder; we may now turn to his work and views as to the higher stages.  He expressed these views in occasional speeches and articles, and he had many important opportunities in aiding to carry them into actual practice.  He was a member of a number of important Royal Commissions:  Commission on the Royal College of Science for Ireland, 1866; Commission on Science and Art Instruction in Ireland, 1868; Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, 1870-75; Royal Commission to enquire into the Universities of Scotland, 1876-78; Royal Commission on the Medical Acts, 1881-82.  From the beginning, he was closely associated with the Science and Art