and German poetry, literature, and philosophy, and so came to have a knowledge of the ideas of those outside his own race on all the great problems that interest mankind.  A good deal has been written as to the narrowing tendency of scientific pursuits, but with Huxley, as with all the scientific men the present writer has known, the mechanical necessity of learning to read other languages has brought with it that wide intellectual sympathy which is the beginning of all culture and which is not infrequently missed by those who have devoted themselves to many grammars and a single literature.  The old proverb, “Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well,” has only value when “well” is properly interpreted.  Although the science of language is as great as any science, it is not the science of language, but the practical interpretation of it, that is of value to most people, and there is much to be said for the method of anatomists like Huxley, who passed lightly over grammatical minutiae and went straight with a dictionary to the reading of each new tongue.

After a short period of apprenticeship, or sometimes during the course of it, the young medical students “walked” a hospital.  This consisted in attending the demonstrations of the physicians and surgeons in the wards of the hospital and in pursuing anatomical, chemical, and physiological study in the medical school attached to the hospital.  A large fee was charged for the complete course, but at many of the hospitals there were entrance scholarships which relieved those who gained them of all cost.  In 1842 Huxley and his elder brother, James, applied for such free scholarships at Charing Cross Hospital.  There is no record in the books of the hospital as to what persons supported the application.  The entry in the minutes for September 6, 1842, states that

“Applications from the following gentlemen (including the two sons of Mr. George Huxley, late senior assistant master in Ealing School), were laid before the meeting, and their testimonials being approved of, it was decided that those gentlemen should be admitted as free scholars, if their classical attainments should be found upon examination to be satisfactory.”

It appears that the two Huxleys were able to satisfy the probably unexacting demands of the classical examiners, for they began their hospital work in October of the same year.

Those who know the magnificent laboratories and lecture-rooms which have grown up in connection with the larger London hospitals must have difficulty in realising the humble arrangements for teaching students in the early forties.  What endowments there were—­and Charing Cross was never a richly endowed hospital—­were devoted entirely to the hospital as opposed to the teaching school.  There were no separate buildings for anatomy, physiology, and so forth.  At Charing Cross the dissecting-room was in a cellar under the hospital, and subjects like chemistry, botany, physiology,