The opportunity to which both the brothers looked came in the shape of the Free Scholarships offered by the Charing Cross Hospital to students whose parents were unable to pay for their education.  Testimonials as to the position and general education of the candidates were required, and it is curious that one of the persons applied to by the elder Huxley was J.H.  Newman, at that time Vicar of Littlemore, who had been educated at Dr. Nicholas’ School at Ealing.

The application for admission to the lectures and other teaching at the Hospital states of the young T.H.  Huxley that “He has a fair knowledge of Latin, reads French with facility, and knows something of German.  He has also made considerable progress in the Mathematics, having, as far as he has advanced, a thorough not a superficial knowledge of the subject.”  The document ends in the following confident words:—­

I appeal to the certificates and testimonials that will be herewith submitted for evidence of their past conduct, offering prospectively that these young men, if elected to the Free Scholarships of the Charing Cross Hospital and Medical College, will be diligent students, and in all things submit themselves to the controul and guidance of the Director and Medical Officers of the establishment.  A father may be pardoned, perhaps, for adding his belief that these young men will hereafter reflect credit on any institution from which they may receive their education.

The authorities replied that “although it is not usual to receive two members of the same family at the same time, the officers taking into consideration the age of Mr. Huxley, sen., the numerous and satisfactory testimonials of his respectability, and of the good conduct and merits of the candidates, have decided upon admitting Mr. J.E. and Mr. T. Huxley on this occasion.”

The brothers began their hospital course on October 1, 1842.  Here, after a time, my father seems to have begun working more steadily and systematically than he had done before, under the influence of a really good teacher.]

Looking back [he says] on my “Lehrjahre,” I am sorry to say that I do not think that any account of my doings as a student would tend to edification.  In fact, I should distinctly warn ingenuous youth to avoid imitating my example.  I worked extremely hard when it pleased me, and when it did not, which was a very frequent case, I was extremely idle (unless making caricatures of one’s pastors and masters is to be called a branch of industry), or else wasted my energies in wrong directions.  I read everything I could lay hands upon, including novels, and took up all sorts of pursuits to drop them again quite as speedily.  No doubt it was very largely my own fault, but the only instruction from which I obtained the proper effect of education was that which I received from Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on physiology at the Charing Cross School of Medicine.  The