Another description is from the pen of an old pupil in the autumn of 1876, Professor H. Fairfield Osborn, of Columbia College:—­

Huxley, as a teacher, can never be forgotten by any of his students.  He entered the lecture-room promptly as the clock was striking nine (In most years the lectures began at ten.), rather quickly, and with his head bent forward “as if oppressive with its mind.”  He usually glanced attention to his class of about ninety, and began speaking before he reached his chair.  He spoke between his lips, but with perfectly clear analysis, with thorough interest, and with philosophic insight which was far above the average of his students.  He used very few charts, but handled the chalk with great skill, sketching out the anatomy of an animal as if it were a transparent object.  As in Darwin’s face, and as in Erasmus Darwin’s or Buffon’s, and many other anatomists with a strong sense of form, his eyes were heavily overhung by a projecting forehead and eyebrows, and seemed at times to look inward.  His lips were firm and closely set, with the expression of positiveness, and the other feature which most marked him was the very heavy mass of hair falling over his forehead, which he would frequently stroke or toss back.  Occasionally he would light up the monotony of anatomical description by a bit of humour.

Huxley was the father of modern laboratory instruction; but in 1879 he was so intensely engrossed with his own researches that he very seldom came through the laboratory, which was ably directed by T. Jeffery Parker, assisted by Howes and W. Newton Parker, all of whom are now professors, Howes having succeeded to Huxley’s chair.  Each visit, therefore, inspired a certain amount of terror, which was really unwarranted, for Huxley always spoke in the kindest tones to his students, although sometimes he could not resist making fun at their expense.  There was an Irish student who sat in front of me, whose anatomical drawings in water-colour were certainly most remarkable productions.  Huxley, in turning over his drawing-book, paused at a large blur, under which was carefully inscribed, “sheep’s liver,” and smilingly said], “I am glad to know that is a liver; it reminds me as much of Cologne cathedral in a fog as of anything I have ever seen before.” [Fortunately the nationality of the student enabled him to fully appreciate the humour.

The same note is sounded in Professor Mivart’s description of these lectures in his Reminiscences:—­

The great value of Huxley’s anatomical ideas, and the admirable clearness with which he explained them, led me in the autumn of 1861 to seek admission as a student to his course of lectures at the School of Mines in Jermyn Street.  When I entered his small room there to make this request, he was giving the finishing touches to a dissection of part of the nervous system of a skate, worked out for the benefit of his students.  He welcomed my application with