A final letter to the “Times” on March 21, was evoked by the fact that Lord Hartington, in giving away the prizes at the Polytechnic Y.M.C.A., had adopted Huxley’s position as defined in his speech, and declared that science ought to be aided on precisely the same grounds on which we aid the army and navy.

In this letter he asks, how do we stand prepared for the task thus imperatively set us?  We have the machinery for providing instruction and information, and for catching capable men, but both in a disjointed condition]—­“all mere torsos—­fine, but fragmentary.”  “The ladder from the School Board to the Universities, about which I dreamed dreams many years ago, has not yet acquired much more substantiality than the ladder of Jacob’s vision,” [but the Science and Art Department, the Normal School of Science, and the Central Institute only want the means to carry out the recommendations already made by impartial and independent authority.] “Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely.”

[He concluded with an appeal to Lord Hartington to take up this task of organising industrial education and bring it to a happy issue.

A proposal was also made to the Royal Society to co-operate, and Sir M. Foster writes on February 19:  “We have appointed a Committee to consider and draw up a draft reply with a view of the Royal Society following up your letter.”

To this Huxley replied on the 22nd:—­]

...My opinion is that the Royal Society has no right to spend its money or pledge its credit for any but scientific objects, and that we have nothing to do with sending round the hat for other purposes.

The project of the Institute Committee as it stands connected with the South Kensington site—­is condemned by all the city people and will receive none but the most grudging support from them.  They are going to set up what will be practically an Institute of their own in the city.

The thing is already a failure.  I daresay it will go on and be varnished into a simulacrum of success—­to become eventually a ghost like the Albert Hall or revive as a tea garden.

[The following letter also touches upon the function of the Institute from the commercial side:—­]

4 Marlborough Place, February 20, 1887.

My dear Donnelly,

Mr. Law’s suggestion gives admirable definition to the notions that were floating in my mind when I wrote in my letter to the “Times”, that I imagined the Institute would be a “place in which the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made accessible to the public.”  A man of business who wants to know anything about the prospects of trade with, say, Boorioboola-Gha (vide Bleak House) ought to be able to look into the Institute and find there somebody who will at once fish out for him among the documents in the place all that is known about Boorioboola.

But a Commercial Intelligence Department is not all that is wanted, vide valuable letter aforesaid.