"Thank God, I think I may say I have weathered mine--not without a good
deal of damage to spars and rigging though, for it blew deuced hard on
the other side." In 1854 a permanent lectureship was offered him at the
Government School of Mines; also, a lectureship at St. Thomas' Hospital;
and he was asked to give various other lecture courses. He thus found
himself able to establish the home for which he had waited eight years.
In July, 1855, he was married to Miss Heathorn.

The succeeding years from 1855 to 1860 were filled with various kinds
of work connected with science: original investigation, printing of
monographs, and establishing of natural history museums. His advice
concerning local museums is interesting and characteristically
expressed. "It [the local museum if properly arranged] will tell both
natives and strangers exactly what they want to know, and possess great
scientific interest and importance. Whereas the ordinary lumber-room
of clubs from New Zealand, Hindu idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys,
scorpions, and conch shells--who shall describe the weary inutility of
it? It is really worse than nothing, because it leads the unwary to look
for objects of science elsewhere than under their noses. What they want
to know is that their 'America is here,' as Wilhelm Meister has it."
During this period, also, he began his lectures to workingmen, calling
them Peoples' Lectures. "POPULAR lectures," he said, "I hold to be an
abomination unto the Lord." Working-men attended these lectures in great
numbers, and to them Huxley seemed to be always able to speak at his
best. His purpose in giving these lectures should be expressed in his
own words: "I want the working class to understand that Science and her
ways are great facts for them--that physical virtue is the base of all
other, and that they are to be clean and temperate and all the rest--not
because fellows in black and white ties tell them so, but because there
are plain and patent laws which they must obey 'under penalties.'"