Professor Huxley's signature, and it will be something for me
to show my mates and keep for my children. He has done me and
my like a lot of good; no man more."

In these special lectures of his very best and in his other essays,
which, however far-reaching, were always intelligible to plain
readers, may be seen one side of his desire to spread clear thinking
among the less instructed masses; another was his work on the first
School Board. By 1870 his health was already shaken by the heavy work
which filled his days and nights; nevertheless, whatever the cost in
time and labour and health, he felt it imperative to try, with all his
power, to give rational shape to the new lines of universal education,
and to revivify it with the fresh breath of the new renascence in
aim and method. Science must be represented in the new Parliament
of Education, and there was no one else ready to undertake the part.
Moreover, he had already enjoyed some practical experience of the
workings of elementary education while examiner under the Science and
Art Department, the establishment of which he considered

a measure which came into existence unnoticed, but which will,
I believe, turn out to be of more importance to the welfare of
the people than many political changes over which the noise of
battle has rent the air.

On the proper working of the new Act depended the physical, moral, and
intellectual betterment of the nation; in particular, "book-learning"
needed to be tempered with not merely handcraft, but with something
of the direct knowledge of nature; for in itself, if properly applied,
this is an admirable instrument of education, and by its method
promotes an attitude of mind capable of understanding the reasons for