In all this it was his attitude towards the child which deeply
impressed his colleagues in whom child-sympathy was strongest. As the
Rev. Benjamin Waugh put it, he was on the Board to establish schools
for the children. He wanted to turn them into sound men and women, and
resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for
churches or hands for factories. "What he sought to do for the child
was for the child's sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier
life."

After fifteen months of service on the School Board superadded to the
heavy strain of his ordinary work, his health broke down utterly, and
he resigned. But after his retirement his successors found that their
duty was "to put into practice the scheme of instruction which Huxley
was mainly instrumental in settling. We were thus able indirectly to
improve both the means and methods of teaching.... The most important
developments and additions have been in the direction of educating the
hand and eye.... Thus the impulse given by Huxley in the first months
of the Board's existence has been carried forward by others." So wrote
Dr. J. H. Gladstone in 1896. The tide of education has swelled since
then and is still swelling, but its main direction is the same.


NOTE

As these pages are passing through the press, I note an appeal for
money by the Religious Tract Society, which is running short of funds
to keep up the number and quality of the 6-7,000 Bibles annually
awarded as prizes to elementary school children. This advertisement
fills more than half a column of the _Times_ of March 25, 1920. It is
headed in bold type, PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE BIBLE, and, opening