THOMAE HUXLEY
In Exercitatione Botanices
Apud Scholam Collegii Sydenhamiensis
Optime Merenti
Hunc librum dono dedit
RICARDUS D. HOBLYN, Botanices Professor.]

I dined with the company, and bore my share in both pudding and praise,
but the charm of success lay in Lizzie's warm congratulation and
sympathy. Since then she always took upon herself to prophesy touching
the future fortunes of "the boy."

[The haphazard, unsystematic nature of preliminary medical study here
presented cannot fail to strike one with wonder. Thomas Huxley was now
seventeen; he had already had two years' "practice in pharmacy" as a
testimonial put it. After a similar apprenticeship, his brother had made
the acquaintance of the director of the Gloucester Lunatic Asylum, and
was given by him the post of dispenser or "apothecary," which he filled
so satisfactorily as to receive a promise that if he went to London for
a couple of years to complete his medical training, a substitute should
be appointed meanwhile to keep the place until he returned.

The opportunity to which both the brothers looked came in the shape of
the Free Scholarships offered by the Charing Cross Hospital to students
whose parents were unable to pay for their education. Testimonials as to
the position and general education of the candidates were required, and
it is curious that one of the persons applied to by the elder Huxley was
J.H. Newman, at that time Vicar of Littlemore, who had been educated at
Dr. Nicholas' School at Ealing.