2 page 95 and "Scientific Memoirs" 1.)


CHAPTER 1.3.

1846-1849.

[It is a curious coincidence that, like two other leaders of science,
Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker, their close friend Huxley began
his scientific career on board one of Her Majesty's ships. He was,
however, to learn how little the British Government of that day, for all
its professions, really cared for the advancement of knowledge. (The key
to this attitude on the part of the Admiralty is to be found in the
scathing description in Briggs' "Naval Administration from 1827 to 1892"
page 92, of the ruinous parsimony of either political party at this time
with regard to the navy--a policy the results of which were only too
apparent at the outbreak of the Crimean war. I quote a couple of
sentences, "The navy estimates were framed upon the lowest scale, and
reduction pushed to the very verge of danger." "Even from a financial
point of view the course pursued was the reverse of economical, and
ultimately led to wasteful and increased expenditure." Thus the liberal
professions of the Admiralty were not fulfilled; its good will gave the
young surgeon three and a half years of leave from active service; with
an obdurate treasury, it could do no more.) But of the immense value to
himself of these years of hard training, the discipline, the knowledge
of men and of the capabilities of life, even without more than the
barest necessities of existence--of this he often spoke. As he puts it
in his Autobiography:--]

Life on board Her Majesty's ships in those days was a very different