INDEX.




CHAPTER 3.1.

1887.

[The first half of 1887, like that of the preceding year, was chequered
by constant returns of ill-health.] "As one gets older," [he writes in
a New Year's letter to Sir J. Donnelly, "hopes for oneself get more
moderate, and I shall be content if next year is no worse than the
last. Blessed are the poor in spirit!" [The good effects of the visit
to Arolla had not outlasted the winter, and from the end of February he
was obliged to alternate between London and the Isle of Wight.

Nevertheless, he managed to attend to a good deal of business in the
intervals between his periodic flights to the country, for he continued
to serve on the Royal Society Council, to do some of the examining work
at South Kensington, and to fight for the establishment of adequate
Technical Education in England. He attended the Senate and various
committees of the London University and of the Marine Biological
Association.

Several letters refer to the proposal--it was the Jubilee year--to
commemorate the occasion by the establishment of the Imperial
Institute. To this he gladly gave his support; not indeed to the merely
social side; but in the opportunity of organising the practical