"Whatever doubts people may entertain about the efficacy of
natural selection, there can be none about artificial selection;
and the breeder who should attempt to make, or keep up, a fine
stock of pigs, or sheep, under the conditions to which the
children of the poor are exposed, would be the laughing stock
even of the bucolic mind. Parliament has already done something
in this direction by declining to be an accomplice in the
asphyxiation of school children. It refuses to make any grant to
a school in which the cubical contents of the school-room are
inadequate to allow of proper respiration."
He wished to see physical training put on the same system.
The second great point upon which he laid stress was the necessity of
providing training in domestic economy, cookery, and other household
accomplishments, for poor girls. These demands of Huxley seem simple
and obvious, now that by his efforts and the efforts of others they
have been accomplished, but in England, even thirty years ago, it
required more than an ordinary prevision and boldness to insist upon
them.
Huxley passed next to the burning question of the time. He treated it
in the broadest and least sectarian spirit.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281