"
The beginning and end of the whole matter was that a national system
of education was above all things a "capacity-catcher," designed to
secure against the loss of the incalculable advantages to be gained by
cultivating the best genius born in the land.
CHAPTER XII
CITIZEN, ORATOR, AND ESSAYIST
Huxley's Activity in Public Affairs--Official in Scientific
Societies--Royal Commissions--Vivisection--Characteristics of his
Public Speaking--His Method of Exposition--His
Essays--Vocabulary--Phrase-Making--His Style Essentially one of
Ideas.
A great body of fine work in science and literature has been produced
by persons who may be described as typically academic. Such persons
confine their interest in life within the boundaries of their own
immediate pursuits; they are absorbed so completely by their
avocations that the hurly-burly of the world seems needlessly
distracting and a little vulgar. No doubt the thoughts of those who
cry out most loudly against disturbance by the intruding claims of the
world are, for the most part, hardly worth disturbing; the attitude to
extrinsic things of those who are absorbed by their work is aped not
infrequently by those who are absorbed only in themselves.
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