Suspected of loyalty to the King at the time of the revolution, he was imprisoned. Acquitted, he went to England where he became prominent in politics and science. Invested with the title of Count by the Holy Roman Empire, he chose Rumford for his title after the name of the little New Hampshire town where he had taught. He gave a large sum of money to Harvard College to found the Rumford professorship of science.
[48]
eccentric: out of the centre.
A LIBERAL EDUCATION (1868)
[49]
A Liberal Education: from Science and Education; also published in Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews.
[50]
Ichabod: cf. 1 Sam. iv, 21.
[51]
senior wranglership: in Cambridge University, England, one who has attained the first class in the elementary division of the public examination for honors in pure and mixed mathematics, commonly called the mathematical tripos, those who compose the second rank of honors being designated senior optimes, and those of the third order junior optimes. The student taking absolutely the first place in the mathematical tripos used to be called senior wrangler, those following next in the same division being respectively termed second, third, fourth, etc., wranglers. Century Dictionary.
[52]
double-first: any candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Oxford University who takes first-class honors in both classics and mathematics is said to have won a double-first.
[53]
Retzsch (1779-1857): a well-known German painter and engraver.
[54]
Test-Act: an English statute of 1673. It compelled all persons holding office under the crown to take the oaths of supremacy and of allegiance, to receive the sacrament according to the usage of the Church of England, and to subscribe to the Declaration against Transubstantiation.
[55]
Poll: an abbreviation and transliteration of [Greek words], "the mob"; university slang for the whole body of students taking merely the degree of Bachelor of Arts, at Cambridge.
[56]
pluck: the rejection of a student, after examinations, who does not come up to the standard.
ON A PIECE OF CHALK
[57]
On a Piece of Chalk: a lecture to working-men from Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews.
[58]
Needles of the Isle of Wight: the needles are three white, pointed rocks of chalk, resting on dark-colored bases, and rising abruptly from the sea to a height of 100 feet. Baedeker's Great Britain.
[59]
Lulworth in Dorset, to Flamborough Head: Lulworth is on the southern coast of England, west of the Isle of Wight: Flamborough Head is on the northeastern coast of England and extends into the German Ocean.
[60]
Weald: a name given to an oval-shaped chalk area in England, beginning near the Straits of Dover, and extending into the counties of Kent, Surrey, Hants, and Sussex.
[61]
Lieut. Brooke: Brooke devised an apparatus for deep-sea sounding from which the weight necessary to sink the instrument rapidly, was detached when it reached the bottom. The object was to relieve the strain on the rope caused by rapid soundings. Improved apparatuses have been invented since the time of Brooke.
[62]
Ehrenberg (1795-1876): a German naturalist noted for his studies of Infusoria.
[63]
Bailey of West Point (1811-1857): an American naturalist noted for his researches in microscopy.
[64]
enterprise of laying down the telegraph-cable: the first Atlantic telegraph-cable between England and America was laid in 1858 by Cyrus W. Field of New York. Messages were sent over it for a few weeks; then it ceased to act. A permanent cable was laid by Mr.
Field in 1866.
[65]
Dr. Wallich (1786-1854): a Danish botanist and member of the Royal Society.
[66]
Mr. Sorby: President of the Geological Society of England, and author of many papers on subjects connected with physical geography.
[67]
Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875): a British geologist, and one of the first to uphold Darwin's Origin of Species.
[68]
Echinus: the sea-urchin; an animal which dwells in a spheroidal shell built up from polygonal plates, and covered with sharp spines.
[69]
Somme: a river of northern France which flows into the English Channel northeast of Dieppe.
[70]
the chipped flints of Hoxne and Amiens: the rude instruments which were made by primitive man were of chipped flint. Numerous discoveries of large flint implements have been made in the north of France, near Amiens, and in England. The first noted flint implements were discovered in Hoxne, Suffolk, England, 1797. Cf.
Evans' Ancient Stone Implements and Lyell's Antiquity of Man.
[71]
Rev. Mr. Gunn (1800-1881): an English naturalist. Mr. Gunn sent from Tasmania a large number of plants and animals now in the British Museum.
[72]
"the whirligig of time": cf. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act V, se.
I, l. 395.
[73]
Euphrates and Hiddekel: cf. Genesis ii, 14.
[74]
the great river, the river of Babylon: cf. Genesis xv, 18[75]
Without haste, but without rest: from Goethe's Zahme Xenien. In a letter to his sister, Huxley says: "And then perhaps by the following of my favorite motto,--"'Wie das Gestirn, Ohne Hast, Ohne Rast'--something may be done, and some of Sister Lizzie's fond imaginations turn out not altogether untrue." The quotation entire is as follows:--Wie das Gestirn, Ohne Hast, Aber ohne Rast, Drehe sich jeder Um die eigne Last.
THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS OF EDUCATION (1882)[76]
The Principal Subjects of Education: an extract from the essay, Science and Art in Relation to Education.
[77]
this discussion: "this" refers to the last sentence in the preceding paragraph, in which Huxley says that it will be impossible to determine the amount of time to be given to the principal subjects of education until it is determined "what the principal subjects of education ought to be."[78]
Francis Bacon: cf. note [26].
[79]
