“If I am to be remembered at all,” Huxley once wrote, “I would rather it should be as a man who did his best to help the people than by any other title.”  Certainly as much of his time as could be spared from his regular work was given to help others.  His lectures to workingmen and school-masters have already been mentioned.  In addition, he lectured to women on physiology and to children on elementary science.  In order to be of greater service to the children, Huxley, in spite of delicate health, became a member of the London School Board.  His immediate object was “to temper book-learning with something of the direct knowledge of Nature.”  His other purposes were to secure a better physical training for children and to give them a clearer understanding of social and moral law.  He did not believe, on the one hand, in overcrowding the curriculum, but, on the other hand, he “felt that all education should be thrown open to all that each man might know to what state in life he was called.”  Another statement of his purpose and beliefs is given by Professor Gladstone, who says of his work on the board:  “He resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for churches or hands for factories.  He was on the Board as a friend of children.  What he sought to do for the child was for the child’s sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier life.”

The immense amount of work which Huxley did in these years told very seriously on his naturally weak constitution.  It became necessary for him finally for two successive years to stop work altogether.  In 1872 he went to the Mediterranean and to Egypt.  This was a holiday full of interest for a man like Huxley who looked upon the history of the world and man’s place in the world with a keen scientific mind.  Added to this scientific bent of mind, moreover, Huxley had a deep appreciation for the picturesque in nature and life.  Bits of description indicate his enjoyment in this vacation.  He writes of his entrance to the Mediterranean, “It was a lovely morning, and nothing could be grander than Ape Hill on one side and the Rock on the other, looking like great lions or sphinxes on each side of a gateway.”  In Cairo, Huxley found much to interest him in archaeology, geology, and the every-day life of the streets.  At the end of a month, he writes that he is very well and very grateful to Old Nile for all that he has done for him, not the least “for a whole universe of new thoughts and pictures of life.”  The trip, however, did no lasting good.  In 1873 Huxley was again very ill, but was under such heavy costs at this time that another vacation was impossible.  At this moment, a critical one in his life, some of his close scientific friends placed to his credit twenty-one hundred pounds to enable him to take the much needed rest.  Darwin wrote to Huxley concerning the gift:  “In doing this we are convinced that we act for the public interest.”  He assured Huxley that the friends who gave this felt