Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley F.R.S. (May 4, 1825 – June 29, 1895) was a British biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his defence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Educational Influence

Huxley was a major influence in the direction in which British schools took. In primary schooling he advocated a wide range of disciplines similar to what we have today: reading, writing, arithmetic, art, science, music, etc. In higher education he also forsaw how schools should be run with two years of basic liberal studies followed by two years of some upper-division work focusing on a more specific area of study. This was a fresh approach to the general study of classics in contemporary English colleges. Much of his educational approaches are found in his work On a Piece of Chalk a profound essay first published in MacMillan's Magazine in London, 1868. The piece reconstructs the geological history of Britain from a simple piece of chalk and demonstrates the methods of science as "organized common sense."

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Another significant advocacy of Huxley's that is not seen today was his promotion for teaching the Bible in schools. This may seem out of step with his evolutionary theories but he believed that the Bible had significant literary and moral teachings that were quite relevant to English ethics.

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