In dusting down an old review magazine from my former school, I couldn’t help but notice a similarity, in tone and content, between the mission statement from one of the more formatively influential past headmasters, and some of my favourite lines from Thomas Huxley. As to which of these inspired me the most, or whether the ethos of the one led to a later empathy with the other – I cannot say. Both statements follow. In each case you will have to forgive the sexism; Huxley was a man of the Victorian Age, and Frazer was the headmaster of what was at the time an all boys school. Anyhow, not much evidence for ‘two cultures’ here. Both are worthy sentiments – enjoy !

Huxley first….

“That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a cold, clear, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gosamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature, and of the laws of her operations; and who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.”

Thomas Henry Huxley

“A school in the twentieth century must try to educate the hands and senses as well as the mind; it will do each separate task the better for attempting all three. It will teach its pupil to create as well as to criticise, by giving him the chance to create in a variety of ways, so that he can find his own particular medium while to some extent sharing the experience of artists and craftsmen of all kinds. It will teach him to find out for himself, as well as to absorb the findings of others. It will try to produce men who may earn a living as scholars or scientists or technologists or craftsmen or artists, but who are to a varying extent all of these at once, and gentlemen too. Thus only can we produce the all-round men we need if the next age is to be one of high civilisation as well as of great prosperity.”

Dr H. Frazer

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– Happy Birthday Thomas Henry Huxley

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