live as though he had never to die." {94}
I too would recommend the wholesome theory that it is never too late to
learn; it helps to keep one from falling too soon into incurable
fogeydom.

In the lives of big men it is sometimes possible to see how work done for
its own sake may turn out to have had its real value as a piece of
training for something of far greater worth. Thus my father began in
1846 working at a curious Cirripede, _i.e._, a barnacle, which he had
found on his voyage; this led him to examine others, and in the end he
worked seven or eight years at this group of animals.

To his children the habit of working at barnacles seemed a commonplace
human function, like eating or breathing, and it is reported that one of
us being taken into the study of a neighbour, and seeing no dissecting
table or microscope, asked with justifiable suspicion, "Then where does
he do his barnacles?" When I was writing my father's _Life_, I asked Mr.
Huxley his opinion whether this seven or eight years' work had been, in
his judgment, worth the great labour involved. His answer was that no
man is a good judge of the speculative strain which may be put on the raw
materials of science, unless he knows at first hand how this raw material
is acquired, and this knowledge my father gained by his barnacles. The
_Origin of Species_ is the evidence that he did not miscalculate the
strain his facts would bear, for his theory is as strong as ever.

There is one influence, of the greatest importance in regard to
education, with which I have not attempted to deal. I mean the personal
influence of the teacher. This is a part of the pupil's environment
which not even a millionaire can undertake to supply to his pet
University. It is rather a thing to pray for, and to treasure when the
gods send it to us.

There is a magic in the personal effect of a great teacher, which makes
it comparatively unimportant what sort of science he teaches. In him the
How entirely dwarfs the What.

To take an instance. My father's master, Professor Henslow, was of this
type. But some of his advice was extremely bad. Thus he told my father
to read Lyell's _Principles_, but on no account to believe the
theoretical parts of the book. In spite of the warning, my father was at
once converted to the doctrines set forth in the _Principles_, and Lyell
was from that time forward the chief influence of his scientific life.
But his gratitude to Henslow rema