the hospital. A large fee was charged for the complete course, but at
many of the hospitals there were entrance scholarships which relieved
those who gained them of all cost. In 1842 Huxley and his elder
brother, James, applied for such free scholarships at Charing Cross
Hospital. There is no record in the books of the hospital as to what
persons supported the application. The entry in the minutes for
September 6, 1842, states that

"Applications from the following gentlemen (including the two
sons of Mr. George Huxley, late senior assistant master in Ealing
School), were laid before the meeting, and their testimonials
being approved of, it was decided that those gentlemen should be
admitted as free scholars, if their classical attainments should
be found upon examination to be satisfactory."

It appears that the two Huxleys were able to satisfy the probably
unexacting demands of the classical examiners, for they began their
hospital work in October of the same year.

Those who know the magnificent laboratories and lecture-rooms which
have grown up in connection with the larger London hospitals must have
difficulty in realising the humble arrangements for teaching students
in the early forties. What endowments there were--and Charing Cross
was never a richly endowed hospital--were devoted entirely to the
hospital as opposed to the teaching school. There were no separate
buildings for anatomy, physiology, and so forth. At Charing Cross the
dissecting-room was in a cellar under the hospital, and subjects like
chemistry, botany, physiology, and so forth were crowded into
inconvenient side rooms. The teachers were not specialists, devoting
their whole attention to particular branches of science, but were