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Huxley to Dyke letter, 1914 (MS 58)

Personal letter from biologist Sir Julian Huxley to Mr. Fred Dyke, a Rice Institute student, in regards to meeting for tea.

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Descriptive Summary

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents

Restrictions

Index Terms

Related Material

Administrative Information

Detailed Description of the Collection

December 8, 1914 letter

Guide to the Julian Huxley letter to
Mr. Fred Dyke, 1914


Descriptive Summary

Repository: Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX
Creator: Huxley, Julian Sorell, 1887-1975
Title Julian Huxley letter to Mr. Fred Dyke
Dates: 1914
Extent 1 leaf
Abstract: Personal letter from biologist Sir Julian Huxley to Mr. Fred Dyke, a Rice Institute student, in regards to meeting for tea.
ID MS 58
Language Materials are in English.

Biographical Note

Julian Sorell Huxley (b. June 22, 1887, d. February 14, 1975) was a lecturer in Zoology at Oxford (1910-1912), Research Associate and later Assistant Professor of Biology at Rice Institute (1913-1916), and fought in World War I before returning to Oxford in 1919, where he conducted the famous axolotl experiments and participated in the university's expedition to Spitsbergen. He became Professor of Zoology at King's College, University of London in 1925, but resigned his position in 1927 to collaborate on what would become The Science of Life with H.G. Wells. He was Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution (1927-1929) while working with Wells, however after 1929 he held no academic position. For ten years he was a private person working to advance his ideas about the biological sciences not as a researcher nor as a teacher, but as a writer on scientific developments and their relationship to contemporary social issues.

From 1935-1942 he served as Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, allowing him to encourage solid research on animal behavior while introducing innovative methods for implementing his vision of the zoo as an educational institution. He continued his work as a writer and lecturer and was known throughout war-time Britain for his participation as a panel member of the BBC Brains Trust program. After World War II he helped form Unesco, serving as the organization’s first Director-General (1946-1948). Here he set out a program cosmopolitan in vision, one concerned with mankind in relationship with nature and with its past, one in which art and science were equally valued. He also began to articulate fully the concerns which would occupy the later years of his life: the relation of overpopulation to poverty and ignorance, the necessity for the conservation of wilderness and wildlife, and the importance of the renunciation of parochial views on religion and politics. The remainder of his life was spent traveling, lecturing and writing in support of the causes to which he was devoted. Throughout his long career, he contributed significantly to the fields of ethology, ecology and cancer research, and acted as a powerful proponent of neo-Darwinism.

Fred Mills Dyke was a student at Rice Institute.

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Scope and Contents

Letter from Julian Huxley to Mr. Dyke dated December 8, 1914, inviting the student to tea on Saturday afternoon.

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Restrictions

Access Restriction

This material is open for research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from this Julian Huxley letter must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library.

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Related Material

See Julian S. Huxley Papers, MS 50, Woodson Research Center.

Juliette Huxley Papers, MS 474, Woodson Research Center.

Grover Smith Collection, MS 462, Woodson Research Center.

Kenneth Clark Papers, MS 55, Woodson Research Center.

Solly Zuckerman Papers, MS 56, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to G. W. N. Eggers, MS 57, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to Dawkins, MS 472, Woodson Research Center.

Aldous Huxley letters, MS 498, Woodson Research Center.

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Index Terms

Subjects (Persons)

Dyke, Fred Mills -- Correspondence
Huxley, Julian Sorell, 1887-1975--Correspondence

Subjects

Biologists -- United States -- biography

Subjects (Organizations)

Rice Institute - Biology Department.

Formats

Correspondence

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Julian Huxley letter to Mr. Dyke, MS 58, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Mr. Dyke's daughter, Ms. Claudia Ellis, May 1978.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Folder
1 December 8, 1914 letter
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