From:
Gilbert William Child
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
3 May [1868]
Source of text:
DAR 161: 143
Summary:
Requests CD testimonial for Sherardian Professorship of Botany.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Requests CD testimonial for Sherardian Professorship of Botany.
Cannot judge GWC’s fitness for the Botanical Chair at Oxford. But CD appreciates his work, particularly that on spontaneous generation [Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 13 (1863–4): 313; 14 (1865): 178].
Encloses a testimonial for GWC [see 6162]. Feels himself poorly qualified to give a testimonial for a botanist and apologises for his brevity.
Thanks CD for testimonial.
Sends 2d ed. of his Essays on physiological subjects (1869).
Criticises chapter on good effect of crossing in Variation: (1) does not accept that inbreeding alone results in degeneracy; (2) good effects of crossing exaggerated; (3) denies deleterious effects of close marriage in humans.