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
Showing 1–6 of 6 items
Requests CD testimonial for Sherardian Professorship of Botany.
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.
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].