From Horace Darwin to G. H. Darwin 17 February 1879

Dear George.

I have just com back from Cambridge where I have had a very pleasant stay. I found Frank not very well, he had caught rather a bad cold, & had been troubled with headaches again. Dew & Michael thougt that he ought to shut up work altogether but he of course was very unwilling to do this and went to see Clarke on Friday & he did not give such a bad opinion of him, & let him go on with his work, & said he was all sound. I think he is going to see Clarke again when he gets better of his cold & Clarke give him hopes of doing his head aches some good. He does not seem to be working quite so very hard this term. Gerald has been appointed lecturer on approval; of which he & Frank seem very glad.

I have had a great deal of talk with Stuart about the shop, & I will give you a short account of the state things are in. DewSmith & Falcher, are going to leave the shops, and are going to set up on their own account, they find that they cannot make it pay, & generally cant get on with the present arrangements. There are 19 pupils working in the shop. Stuart is really anxious for me to come up & help him. What he proposed is that I should become a partner with him in the shop as commercial concerne, dividing the profets both from the pupils & the work turned out. There are many objections to this too many to go into, but the first is that I am convinced that the profts will be little or more probably nothing. For this he wished me to to take the entire management of the shop as regards buying material, making out prime cost &c. &c. & consequencely stay up most of the vacations. Now this I should all do badly, besides being unpleasant work, & so I told him. He would wish me to do any designing of instruments that might be ordered; which I should like; also teach mechanical drawing, surveying, leveling, & teach the pupils along with Stuart. This would be too much work for me I think. I suggested to him that my being made a demonstrator, would be far better; but then I do not think I should be inclined to stay up in the vacations for the £100 or the £150 that the University would give me. I gave no definite answer, but said I would consider it. I think I shall go up for the May term and offer to do any thing that Stuart would like me, to see how I liked it, of course with out pay if Stuart will agree to this. I am rather low about it, but what incourages me is that Stuart evedently wants me to come a good deal, & I also think I should do the teaching better than Stuart does, you know I should very much like to do anything I could to make an Engineering School up here. It is also against it having to get new men; as Falcher of course goes with Dew-Smith. I shall go up again for a bit this term I hope & look about me more. All this ought to be more or less private I suppose but Stuart did not say so. I have had a long talk with Father about it, and every one at home. When you come back I shall want to talk it over more fully & see what you think. It would not come off till Oct. I think.

I have exhuasted myself & can write no more. Give my love to Frank, & tell him that Uberdubba did not recognise Ida on Sunday much to her grief, but he on the whole was very kind to her, & she in consequence did not break her heart. How jolly your weather sounds.

Your affec brother | Horace Darwin

I enclose a circular which you may possibly like to see.