To G. W. Child 6 May [1868]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
May 6.
Dear Sir
As I am not a professed botanist I do not feel myself entitled to give a testimonial in regard to your fitness for occupying the Botanical chair at Oxford.2 But I have pleasure in saying that your Essays have given me a favourable idea of your capacity & of your love for science.3
Your experimental researches on the Production of Organisms in closed vessels, published by the Royal Society, seem to have been performed with much care, & are in my opinion valuable, whatever result may be finally arrived at in this difficult question.4
Believe me dear Sir | yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin
To Dr G. W. Child
Footnotes
Bibliography
Child, Gilbert William. 1864. Experimental researches on spontaneous generation. [Read 16 June 1864.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 13: 313–14.
Child, Gilbert William. 1865. Further experiments on the production of organisms in closed vessels. [Read 27 April 1865.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 14: 178–86.
Summary
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].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6162
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Gilbert William Child
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Royal College of Physicians of London (RCP/LEGAC/1001/64)
- Physical description
- LS 3pp & ADraftS 1p
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6162,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6162.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 16
