A Public Servant
William Garnett. By Bernard M. Allen. (Hefter. 3s. 6d.) Tins is an all too brief account of a man whose life of eighty years was full of work the effect of which is likely to be felt for centuries. At Nottingham, at Newcastle, he had left an almost indelible mark : to mention but one of his achieve- ments, he was one of the chief agents in opening the degrees of Durham University to women. In earlier Cambridge days he was the coadjutor of the illustrious Clerk Maxwell, and the author of treatises on dynamics and heat which were once known to " every schoolboy." Still more famous —indeed so marvellous as to have become legendary— were the feats he performed as steward of St. John's College. Faced with a strike of the whole domestic staff, he arranged with a London caterer for the supply of a new staff, and—so rumour runs—became chef himself, with the result that very speedily " Garnett's sixpenny blow-outs " became the cheapest and best in the University. There is a story— the truth of which is not guaranteed—that once, in his enthusiasm for wholesale prices, he ordered from Billingsgate a fish considerably larger than the " rhombus " immortalized by Juvenal. This monster satiated the Fellows for several days ; but more than about half of it was never eaten, for certain natural processes compelled them to insist that the remainder should be disposed of in some other way.
This indomitable energy showed itself throughout Garnett's whole life. It was he who, along with Sidney Webb, Robert Morant, and Balfour, carried through the Education Acts of 1902 and 1903, despite resistance both passive and active ; and it was he who, as Educational Adviser to the London County Council, started the committees on the path which they have since followed. After the War, he undertook the gigantic task of organizing the higher education of ex- : service officers and men. All these were but " parts of his ways." Few more useful lives have been lived ; and Mr. Allen has done good service in seeing to it that such a career
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