Tasked with developing the Biology Department, Huxley had to design a curriculum essentially from scratch. He accordingly drew upon his prior experiences at English universities and his personal philosophy on teaching and what constituted a proper biological education.

In this letter, Huxley expressed his early thoughts on developing the Biology program at Rice to Edgar Odell Lovett. Most notable are the following:

• Suggests Rice adopts the “principle of second parts” as is taught at Cambridge, which consists of initial broadly based teaching then shifts to specialization in a student’s desired area of interest.
• Advocates for lots of practical teaching and requests lots of specimens for observation.
• Proposes the following preliminary courses: (1.) Physics, (2.) Chemistry, (3) Zoology, (4) Botany, (5) Physiology.
• Students must take (1), (2), and pick between (3),(4), and (5)
• Recommends that they implement a mandatory literature and composition course for first-years in science (and perhaps all majors), as he cites how “deplorable” it is for him to see “men of science” lacking in such an important area.

Additionally, developing a department with only so few faculty members, Huxley had to decide what biological studies were most important for the Rice Institute to devote its resources. Of course, given their established history and practical application, Zoology and Botany were at the top of the list. However, Huxley felt that given the university’s resources and his strong belief in the importance of specialization, he must pick between the two.

Hence, Huxley tells President Lovett that he is against hiring a “botanically-trained assistant” for the Biology department. He seems to argue that Botany and Zoology are much too different, that it would be difficult to study both at the advanced level, and that students would then need to pick one or the other, necessitating the development of two separate departments. Additionally, Huxley believed that Zoology was more practical, especially in Texas, given how prevalent diseases such as malaria were. As a result of these many factors, he advised the department to specialize only in Zoology during its early years.

Early library records regarding the biology department also provide insight into what the early faculty thought was important. This list of the department’s holdings was compiled the year after Huxley left and contributed to by Muller, Altenburg, and Huxley. Notably, amongst this list are two books by Charles Davenport, one of which is Heredity in Relation to Eugenics.

Explicit references to eugenics were also made in the opening ceremony of the Rice Institute in a speech called “The University: Its Studies and Standards:”

Yet, all would agree, I think, that in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology we have logical series carefully coordinated in subject-matter and sequence, furnishing the theoretic foundations for the applied sciences of engineering, economics, eugenics, and education. (147)

While it is unclear whether eugenics was taught in Biology 100, the general biology course, it was a definitive topic of interest in Biology 300: “Evolution and Heredity” taught by Muller and Altenburg as “heredity and eugenics” was included in the course description of the class. 

One contemporary record of what was taught in this class is George C. Wheeler’s class notes. These notes detail well-known names in eugenics, such as Galton and Davenport, and reference the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor. As such, his notes detail many aspects of eugenics, such as the goal of improving mankind and the potential policy the movement was trying to implement: 

Prevent the feeble-minded, drunkards, paupers, sex-offenders, and criminalists from marrying their like or any person belonging to a neuropathic strain (Wheeler 1916).

A chief concern of Huxley regarding the biology department was recruiting a competent faculty. Thus, Huxley recruited the doctoral student Hermann Joseph Muller from T.H. Morgan’s fly laboratory, understanding that this cutting-edge research in fruit-fly genetics would play an essential role in the future of biology. As such, after arriving at Rice, Muller went on to teach upper-level genetics classes and continued his fruit-fly research.

In his autobiography, Huxley wrote, “inviting H.J. Muller to come to Rice as my assistant—one of the most sensible things I ever did. Muller was a tower of strength, and managed to carry on with his genetical researches as well as helping me with teaching and demonstrating” (Memories 91). 

Unfortunately, Muller did not stay at the Institute for long. Shortly after Huxley returned to Europe, Muller returned to Columbia University, writing to Huxley:

“O, I am glad I came back to Columbia—none of your ‘first in an Illyrian village rather than second in Rome’ business for me.’” (MS 474, Box 3, Folder 3)

After Columbia, Muller returned to Texas, namely to the University of Texas, where he studied the effects of radium and X-rays on heredity and mutations. In the wake of the atomic bomb, he earned the Nobel Prize for this research. 

However, while Muller only stayed at Rice for a short time, Huxley indirectly managed to recruit a faculty member who remained there. This is because Muller went on to recruit Edgar Altenburg, a friend from Morgan’s fruit-fly lab, to join him at Rice. Altenburg became a well-known name in the Rice biology department, having worked there for 50 years.

Another major success for the Rice Institute and an example of Huxley’s legacy was his recruitment of Joseph Davies as a lab assistant. Brought to Rice by Huxley with only the equivalent of two years of high school education, Davies would become one of the most legendary professors in Rice’s history, teaching Biology 100 until his death in 1966. 

In the 1966 Campanile, dedicated in his memory, students wrote the following:

Perhaps it was his theatrical touch, his keen flair for wit, or his deep affection for his classes, for he knew each student by name; whatever it was he was a legend.

Davies was well known amongst students for delivering passionate and engaging lectures in Biology 100, and for bringing boxes of frogs to class and throwing them at the students. Additionally, he was somewhat of a big name on campus as he frequented parties and often chaperoned them—albeit not very attentively. Davies had undoubtedly cemented himself as an icon in Rice’s history as alums still look back at him as a highlight of their Rice experience.

In Memories, Huxley recounts his time with Davies, reminiscing how the two would travel around campus and beyond to collect specimens for the biology lab. He describes him as an “excellent and energetic laboratory assistant” (98). However, this comment can be interpreted in a few ways, as Huxley was well known for leaving his work for others to do. A later faculty member who became close to Davies would recall that Davies “did everything for Huxley,” no doubt having heard of his early days at Rice.​

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