I enjoy listening to Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" on NPR in the morning. He always mentions the birthdays of famous people, and today in 1796 was the birthday Horace Mann, a Unitarian who, when he was named president of Antioch College, caused the ire of the founding Christian Church because of his reforms. He is most known for being the greatest American advocate for free and universal public education. He was also a vigorous foe of slavery and an advocate for women's rights (Antioch was the first college in the US to offer equal educational opportunities to blacks and women.) It's also the birthday in 1825 of biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (Aldous' grandfather), the fervent suppporter of evolution (he was known as "Darwin's Bulldog".) At the same time, he found what he regarded as flaws in Darwin's theories, and he may have been the first scientist to envision the concept of punctuated equilibrium. Huxley is credited with coining the term "agnostic", thus enabling many of us to identify OUR faith.
