PREFACE 



The apology offered in the Preface to the first 

 volume of this series for the occurrence of repeti- 

 tions, is even more needful here I am afraid. But 

 it could hardly be otherwise with speeches and 

 essays, on the same topic, addressed at intervals, 

 during more than thirty years, to widely distant 

 and different hearers; and readers. The oldest 

 piece, that " On the Educational Value of the 

 Natural History Sciences," contains some crudities, 

 which I repudiated when the lecture was first 

 reprinted, more than twenty years ago; but it 

 will be seen that much of what I have had to say, 

 later on in life, is merely ^ development of the 

 propositions enunciated in this early and sadly- 

 imperfect piece of work. 



In view of the recent attempts to disturb the 

 compromise about the teaching of dogmatic the- 



