XXX VIII ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
that moment of transition. Not merely did Professor Tyndall, in his 
Belfast address, declare that materialistic Atheism did not commend 
itself to his judgment, but, at the present moment, there is hardly a man 
eminent in science who will not declare that Materialism is an impossible 
theory of the world. 
May we not say that men of science are, more and more, returning 
to the position of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, who declared: “I had 
rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the. 
Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind? ” 
If I have ventured here to bring forward these statements, it is not. 
merely for the purpose of asserting an interesting theoretical truth, but 
with a practical intention. If our science is to be of any real value, it 
must guide our methods of education. If we are to be students of litera- 
ture, we must consider well all the extent and bearings of literature. 
To be brief, we must ask why the Sacred Scriptures should be excluded. 
from our system of education in Ontario. We may regard the subject 
from the point of view of Science or of Literature. Take the last first. 
Certainly the sacred writings are literature—of a very high class and of 
very wide influence. Many years ago an ingenious gentleman imagined 
a dream in which it was discovered that all the quotations and allusions 
borrowed from the Sacred Scriptures had vanished from the literature of 
the world. The chasm was vast, the loss was irreparable. ‘The best 
parts of the greatest writers had disappeared. How is it, then, that every 
other literature, Greek and Roman, French, German and Italian, is 
allowed a place in our school and college curriculum, but not this? We 
may read the writings of Homer, and Virgil, and Dante, and Moliére, 
and Goethe and Shakespeare ; but we may not read or teach the writings 
of Moses, or David, or Isaiah, or Paul, or John. But this is not all. We 
need the ideal element in education. It is not enough to plod along, 
adding up rows of figures, criticizing sentences and paragraphs, cram- 
ming formule of all kinds in all sorts of sciences; it is necessary, if men 
are to be more than machines and “ patent digesters,” that they should 
have set before them some high ideal of life and action to which they 
might be taught to aspire. How are we to bring this about ? By the 
three R’s? By reading, writing, and arithmetic, by grammar, geography, 
chemistry, and all the other sciences ? No one will venture to say so: 
We must bring it about, if it is to be brought about, by religion. And 
I know not, nobody knows, where this religion is to be found so well 
set forth and illustrated as in the Collection of Books which we call the | 
Bible. , 
It will be said, this is adequately done in the Separate Schools. Yes. 
All honour to the Roman Catholics of the Dominion: they have not 
