Ixxxii REPORT — 1855. 



are the primary supporters of our existing educational system. In the last 

 Report of the Council of the Geographical Society, they announce a com- 

 munication from the Committee of Privy Council, requesting the Society to 

 appoint an Examiner in Geography, to be associated with other examiners 

 on other branches of education. It may be well worthy of consideration, 

 whether the same expedient might not be usefully adopted in reference to 

 other branches of science, which have hitherto formed a less admitted part 

 of ordinary instruction. 



And this. Gentlemen, brings me to say, that the Advancement of Science 

 depends, above all things, on securing for it a better and more ac- 

 knowledged place in the education of the young. There are many signs 

 that the time is coming when our wishes in this respect will be fulfilled. 

 They would be fulfilled, perhaps, still more rapidly, but for the operation 

 of obstructing causes, some of which we should do well to notice. How 

 often do we find it assumed, that those who urge the claims of Science 

 are desirous of depreciating some one or more of the older and more sacred 

 branches of education ! In respect to elementary schools we are generally 

 opposed, as aiming at the displacement of religious teaching ; whilst in 

 respect to the higher schools and colleges, the cudgels are taken up in 

 behalf of classical attainments. A remarkable example of the influence 

 of these feelings will be found in a speech delivered by Lord Lyndhurst 

 during the late session of Parliament. With all the power of his digni- 

 fied and commanding eloquence he asserted the right of the elder studies 

 to their time-honoured pre-eminence ; and in the keen pursuit of this 

 argument even he was almost tempted to speak in a tone of some deprecia- 

 tion of those noble pursuits in which the University of which he is a distin- 

 guished ornament has won no small portion of her fame. But surely no 

 enlightened friend of the Natural Sciences would seek to challenge this 

 imaginary competition. Perhaps, indeed, like other zealous advocates, we 

 may have sometimes overstrained our language, and have thereby given such 

 vantage-ground to pi-ejudice, that it has been enabled to assume the form of 

 just objection. We cannot too earnestly disclaim the idea that the know- 

 ledge of physical laws can ever of itself form the groundwork of any active 

 influence in morals or religion. Any such idea would only betray our igno- 

 rance of some of the deepest principles of our nature. But this does not 

 aflfect the estimate which we may justly put on an early training in the 

 principles of physical research. That estimate may be not tlie less a high 

 one, because it does not assign to science what belongs to other things. 



There is one aspect in which we do not require to plead the cause of 

 science as an element in education, and on that, therefore, I shall not dwell. 

 I mean that in which certain applied sciences are recognized as the essential 

 bases of professional training: as, for example, when the engineer is trained 

 in the principles of mechanics and hydrostatics, or the physician in those of 

 chemistry. Of course, with everj" new application of the sciences to the arts 

 of life this direct influence will extend. But what we desire, and ought to 

 aim at, is something more. It is, that absti-act science, without special refer- 

 ence to its departmental application, should be more recognized as an essen- 

 tial element in every liberal education. W^e desire this on two grounds 

 mainly ; first, thai it will contribute more than anything else to the further 

 advancement of science itself; and, secondly, because we believe that it 

 would be an instrument of vital benefit in the culture and strengthening of 

 the mental powers. 



But, as regards both these great objects, we must remember that much 

 will depend on the manner in which elementary instruction in science is con- 



