54 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [iv. 



them, but for us. The army of liberal thought is, at present, in 

 very loose order ; and many a spirited free-thinker makes use of 

 his freedom mainly to vent nonsense. We should be the better 

 for a vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer us into cohesion 

 and discipline ; and I, for one, lament that the bench of Bishops 

 cannot show a man of the calibre of Butler of the &quot; Analogy,&quot; 

 who, if he were alive, would make short work of much of the 

 current d priori &quot; infidelity.&quot; 



I hope you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, 

 even if there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology 

 for urging the introduction of science into schools. The next 

 question to which I have to address myself is, What sciences 

 ought to be thus taught ? And this is one of the most important 

 of questions, because my side (I am afraid I am a terribly candid 

 friend) sometimes spoils its cause by going in for too much. 

 There are other forms of culture beside physical science ; and I 

 should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgotten, or even to 

 observe a tendency to starve, or cripple, literary, or aesthetic, 

 culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of the nature 

 of education has nothing to do with my firm conviction that 

 a complete and thorough scientific culture ought to be intro 

 duced into all schools. By this, however, I do not mean that 

 every schoolboy should be taught everything in science. That 

 would be a very absurd thing to conceive, and a very mischie 

 vous thing to attempt. What I mean is, that no boy nor girl 

 should leave school without possessing a grasp of the general 

 character of science, and without having been disciplined, more 

 or less, in the methods of all sciences ; so that, when turned into 

 the world to make their own way, they shall be prepared to face 

 scientific problems, not by knowing at once the conditions 

 of every problem, or by being able at once to solve it ; but 

 by being familiar with the general current of scientific thought, 

 and by being able to apply the methods of science in the proper 

 way, when they have acquainted themselves with the conditions, 

 of the special problem. 



