iv.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. Gl 



Now what does this mean? It means that by holding out a 

 very moderate inducement, the masters of primary schools in 

 many parts of the country have been led to convert them into 

 little foci of scientific instruction ; and that they and their pupils 

 have contrived to find, or to make, time enough to carry out this 

 object with a very considerable degree of efficiency. That effi 

 ciency will, I doubt not, be very much increased as the system 

 becomes known and perfected, even with the very limited leisure 

 left to masters and teachers on week-days. And this leads me 

 to ask, Why should scientific teaching be limited to week-days ? 



Ecclesiastically-minded persons are in the habit of calling 

 things they do not like by very hard names, and I should not 

 wonder if they brand the proposition I am about to make as 

 blasphemous, and worse. But, not minding this, I venture to ask, 

 Would there really be anything wrong in using part of Sunday 

 for the purpose of instructing those who have no other leisure, in a 

 knowledge of the phenomena of Nature, and of man s relation to 

 Nature ? 



I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every parish, 

 not for the purpose of superseding any existing means of teach 

 ing the people the things that are for their good, but side by side 

 with them. I cannot but think that there is room for all of us 

 to work in helping to bridge over the great abyss of ignorance 

 which lies at our feet. 



And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have referred, 

 object that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom 

 they worship, to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite 

 wonder and majesty of the works which they proclaim His, and 

 to teach them those laws which must needs be His laws, and 

 therefore of all things needful for man to know I can only 

 recommend them to be let blood and put on low diet. There 

 must be something very wrong going on in the instrument of 

 logic, if it turns out such conclusions from such premises. 



