102 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [vi. 



intellectual revolution mankind has yet seen is now slowly 

 taking place by her agency. She is teaching the world that 

 the ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment, 

 and not authority; she is teaching it to estimate the value 

 of evidence ; she is creating a firm and living faith in the 

 existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect 

 obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an intelligent 

 being. 



But of all this, your old stereotyped system of education 

 takes no note. Physical science, its methods, its problems, and 

 its difficulties, will meet the poorest boy at every turn, and yet 

 we educate him in such a manner that he shall enter the world 

 as ignorant of the existence of the methods and facts of science 

 as the day he was bom. The modern world is full of artillery ; 

 and we turn out our children to do battle in it, equipped with 

 the shield and Sword of an ancient gladiator. 



Posterity will cry shame on us if we do not remedy this 

 deplorable state of things. Nay, if we live twenty years longer, 

 our own consciences will cry shame on us. 



It is my firm conviction that the only way to remedy it is, 

 to make the elements of physical science an integral part of 

 primary education. I have endeavoured to show you how that 

 may be done for that branch of science which it is my business 

 to pursue ; and I can but add, that I should look upon the day 

 when every schoolmaster throughout this land was a centre of 

 genuine, however rudimentary, scientific knowledge, as an epoch 

 in the history of the country. 



But let me entreat you to remember my last words. Address 

 ing myself to you, as teachers, I would say, mere book learning 

 in physical science is a sham and a delusion what you teach, 

 unless you wish to be imposters, that you must first know ; and 

 real knowledge in science means personal acquaintance with the 

 facts, be they few or many. 1 



1 It has been suggested to me that these words may be taken to imply a 

 discouragement on my part of any sort of scientific instruction which does 

 not give an acquaintance with the facts at first hand. But this is not my 

 meaning. The ideal of scientific teaching is, no doubt, a system by which 



