io8 Selections from Huxley 



school you know well, and at the head of which is an old 

 friend of mine, the Rev. Mr. Wilson to whom much 

 credit is due for being one of the first, as I can say from 

 my own knowledge, to take up this question and work 

 5 it into practical shape. What Mr. Worthington says is 

 this : 



" It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of the 

 information imparted by certain branches of science; it 

 modifies the whole criticism of life made in maturer 



10 years. The study has often, on a mass of boys, a certain 

 influence which, I think, was hardly anticipated, and to 

 which a good deal of value must be attached an influence 

 as much moral as intellectual, which is shown in the in- 

 creased and increasing respect for precision of statement, 



15 and for that form of veracity which consists in the ac- 

 knowledgment of difficulties. It produces a real effect to 

 find that Nature cannot be imposed upon, and the atten- 

 tion given to experimental lectures, at first superficial and 

 curious only, soon becomes minute, serious, and practical." 



20 Ladies and gentlemen, I could not have chosen better 

 words to express in fact, I have, in other words, ex- 

 pressed the same conviction in former days what the in- 

 fluence of scientific teaching, if properly carried out, 

 must be. 



25 But now comes the question of properly carrying it out, 

 because, when I hear the value of school teaching in 

 physical science disputed, my first impulse is to ask the 

 disputer, "What have you known about it?" and he 

 generally tells me some lamentable case of failure. Then 



30 I ask, " What are the circumstances of the case, and how 

 was the teaching carried out ? " I remember, some few 

 years ago, hearing of the head master of a large school, 

 who had expressed great dissatisfaction with the adoption 



