On 



PREFACE 



THE apology offered in the Preface to the 

 volume of this series for the occurrence of repe- 

 titions, is even more needful here I am afraid. 

 But it could hardly be otherwise with speeches and 

 essays, on the same topic, addressed at intervals, 

 during more than thirty years, to widely distant 

 and different hearers and readers. The oldest 

 piece, that " On the Educational Value of the 

 Natural History Sciences," contains some crudities, 

 which I repudiated when the lecture was first 

 reprinted, more than twenty years ago; but it 

 will be seen that much of what I have had to 

 say, later on in life, is merely a development of 

 the propositions enunciated in this early and 

 sadly-imperfect piece of work. 



In view of the recent attempt to disturb the 

 compromise about the teaching of dogmatic 



