132 SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION V 



Geometry, for which the present teaching power 

 is better organised, I understand are likely to 

 have three or four times as many papers. So far 

 as my own subjects are concerned, I can under- 

 take to say that a great deal of the teaching, the 

 results of which are before me in these examin- 

 ations, is very sound and good ; and I think it is 

 in the power of the examiners, not only to keep 

 up the present standard, but to cause an almost 

 unlimited improvement. 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 efficiency 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 



