152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the philosophy ; and leads in its higher developments at least 

 to a kind of Christian pantheism that every religion must 

 admit is good as far as it goes. Science must purge myth 

 of its fetishism and idolatry, and myth must keep science 

 alive with warm human interests. 



In some sections of our country it would almost seem that 

 nature work is declining relatively to its former prominence, 

 and is certainly far less central than it should be. City life is 

 unfavorable to fresh contact with nature at very many points, 

 and adequate illustrative material is hard to get; so that 

 teachers sometimes give up in despair, because these branches 

 cannot be presented according to modern object methods. 

 Moreover, city children are, as abundant records show, 

 amazingly ignorant of the commonest phenomena of nature. 

 On the other hand, there has been recent progress which we 

 must all hail with great joy. Religion and science are each 

 giving abundant signs that the long warfare between them 

 is drawing to a close. This means an immense economy of 

 energy, hitherto wasted in conflict between two great human 

 interests, neither of which can satisfactorily flourish without 

 the other. Many do not realize how far we have advanced 

 since the days of Huxley's greatest bitterness, Tyndall's 

 prayer gage, and the crass materialism of Buechner and 

 Moleschott. Faith and science cannot be opposed. The 

 great Heart of the universe does not do one thing in his 

 works and say another in his word. The attitude of young 

 scientific students toward religion is crowing more and more 

 favorable. Clergymen are more interested in science, and 

 the plea that it must be an element in all theological training 

 and also in the Sunday-school is now being heard. We also 

 hear fewer denunciations of "science falsely so called" in 

 the pulpit, and the same student now often believes in and is 

 interested in Genesis and in geology. The mystery and law- 

 fulness of nature everywhere inclines to that religious awe, 

 reverence and dependence which Schleiermacher well makes 

 the basis of relioion in the soul. The same great biologos 

 that presided over the formation of the amoeba, jelly fish and 

 the ascending orders of vertebrate life, up to man, is not yet 

 adequately expressed, but has in it the momentum of far 

 higher evolution. The super man that is to be and above 



