130 SELECTED ESS A YS FROM LA Y SERMONS 



stand are likely to have three or four times as many papers. 

 So far as my own subjects are concerned, I can undertake 

 to say that a great deal of the teaching, the results of which 

 are before me in these examinations, 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 coun- 

 try 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 ef- 

 ficiency 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 call- 

 ing 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 those 

 who have no other leisure, in a knowledge of the phenomena 

 of Nature, and of man's relation to Nature? 



I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every 

 parish, not for the purpose of superseding any existing 

 means of teaching the people the things that are for their 

 good, but side by side with them. I cannot but think that 

 there is room for all of us to work in helping to bridge over 

 the great abyss of ignorance which lies at our feet. 



And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have 



