shall diminish, or increase, the bills of mortality. Now what is it but
the preposterous condition of ordinary school education which prevents a
young man of seventeen, destined for the practice of medicine, from
being fully prepared for the study of nature; and from coming to the
medical school, equipped with that preliminary knowledge of the
principles of Physics, of Chemistry, and of Biology, upon which he has
now to waste one of the precious years, every moment of which ought to
be given to those studies which bear directly upon the knowledge of his
profession?

There is another profession, to the members of which, I think, a certain
preliminary knowledge of physical science might be quite as valuable as
to the medical man. The practitioner of medicine sets before himself the
noble object of taking care of man's bodily welfare; but the members of
this other profession undertake to "minister to minds diseased," and, so
far as may be, to diminish sin and soften sorrow. Like the medical
profession, the clerical, of which I now speak, rests its power to heal
upon its knowledge of the order of the universe--upon certain theories
of man's relation to that which lies outside him. It is not my business
to express any opinion about these theories. I merely wish to point out
that, like all other theories, they are professedly based upon matter of
fact. Thus the clerical profession has to deal with the facts of Nature
from a certain point of view; and hence it comes into contact with that
of the man of science, who has to treat the same facts from another
point of view. You know how often that contact is to be described as
collision, or violent friction; and how great the heat, how little the
light, which commonly results from it.

In the interests of fair play, to say nothing of those of mankind, I
ask, Why do not the clergy as a body acquire, as a part of their