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 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 referred, object
that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom they worship,
to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite wonder and majesty of
the works which they proclaim His, and to teach them those laws which