instil that knowledge into boys whose real business is the acquisition
of reading, writing, and arithmetic?

These questions are, and will be, very commonly asked, for they arise
from that profound ignorance of the value and true position of physical
science, which infests the minds of the most highly educated and
intelligent classes of the community. But if I did not feel well
assured that they are capable of being easily and satisfactorily
answered; that they have been answered over and over again; and that
the time will come when men of liberal education will blush to raise
such questions,--I should be ashamed of my position here to-night.
Without doubt, it is your great and very important function to carry
out elementary education; without question, anything that should
interfere with the faithful fulfilment of that duty on your part would
be a great evil; and if I thought that your acquirement of the elements
of physical science, and your communication of those elements to your
pupils, involved any sort of interference with your proper duties, I
should be the first person to protest against your being encouraged to
do anything of the kind.

But is it true that the acquisition of such a knowledge of science as is
proposed, and the communication of that knowledge, are calculated to
weaken your usefulness? Or may I not rather ask, is it possible for
you to discharge your functions properly without these aids?

What is the purpose of primary intellectual education? I apprehend that
its first object is to train the young in the use of those tools
wherewith men extract knowledge from the ever-shifting succession of
phenomena which pass before their eyes; and that its second object is
to inform them of the fundamental laws which have been found by