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public instruction, or shall we reject it? we shall admit it. But upon what grounds? I answer, because it is a fundamental branch of the hierarchy, and the knowledge of any thing whatever implies some knowledge of the truths and relations of space. To what extent shall we admit it? I answer, that it should be introduced to a sufficient extent to prepare the student for all the studies in the public course, at all dependent on geometry; but it must not be pursued to an extent sufficient to crowd out or exclude the studies for which it is a preparation. A due harmony and proportion must be maintained in the branches taught, and in deciding what this due proportion is, we must take into account the length and breadth of the curriculum, and the native powers and peculiar circumstances of the individual whose tuition is under consideration.

Then, in what form shall geometry be introduced?

as abstract science or as practical rule? — in theorems or in problems? and if in problems, shall they be solved by construction, or by calculation and analysis? I answer, that the method of nature is to rise from examples to principles, and that geometry should be presented first in concrete form to the eye and to the imagination, and made a matter of construction; afterward the pupil should be lifted up to a scientific and even to a metaphysical view of the abstract relations of space. The proportions in which these modes of presenting geometry should be em

ployed, will vary with the length of the curriculum, or course of studies, and be adapted somewhat to individual circumstances, but the ruling principle will always be the same, namely, to give so much and such geometrical training as will prepare the pupil, as well as his powers and his circumstances will admit, for an understanding of the full circle of sciences, and thus for the fulfilment of all the duties of his station in life.

The answers which I have thus given concerning the science of geometry will be acknowledged, I think, by all educators to be, in the main, sound; and the practice of all schools and colleges in the world is in essential conformity thereto. In some institutions geometry may be neglected, in others overcultivated; in some treated too abstractly, in others made too much a mere matter of drawing with compass and ruler; but all this arises from errors of judg ment in applying the fundamental principles of education to the question, and not from any doubt concerning the principles themselves.

Turning now to the main object of my discourse, I ask, Shall religion be introduced into the course of public instruction, or shall it be utterly excluded? And the answer seems to me plain, that we must admit it. Even in an intellectual point of view, theology is one of the fundamental branches of the hierarchy of sciences, and so completely interwoven with the rest, that we do not and cannot fully com

unjust in compelling them to pay taxes to sustain such school The writer of this article is a Protestant of the most radical does not stop with Martin Luther, but who protests against all

prehend any one of them, until we have traced it in its relations to theology.

Begin with the simplest of all branches, the mathematics, and a moment's reflection will show how utterly worthless they are in every other light than this, that they alone give us a knowledge of the exactness of God's thought, and alone are capable of demonstrating to us, from the manifestation of thought in the creation, the necessity of supposing the existence of a Thinker. In using the mathe

matics for this purpose, of discovering the harmonies of creation, and for testing the infinite perfection of nature's works, we have the most effective means of improving the mathematics themselves.

Thus, all great improvements in the sciences of space and time have arisen from some effort to solve the problems suggested by the works of nature; and a large proportion of them have been made by those who were stimulated to the solution of these problems by the faith that they thereby came into communion with the thoughts of the Most High.

In like manner, physics are not carried to their true conclusions until they lead us to speculate concerning the origin of matter, and to trace the designs and plans of the Architect of the universe; and, on the other hand, these teleological and morphological speculations have borne their natural fruit, in leading to wider and more exact views of the physical sciences. In illustration of this statement, I would

simply refer to two of the greatest of all names in zoology, which is the crowning division of physical sciences; to Cuvier, who was led to his wondrous discoveries by his steady adherence to the axiom, that every organ was intelligently adapted to its functions; and to Agassiz, who could advance beyond his master only by taking a still higher religious view, and assuming that every variation in animal forms, and every succession in those variations, is in fulfilment of one comprehensive plan of the Divine thought.

When we ascend into historical studies, their incompleteness, when treated independently of their relations to theology, is still more apparent. How poor would be the narrative of the growth of the arts of life, if we did not recognize the adaptation of the physical world to the needs of man, and the beneficence of the divine Creator in that adaptation. How unsatisfactory our enjoyment of art, and how defective our survey of the field of æsthetics, did we not perceive here also the tokens of a divine nature in man, which makes him capable of appreciating the mind of God, as manifested in the forms and colors and tones of the material world. The music of nature is adapted to man; and our knowledge of music is not complete until we have perceived this adaptation, and seen that it arises from the kindness of a beneficent Creator. Thus, also, is philology incomplete, unless it leads upward to theology. What

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unjust in compelling them to pay taxes to sustain such schools? The writer of this article is a Protestant of the most radical typ does not stop with Martin Luther, but who protests against all obsta

are the various languages of man but so many barbarous dialects, until the clear light of a religious mind is thrown upon the study of words, and we are taught to hear in the sounds of human speech - so simple in their elements, so infinitely various in their combinations - the proofs of a Divine Providence, and to trace, in the development and growth of languages, the plan of an infinitely wise Teacher, carried out, like his plans concerning the material world, by the means of exceedingly simple but efficient laws? And in the sciences of political economy and law, in the history of governments and of nations, what order or what completeness can there be in the studies of one who does not seek the footsteps of God in history, who does not recognize the paternal character of God, and the wisdom of his plans for the development of races, as the fundamental axioms of historical research?

Nor, finally, is the study of the human mind complete, unless it leads us to the study of theology, and is guided by the light which is from above. No man can possibly view the human soul aright, who looks upon it either as the highest manifestation of matter, or as the highest possible manifestation of spirit. Then only can we understand ourselves aright, when we find in our own minds feebler glimmerings of that infinite wisdom which guides alike the atoms and the planets, fainter emotions of that unfathomable love which has filled the universe with its myri

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