“You forget, Uncle Peyton, that in this rapidly advancing age only improved educational systems will enable men and women to appreciate the importance of its discoveries.”

“My dear boy, are sudden and violent changes always synonymous with advancement?  Is transition inevitably improvement?  Was the social status of Paris after the revolution of 1790 an appreciable progress from the morals, religious or political, that existed in the days of Fenelon?  In mechanical, agricultural, and chemical departments the march is indeed nobly on and upward, the discoveries and improvements are vast and wonderful, and for these physical material blessings we are entirely indebted to Science, toiling, heroic, and truly beneficent Science.  In morals, public or private—­religion, national or individual—­or in civil polity, have we advanced?  Has liberty of action kept pace with liberty of opinion?  Are Americans as truly free to-day as they certainly were fifty years ago?  In aesthetics do we surpass Phidias and Praxiteles, Raphael and Michael Angelo?  Is our music more perfect than Pergolesi’s or Mozart’s?  Can we exhibit any marvels of architecture that excel the glory of Philae, Athens, Paestum, and Agra?  Are wars less bloody, or is crime less rampant?  Our arrogant assumption of superiority is sometimes mournfully rebuked.  For instance, one of the most eminent and popular scientists of England emphasised his views on the necessity of ’improving natural knowledge,’ by ascribing the great plague of 1664, and the great fire of 1666—­which in point of population and of houses, nearly swept London from the face of the globe—­to ignorance and neglect of sanitary laws, and to the failure to provide suitable organizations for the suppression of conflagrations.  He proudly asserted that the recurrence of such catastrophes is now prohibited by scientific arrangements ‘that never allow even a street to burn down,’ and that ’it is the improvement of our own natural knowledge which keeps back the plague.’  I think I am warranted in the assumption that our American Fire Departments, Insurance Companies, and Boards of Health are quite as advanced, progressive, and scientific as similar associations in Great Britain; yet the week after I read his argument, an immense city lay almost in ruins; and ere many months passed, several towns and districts of our land were scourged, desolated by pestilence so fatal, so unconquerable, that the horrors of the plague were revived, and the living were scarcely able to sepulchre the dead.  Now and then we have solemn admonitions of the Sisyphian tendency of the attempt so oft defeated, so persistently renewed to banish a Personal and Ruling God, and substitute the scientific fetich, ‘Force and Matter,’ ‘Natural Law,’ ‘Evolution,’ or ‘Development.’  While I desire that the basis of Regina’s education shall be sufficiently broad, liberal, and comprehensive, I intend to be careful what doctrines are propounded; for unfortunately all who sympathize with the atheism of Comte, have not his noble frankness, and fail to print as he did on his title-page: