“There are subjects that are usually comprised in the education of young children,” said he, “which we, after deep and anxious thought, have seen fit to omit from the curriculum of our son and daughter. We have taken special pains to impress upon their various instructors, as also upon the persons appointed to their personal service, that a certain part of their minds should be kept free, entirely clear and free from certain impressions, that they should remain, so to speak, a blank as far as regards this form of knowledge. The form of knowledge I allude to—” he continued, his eye falling once more on the luckless Dacre who was drinking in his words with open-eyed wonder, and, finding the boy useful as a target, he fixed him inexorably until the end of the discourse. “The form of knowledge I allude to is that known as the knowledge of religion. It is sometimes called a sense, and has in a manner become so by heredity, but I doubt much whether it was innate in the race in the beginning. This point of view has of course powerful advocates, as we all know, at least—” he added coughing nervously, “as Mr. Fellowes and his wife know. However, this question though most interesting is not necessary to my explanation.” Here his eye which had swerved for a moment, again caught Dacre’s. “The reasons why we have insisted upon the denial of this knowledge to our children are many. Firstly, my wife and I consider that it is hardly fair to any human creature, with normal brain power in its young receptive condition, to give this brain power a distinct bias with regard to the fundamental points of any science. I speak of it not in the common but in the original application of the word, which is merely empiric and can certainly not be looked upon as proven in any part,—however great its ethical value as a factor of culture may be,” he added with an apologetic glance at the rector. “For the same reason we have withheld geology and the advanced parts of several of the natural sciences, wherein is evolved the doctrine of evolution. But of these later.