TREBELL. Then I'm offering you the foundation of a new Order of men and women who'll serve God by teaching his children. Now shall we finish the conversation in prose? CANTELUPE. [_Not to be put down._] What is the prose for God? TREBELL. [_Not to be put down either._] That's what we irreligious people are giving our lives to discover. [_He plunges into detail._] I'm proposing to found about seventy-two new colleges, and of course, to bring the ones there are up to the new standard. Then we must gradually revise all teaching salaries in government schools ... to a scale I have in mind. Then the course must be compulsory and the training time doubled-- CANTELUPE. Doubled! Four years? TREBELL. Well, a minimum of three ... a university course. Remember we're turning a trade into a calling. CANTELUPE. There's more to that than taking a degree. TREBELL. I think so. You've fought for years for your tests and your atmosphere with plain business men not able to understand such lunacy. Quite right ... atmosphere's all that matters. If one and one don't make two by God's grace.... CANTELUPE. Poetry again! TREBELL. I beg your pardon. Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do away with text-book teachers. CANTELUPE _is opening out a little in spite of himself._ CANTELUPE. I'm waiting for our opinions to differ. TREBELL. [_Businesslike again._] I'll send you a draft of the statutes I propose within a week. Meanwhile shall I put the offer this way. If I accept your tests will you accept mine? CANTELUPE. What are yours? TREBELL. I believe if one provides for efficiency one provides for the best part of truth ... honesty of statement. I shall hope for a little more elasticity in your dogmas than Becket or Cranmer or Laud would have allowed. When you've a chance to re-formulate the reasons of your faith for the benefit of men teaching mathematics and science and history and political economy, you won't neglect to answer or allow for criticisms and doubts. I don't see why ... in spite of all the evidence to the contrary ... such a thing as progress in a definite religious faith is impossible. CANTELUPE. Progress is a soiled word. [_And now he weighs his words._] I shall be very glad to accept on the Church's behalf control of the teaching of teachers in these colleges. TREBELL. Good. I want the best men. CANTELUPE. You are surprisingly inexperienced if you think that creeds can ever become mere forms except to those who have none.