The Editor of the Fortnightly has a perfect right to
attack the -views of this journal, but he should not misrepresent them. Over and over again, in his second and very brilliant article on National Education, he uses a phrase which implies, even if it sloes not directly say, that in the opinion of the Spectator geo- graphy cannot be taught except through Genesis. If he had ever honoured this paper by reading its articles on Darwin, he would know that it has little wish to force Genesis down children's throats. Our contention is that no teacher can frankly teach geography—can explain, for example, what a Delta is—if his mouth is shut upon the Biblical account which the children read at home. He must either say he believes the chronology of Genesis or he does not, or teach imperfectly, not to say hypocriti- cally, without any explanation. Our own view has been explained again and again,—that Genesis is valuable as showing how in- stinctive the desire to account for sin, and the wish for an external power to relieve us from sin, seems to be. The cosmology of Genesis is no more inspired than the physics of Joshua.
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