ELEVATING THE PROFESSION OF THE EDUCATOR. 105 



vine law of " doing unto others that which he would they should do 

 unto him." The application is hidden in the mystery of knowledge, 

 not the mere knowledge of utilities, but that higher wisdom which 

 associates mankind in one fellowship of love. Inclusive, therefore, 

 intelligence involves all temporal good, which reconciles contraries, 

 quickens every enjoyment, and multiplies the means. 



That "knowledge is power" is familiarized as an axiom; and, 

 however incomprehensive the capacity of that power, its efficacy is no 

 longer problematical, for, by a principle essential to its existence, 

 nations gain an ascendancy proportionate to their knowledge, which, 

 further carried out, is also predicable of societies, of families, and of 

 individuals. Every thing surrounding and influencing man witnesseth 

 the beneficence of knowledge, as much so from the argument of his 

 wants, as from the pleasures of fruition. But, notwithstanding the 

 dignity and usefulness of knowledge, and though man by his nature 

 is adapted to possess it, he exhibits a repugnance, for which igno- 

 rance is no plea, and in his insane opposition to its progress presents 

 an inexplicable contrary, in his self-love. He beholds the elements 

 changed in their relations, ponderous bodies transformed into aerial, 

 or condensed again into fluids, intractible metals fashioned into the 

 thousand utilities of civilized life, " the great globe itself and all which 

 it inhabits," touched by the Ithuriel spear of intelligence, submissive 

 to his will and applicable to his wants. Yet must he be driven as a 

 bondsman in the pursuit and acquisition of this (to him) creative 

 power ; at best to be draggled in the mire of a money-making sensu- 

 ality, disfiguring the original image of God into the likeness of mam- 

 mon, and turning the temple of the soul into a " house of mer- 

 chandise." 



But, reflecting upon the virtue of knowledge, both as it concerns 

 the temporal and spiritual interest of man, what is the cause of the 

 unnatural and parasitic evil attached to it, or whence comes so strange 

 an anomaly in his conduct ? Of evils, the most prominent are the 

 tyranny of prejudice and the tyranny of teaching ; the former ty- 

 ranny will remedy itself if the latter and greater evil be removed, 

 inasmuch as the tyranny of teaching not only seals up the innate in- 

 quisitiveness of the soul, but, by a mistake of the cause, knowledge is 

 abhorred as the tyrant itself. By this tyranny over the tender spirits 

 of children, good and evil are substituted for each other by an irre- 

 sponsible choice, and which years of experience can hardly correct in 

 the thinking and conduct of man. 



But it is not the severity of coercion which is merely included in 



VOL. X., NO. XXVIII, 14 



