74 WEST OXFORD SOCIETY. 



What the fai-mer needs, is what we all need, knowledge, or cog- 

 nition ; that is to say, to know or liavc a clear jDerception of the 

 connection and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of the 

 notions or ideas of things. Where such a perception is, there is 

 knowledge, says Locke ; and where it is not, there may be fancy, 

 guess, belief, think, etc., but not knowledge. 



" Learning dwells 

 In heads replete with thoughts of other men, 

 Knowledge in minds attentive to their own." 



Men of great learning are met with almost everywhere ; persons 

 of great knowledge are far from being common anywhere, even in 

 the most learned communities. Knowledge is the good part to be 

 sought and chosen in this work-world of ours. It may cost much 

 diligent and careful search, yet when found, amply rewards its 

 possessor, from whom it shall never be taken awa3^ Do not then 

 underestimate a man of great learning ; you can hardly overestimate 

 a man of great knowledge. 



Let a farmer interrogate his neighbor on any subject concerning 

 his vocation, and what kind of an answer is he likely to get ? It 

 will come, most probably, in some such phraseology as this : "I 

 guess," "I believe," "I fancy," "I reckon," "1 think," etc. 

 But says the farmer, I did not ask what yovt "guess," "believe," 

 "fancy," "reckon," "think," or what you have learned from 

 others, but, " What do you knoxvV "Ah," says his neighbor, on 

 turning within, " I find I know but little, and do not even know 

 much of that quite certain." The inquirer then turns to those who 

 sit, as it were, in Moses' scat and teach tliem with authm-ity, and 

 in a reverend and docile spirit asks for knowledge, where and when 

 alas, he receives naught but " learning" from the oracle interro- 

 gated. It is the lack of knowledge on the part of those who 

 attempt to teach others, that more than aught else, has brought 

 much of "book farming," so called, into deserved disrepute. No 

 greater honor can be awarded to tlie good sense of practical men, 

 whether farmers, gardeners, or artizans, than that they can an<l do 

 discrimiuate between knowledge and learning, between what a man 

 knows, and what he guesses, between practice with science, and 

 hypothesis with naught but conjecture, or speculation. 



The "age abounds in scientific sinatterers, and no industrial em- 

 ployment is more eagerly beset by them than that of the farmer. 

 It therefore becomes farmers to beware of false teachers, who teach 

 not the traditions of men, for doctrine, but their own vague con- 



