THE NOBILITY OF KNOWLEDGE, 611 



that by which the schools are distinguished, that which they have 

 added to the old system, is not art but mental culture ; and therefore, 

 when asked to address you on this occasion, I could think of no more 

 appropriate subject than the Nobility of Knowledge. Identified with 

 an institution in which mental culture is the chief aim, I felt that I was 

 asked to address a body of cultivated working-men with whom, though 

 employed in the mechanic arts, the acquisition of knowledge was also 

 a privilege and a pride. I felt, moreover, that a proper appreciation 

 of the true dignity of knowledge, in itself considered, and apart from 

 all economical considerations, is one of the great wants of our age and 

 of our country. 



Knowledge is power. Knowledge is wealth. These trite maxims 

 are sufiiciently esteemed in our community, and need not that they be 

 enforced by any one. So far as knowledge will yield immediate dis- 

 tinction or gain, it is sought and fostered by multitudes. But when 

 the aim is low the attainment is low, and too many of our students are 

 satisfied with superficiality, if it only glitters, and with charlatanry, if 

 it only brings gold. 



Let me not be understood to depreciate the material advantages of 

 learning. I rejoice that in this world knowledge frequently yields 

 wealth and fame, and I should have little hope for human progress 

 w^ere the prizes of scholarship less than they are. Powder and wealth 

 are noble aims, and when rightly used may be the means of conferring 

 unmeasured blessings on mankind; but I desire at this time to impress 

 upon you, my friends, the fact that knowledge has nobler fruits than 

 these, and that the worth of your knowledge is to be measured not by 

 the credits it will add to your account in the ledger or the position it 

 may give you among men, but by the extent to which it educates your 

 higher nature, and elevates you in the scale of manhood. 



I address young men who are just entering on life, who are at an 

 age when the mystery of our being usually presses most closely upon 

 the soul, and whose aspirations for higher culture and clearer vision 

 have not been deadened by the sordid damps of the world. Trust no 

 croakers who tell you that your youthful visions are illusions, which a 

 little contact with the real business of the world will dispel. It is only 

 too true that these visions will become fainter and fainter, if you 

 allow the cares of the world to engross your thoughts ; but, unless your 

 higher nature becomes wholly deadened, you will look back to the time 

 when the visions w^ere brightest, as the golden period of your life, and 

 let me assure you that, if you only are true to the aspirations of your 

 youth, they will become clearer and clearer to the last, and, as we 

 firmly believe, will prove to be the dawn of the perfect day. 



My friends, if you have seen these visions, "the nobility of knowl- 

 edge " has been a reality of your experience. You know that there is 

 a life lived in communion with the thoughts of great men or with the 

 thoughts of God as we can read them in Nature and Revelation, which 



