8 WHAT THE SISTER ARTS 



may have realized, but of which our children seem destined to 

 have none but hearsay evidence. 



I hold that Farmers may also learn of Mechanics and Artifi- 

 cers to estimate more highly and justly than most of them now 

 do the importance and necessity of SCIENCE, or a profound and 

 accurate knowledge of principles, to the efficient and profitable 

 prosecution of their labors. The worker in Iron, for example, 

 recognizes his need to know what is the nature and what are the 

 properties of Iron ; and not merely of Iron in general, but of the 

 various qualities and kinds. Without this, he may blow or strike 

 fairly in a blacksmith's shop, and may have learned to make a 

 tolerable horse-shoe; but he has not risen to the rank of an 

 artisan. Let him acquire a thorough knowledge of Iron in the 

 abstract, and of the laws of chemical affinity which govern its 

 combinations with other substances, and the practical knowledge 

 he has gained in making horse-shoes may be made available in 

 forging anchors, in making plows, or in a thousand other employ- 

 ments which, in the absence of Science, he must have approached 

 as a novice, and learned from the beginning. Science is the 

 bridge across which our practical knowledge, gained by experi- 

 ence, passes and repasses, to aid us at need in our stern battle 

 with physical obstruction and stubbornness. He who knows how 

 to do one thing well, and does it, is a good workman, so far as 

 that special function is regarded ; but he who is thoroughly 

 grounded in the Science which underlies his vocation is enabled 

 to master a dozen different arts or modifications of his pursuit 

 with a celerity and perfection otherwise unattainable. 



Now the farmer, who perfectly comprehends the value of 

 Science in the construction of a bridge or a chimney, often seems 

 not to appreciate so vividly its importance in his own vocation. 

 His unexpressed but acted-on idea would seem to be that, wliiU- 

 other industrial callings require instruction, method, abstract 

 knowledge, Farming is a matter of instinct, or mechanical imita- 

 tion. He seems to think a knowledge of its principles and laws 

 " comes by Nature," as Dogberry supposed reading and writing 

 did. He sends to college the son who is to be fitted for a profes- 



