32 THE SCHOOLMASTER. 



there the lesson of the schoolmaster ends ; and if 

 the scholar be still backward, " lay on the birch." 



In getting any thing, all that we need to know is 

 where it is to be got, and how it is to be got. The 

 " how" is always " how it. was got before ;" and the 

 " where" is also " where it was got before," if the 

 store then be not exhausted, or in the possession of 

 another. But knowledge is inexhaustible ; and no- 

 body can make a property of it any more than of the 

 light of the sun. No man, be his power what it may, 

 can make an exclusive property of that. Men may 

 be deprived of it by shutting them up in dungeons ; 

 and it is the same with knowledge. You can hinder 

 from it only those whom you have the power and 

 the means of shutting up ; and then the knowledge is 

 not one jot more your property than it was before. 

 The way and the means by which we got the know- 

 ledge which we do possess, are therefore the way 

 and the means, and the only way and the only means 

 by which we can get more ; and if we use them 

 rightly and diligently, the getting is a matter, not of 

 doubt, but of absolute certainty. 



Let us consider those means : Do we gain know- 

 ledge of a subject by thinking about it ? We do not. 

 By thinking, we may arrange our knowledge, put it 

 into new shapes, and make it the means of letting 

 us see what further knowledge we want, and what 

 service that future knowledge is to be to us, just in 

 the same manner that a tradesman, by examining his 

 stock, can so arrange his goods, as that he can at 

 once put his hand upon what he wants, and also 

 know what additions it is most necessary and proper 

 to make ; but just as a tradesman cannot, by any ex- 

 aminations and arrangements add one tittle to the 

 quantity of his goods, so neither can we, by any 

 thinking in which we may engage, add any thing new 

 to the stock of our knowledge. By thinking, we can 

 arrange what we do know, so that we can more 

 readily use it, and we make room for other know- 





