370 



Pursuit of Knoirfedge. 



Vol. VII. 



Pursuit of Knowledge. 



We have the testimony of the wisest men 

 that have lived, that toil is the price of know- 

 ledge. Sir Isaac Newton says, that to pa- 

 tient industry he owed whatever of know- 

 ledge he had acquired; and the present 

 wonder of our country, Elihu Burritt, the 

 " learned blacksmith," who, at less than 30 

 years of age, had already learned, more or 

 less perfectly, fifty different languages, and 

 studied various branches of science, says: 

 "All that I have accomplished, or expect, 

 or hope to accomplish, has been and will be 

 by that plodding, patient, persevering pro- 

 cess of accretion which builds the ant-heap, 

 — particle by particle, thought by thought, 

 and fact by fact." The Rev. John Todd, in 

 his Student's Manual, a work that every 

 seeker of knowledge should read, very ap- 

 propriately remarks: — "Those islands which 

 so beautifully adorn the Pacific, and which, 

 but for sin, would seem so many Edens, 

 were reared up from the bed of the ocean 

 by the little coral insect, which deposites 

 one grain of sand at a time, till the whole 

 of those piles are reared up. Just so with 

 human exertions. The greatest results of 

 the mind are produced by small but con- 

 tinued efforts. I have frequently thought of 

 the motto of one of the most distinguished 

 scholars in this country, as peculiarly appro- 

 priate. As near as I remember, it is the 

 picture of a mountain, with a man at its 

 base, with his hat and coat lying beside 

 him, and a pick-axe in his hand ; and as he 

 digs, stroke by stroke, his patient look cor- 

 responds with his words, — Peu et pen — 

 ' little by little.' " 



He who expects that, by waiting, he will 

 be able to rise by some bold stroke, will pro- 

 bably resemble at last the countryman who 

 loitered on the river bank, hoping that the 

 stream would exhaust its waters. But the 

 young man who believes that knowledge is 

 worth possessing, and is willing to apply his 

 energies, has much to encourage him. lie 

 may point to some of the brightest orna- 

 ments of the nation, and of the world, and 

 tell of the time when they were poor and 

 obscure. Ro^er Sherman was a shoemaker, 

 and was encumbered with the care of Ins 

 widowed mother and helpless family; yet 

 he became deeply skilled in mathematics, 

 afterwards read law, was appointed a judsre, 

 and rose to eminence as a jurist and politi- 

 cian. It has been remarked of him that he 

 never said a foolish thing in his life. Gene- 

 ral Greene, the favourite of Washington, was 

 a blacksmith; and had only the elements of 

 an English education given him. "But to 

 him, an education so limited, was unsatis- 



factory. With such funds as he was able 

 to raise, he purchased a small but well se- 

 lected library, and spent his evenings and 

 all the time lie could redeem from his fa- 

 ther's business, in regular study." Benja- 

 min Franklin, it needs scarcely be said, was 

 a practical printer; and emphatically the ar- 

 tificer of his own fortune. Rittenhonse, who 

 was pronounced second to no astronomer 

 living, was a farmer in early life : and it is 

 said that when a boy, the smooth rocks in 

 the field, and the fences by the way-side, 

 were often covered with his arithmetical 

 calculations. He became eminent as an as- 

 tronomer and mathematician. Nathaniel 

 Bowditch, the celebrated navigator and 

 scholar, was poor, and enjoyed few opportu- 

 nities in youth to acquire education ; all his 

 science and his fame were the fruit of per- 

 severing application. Who was Fulton,, 

 whose inventions in the applications of 

 steam power, have added millions to the 

 wealth of our country, and especially of the 

 West 1 ? And who was Whitney, the inven- 

 tor of the cotton gin, by which the wealth 

 of the South was doubled ? 



Let the industrious student read his coun- 

 try's history, and he will find there are 

 few of its eminent men, but have risen to 

 greatness without the inheritance of for- 

 tune's favours. And among the living, he 

 will find labourers and mechanics standing 

 conspicuous in our deliberative assemblies. 

 Youth should study too, that they may make 

 useful and respectable private citizens; for 

 such as seek to store their minds with useful 

 knowledge, and who train their reasoning 

 powers to think efficiently, will rise, not- 

 withstanding the frowns of fortune, if they 

 are true to themselves, and correct in their 

 moral deportment. When we look around 

 upon our substantial farmers, master me- 

 chanics and prominent citizens, how large a 

 portion were poor boys ! while the worthless 

 and dissolute are often those who commenced 

 life under favourable auspices. 



But there are difficulties in the way! 

 Thousands would rejoice to. be learned, 

 were it not for the toil. They would gladly 

 enjoy the gratifications that wealth affords, 

 but they are unwilling to labour for the 

 prize. Think you that the men we have 

 named, rose 1o distinction without effort'! 

 Or rather, did they not climb the ascent 

 step by step? Burritt, to whom we have 

 already alluded, is not merely a blacksmith 

 by profession, but a daily labourer for eight 

 hours at the anvil. William Cobbett was 

 once a common soldier, and afterwards a 

 member of the British Parliament. He 

 says of himself: " I learned grammar, when 

 I was a private soldier on the pay of six- 



