THE SCHOOLMASTER. 9 



is to be got, and how he is to get it ; but 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 be- 

 fore," if the store then be not exhausted, or in 

 the possession of another. But knowledge is in- 

 exhaustible ; and nobody 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 mat- 

 ter, not of doubt, but of absolutely certainty. 



Let us consider those means : Do we gain 

 knowledge of a subject by thinking about it ? We 

 do not. By thinking, we may arrange our know- 

 ledge, 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 addi- 

 tions it is most necessary and proper to make ; 



