in its Relations to Chemistry and Geology. 
203 
But this sipping of the waters is not enough for any : their 
sweetness may linger for a time on the palate, but, if long uniasted, 
is apt to be forgotten. The rising agriculturists of a higher 
grade must be induced to repair to the very wells of knowledge, 
and to linger around the clear fountains till their thirst is not 
only awakened but fully slaked. For the less able portion of 
the rural community, instead of providing the rare and learned 
teacher on great occasions to give a single lesson, we must plant 
more frequent teachers in humbler dress to give instruction to 
the growing youth around their daily doors. By these, among 
other methods, the diffusion of existing knowledge will be 
hastened, equality in agricultural skill promoted, and with it that 
more uniform culture and productiveness which experience shows 
to be possible, and which it is so much the interest of the nation 
to bring about. 
There are tracts of country on the surface of the earth, where 
drought and constant barrenness prevail, while in others too 
frequent rains impede the labours of the husbandman, and mar 
his hopes of profit. Were the rains that fall made equal every- 
where, or adjusted to the prevailing warmth, philosophers say 
that arid deserts would disappear and universal verdure over- 
spread the sandiest plains. It is so also with the waters of 
knowledge. Spread them uniformly and there is enough to 
enlighten the mind of every living man. Make them come 
down, not as the thunder-storm, deluging a limited spot, but as 
the nightly dew softly dropping its cool freshness on the parched 
leaf, and there is enough to spread the fertility of Norfolk over 
the starved fields of Durham, and to make the farmers of 
Cheshire become successful rivals to the proud hunters of Lin- 
coln. 
And in behalf of the waters of knowledge these two things are 
further to be said. There exist in nature purely physical obstacles 
to the uniform fall of natural rain, which it has pleased the Deity 
to establish, and over which man has no control ; but to the 
equalization of knowledge there exist only moral and institutional 
obstacles, which man has himself set up, or can himself remove. 
And whereas in equalizing the natural rain, that which is given 
to one part of the earth's surface must be taken from and lessen 
that which formerly fell upon another part, there is this pecu- 
liar virtue in the waters of knowledge, that, like the widow's 
cruse and the barrel of meal, you may take I'rom them daily and 
they become no less. The rich in knowledge becomes no poorer 
by imparting to others even all he possesses ; nay, he cannot 
impart it in thoughtful earnestness without, by the very act, in- 
creasing his own store of high and happy thoughts. I mightj 
indeed, liken knowledge most truly to a spark of heavenly fire, 
