CHAPTER VIII.

REWARDS OF INTELLECTUAL CULTIVA. TION ACCESSIBLE TO THE MECHANIC.

I WILL now offer a few remarks on the rewards of intellectual cultivation. Liberal knowledge, like virtue, is in a certain sense its own reward. The developement of the intellectual powers is attended with positive gratification, resulting from a sense of increased power, and the satisfying of curiosity respecting the laws of nature. The famous story of the rapture of Archimedes when he arrived at his beautiful demonstration of a well known mathematical truth, is but one among a thousand proofs that science rewards her votaries on the instant, pays her workmen, in solid coin, by the day— by the hour. This is the sweetest and best reward of intellectual labour. It is that which is most diligently sought and most highly prized.

But there are other rewards, only incidental and inferior, but still worthy of some consideration.

1. Liberal knowledge and accomplishments confer the advantage of an elevated and influential position in society. It is generally understood that society exacts from each of its members some price of admission to its cote-. ries and saloons. One brings fashion, another the wealth and consequence of his family, another his musical or conversational talents, another his celebrity as an author or traveller, or distinguished stranger. Among the rest the votary of science prefers his claim, and finding it admitted, takes a place in society on an independent and respectable ground. He is admitted for what he is, not for what he has, or what his ancestors had.

2. Again, liberal knowledge gives its possessor the means of enjoyment in sickness, in retirement, and in old age. He who has learnt to converse with the master spirits of other times, is never at a loss for society or amusement. Give him a book and he is happy-or, failing the book, his previous cultivation makes the communion of his own thoughts or the practice of composition a sufficient occupation to pass delightfully those hours of loneliness and silence which are a weariness to the illiterate man.

3. To the advantages which the scientific mechanic enjoys in the prosecution of his trade we have already adverted. We will name but one more before closing the present consideration of the subject. It is this :-The members of any particular trade, by earnestly uniting in the use of the various means of intellectual cultivation within their reach, may greatly increase the respectability, wealth and influence of that trade. By possessing their own library, reading room, museum and apparatus, and by stimulating the exertions of every member of the trade, master, journeyman, and apprentice, they will soon come to be recognised as a scientific body; and will not only insure to themselves the other rewards of science, but will receive the grateful acknowledgments of their fellow citizens as public benefactors.

Such are the rewards of intellectual cultivation attainable by those who are engaged in the mechanical trades. The example of Franklin, Watt, Arkwright, and a host of other illustrious men, show what mechanics have done. It remains for the rising generation in our own happy land to show what mechanics can do.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MECHANIC'S STUDIES.

Books are, generally speaking, too voluminous; writers descend too much into minutiæ; and it is an old observation, that where men are determined to write every thing which can be said on any subject, they may write to eternity. Hence it is that a man of sense and erudition need but open a single page of many a modern volume to lay it aside forever. It is said of Didymus, an ancient grammarian, that he had written so much that he knew not his own productions, and having once abused a work for its absurdity, it was found to be his own. I fear the race of Didymus is not extinct.*

To read all books on all subjects would require an uninterrupted attention during the longest life, even of an antediluvian. To read only the most celebrated, written in a few languages, is an employment sufficient to fill up every hour of laborious application. For the

* Northmore.

sake then of saving time, and of directing the judgment of the inexperienced, it becomes an useful attempt to suggest some general hints, which may tend to facilitate selection. One rule of the greatest consequence is, to read only, or chiefly, the original treatises in all the various departments of science or of literature. Nearly the same space of time, though not the same degree of attention, is necessary to peruse the faint copies of imitative industry, as would appropriate to the student the solid productions of native genius. This rule is more particularly to be observed on the first entrance on study. The foundation must be laid deeply, and formed of solid materials. The superstructure will often admit slight and superficial appendages. When we have studied the fine relics of those who have lived before us, we may derive much pleasure from attending to the additional labours of contemporary genius.. But to begin with these is to found, like the fool recorded in the gospel, an edifice in the sand.*

The merit of a book consists in, I, New facts; 2. New inferences from established facts;

Knox's Essays.