In his mind's eye his house and glebe he sees, Too many regard position and ease, rather than truth, as the object of knowledge-the end of an educational career. The value of knowledge is appreciated more and more with every succeeding generation. As a means of improvement it is already recognized as the highest, religion alone excepted. Hon. John Eaton, LL. D., United States Commissioner of Education, says: "The instinct of life in the animal is hardly more universal than the aspiration of man for improvement; individuals, families, societies, churches, nations, races, seek for its measure. Every new scheme for the amelioration of man's condition, every ism or ology or reform, lays claim to attention on the ground of its power to improve human affairs." Locke was persuaded that "of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education. It is that which makes the great difference in mankind. Little or almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important consequences; and there it is, as in the fountains of rivers, where a gentle application of the hand turns the flexible waters into channels that make them take quite contrary courses; and by this little direction, given them as first in the source, they receive different tendencies, and arrive at last at very remote and distant places. Imagine the minds of children as easily turned this way or that, as water itself.” Education gives a man higher views of the dignity and sacredness of life. Barbarous nations practically illustrate the worthlessness of existence without knowledge as compared with the value of existence attended with the blessings of enlightenment. In our own land illustrations may be seen every day, when the trained faculties and polished manners of the educated come in contact with the rudeness of the unlettered. Between them, if there is not a natural antagonism, there is at least a want of sympathy. General Grant once publicly expressed the belief that if there is ever another war in this country it will be one of ignorance versus intelligence, superstition against education, and hoped that the children every where would "enroll in the army of intelligence, and wipe out the common enemy-ignorance." Education is a great power in common life. It increases skill and adds immensely to the productive capacity. Dexter A. Hawkins, an eminent New York lawyer, gathers from statistics the fact that a common-school education adds fifty per cent, to the productive power of the laborer, an academical education one hundred per cent., and a university education from two to three hundred per cent., to say nothing of the vast increase of his manliness-to his God-likeness. WHAT EDUCATION HAS DONE. A brief survey of what education has done for the world through its trained thinkers will help us greatly to estimate its real value. All the progress we have made is largely attributable to the general advance of knowledge, agreeable with Guizot's conclusion that "every expansion of human intelligence has proved of advantage to society." Let us, with President George T. Fairchild, of the Kansas State Agricultural College, glance rapidly over the world's progress out of barbarism into its present state of enlightenment: "The records of experience in history," he says, "and the arousing of ambition and energy by literature are conceded to educated men generally. So great is the conviction that education is essential to literary excellence, that many have been led to doubt the authenticity of Shakspeare's writings only because he lacked opportunity for such training. "But the world's reformers, too, have been from the ranks of trained, schooled thinkers. Moses and Paul, and Luther and Calvin, and Wickliffe and Knox, stand as the pillars of religious reformation in sincerity of truth; and all had the highest training of their times. In philanthropy, such college-trained men as Wilberforce, the leader in emancipation for English slaves, and John Howard, the mover toward mercy and humanity in prisons, are prominent. In political freedom, we have such educated men as Alfred the Great, in his times, and all the long array down to our lamented Garfield, who have ruled by enlightenment and trained for selfgovernment. Is it any wonder that forty-one of the fifty-six signers of our Declaration of Independence were educated men? This Government has found its chief support and growth in the exertions of trained thinkers. According to statistics gathered by President George P. Hays, of Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, the educated 'fragment of society-certainly less than a hundredth part '-furnishes fifteen of seventeen presidents, more than two-thirds of the cabinet officers, nine out of ten chief justices, and two-thirds of associate judges. "Discoverers, even geographical, from Columbus and De Soto to Kane and Livingstone, are largely from the school-trained men. In scientific knowledge, so directly aiding mechanical invention in our day, educated men have highest rank, as well as the bulk of the work. What the world now knows of nature's forces and methods of work comes chiefly from the researches of educated men. Even the common experience of many often becomes such through the notice of one trained to observe in the schools. "In the ranks of inventors, where we might expect mechanical skill, or constant familiarity with the work to be done, to have most influence, education has held its lead. Watt had a good school training along with his mechanical ingenuity to develop the steam engine, in his thoughts, from the puffing tea kettle. Edmund Cartwright, a trained clergyman, was able to think out the power loom. Eli Whitney found that training in law and school teaching helped him to devise the cotton gin. Robert Fulton's long training in science and languages, as well as civil engineering, helped him to the thoughts of the steamship. George Stephenson, with no school, but with persistent training of himself by study, solved the problem of locomotion by steam. So highly did he prize study as a means of strength, that he denied himself in every way to give his son Robert the benefit of schools and teachers. Of all the improvements in tools and machinery, farm implements included, I believe the greater portion has been thought out by the comparatively small portion of educated men in the community. Certainly the great steps have been taken by trained thinkers, rather than mere plodders in other men's ruts of thought. 'It surprises one to compare the influence and position of educated men with that of uneducated. By actual statistics it is shown that the men in our country who have had the benefit of a course of study beyond the common school, make considerably less than one hundredth part of the adult male population; and yet this small fraction holds more than two-thirds of all the places of trust and influence in the whole nation. According to calculations made some years ago, if you belong to the educated minority, your chance of holding some such place of influence is one in fifteen; but if you go with the majority of the untrained, you have but one chance in two thousand nine hundred and eleven. In short, a thorough training multiplies the chances of wielding more than ordinary power almost two hundred times. On comparing the college-trained with those of only common schooling, in one of our most enlightened States, I found that only one in fifty boys goes beyond the common school; so that if further training gives no help, just one-fiftieth of every representative body-convention, assembly, senate-should be educated. Yet, under circumstances most favorable to limited education, because of local contests, more than half of the representatives in State legislatures and more than two-thirds of the senators had higher education; and most of these were farmers and business men, only twenty-two out of a hundred being professional men. Then I had the curiosity to inquire further into the age at which men with college education and men without it came into prominence enough to hold such offices. The average age of untrained men on entering the legislative halls was over fifty years (50.5); that of the trained was but a fraction over forty years (40.7). Here was an actual saving of ten years in the very prime of life for using whatever influence such position gives for good. Four years of youth taken for school training had returned ten years of power in the strength and wisdom of manhood. This I consider a fair test of advantages in all callings, because this was as nearly a representative body as could be gathered anywhere." After showing the further practical uses of education, even in agricultural life, President Fairchild adds these splendid utterances : "Many a father who stores up bank stocks or title deeds for his children to covet while he lives, and to quarrel over when he dies, |