The shrewd remarks of boy naturalists and girl satirists often almost confirm the opinion of Goethe that every child has the innate gifts of genius, and that subsequent differences are only the result of more or less propitious educational influences. And in spite of most discouraging circumstances, the love of knowledge sometimes revives in after years with the energy almost of a passionate instinct. On the veranda of a new hotel in a railroad town of southern Texas, I once noticed the expression of rapt interest on the face of a young hunter, a lad of eighteen or nineteen, who here for the first time came in contact with the representatives of a higher civilization and with breathless attention drank in the conversation of two far-traveled strangers. “If they would hire me for a dog-robber (a low menial), I would do it for a dime a day,” he muttered, “just for the chance to hear them talk.”
“But if they should take you to some smoky, crowded, big city?”
“I don’t care,” said he, with an oath, “I would let them lock me up in a jail, if I could get an education like theirs.”
It would, indeed, be a mistake to suppose that the thirst for mental development is the exclusive product of advanced culture. In the thinly settled highlands of our western territories, miners and herders have been known to travel ten miles a day [[88]]over rough mountain roads to get the rudiments of a school education. Missionaries who have mastered the language of a barbarous tribe have more than once been followed by converts whom the charm of general knowledge (far more than any special theological motive) impelled to forsake the home of their fathers and follow the white stranger to the land of his omniscient countrymen.
B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
Knowledge is power, even in the contests of brutes. Superior topographical knowledge enables the chasing wolf to intercept the flight of his game; a well-chosen ambush makes the tiger the master of his would-be slayer. Familiarity with the habits of enemies and rivals decides success in the struggle for existence.
The advantage of superior knowledge is not limited to the prestige of superlative scholarship, but asserts itself in the chances of every competitive pursuit, so infallibly, indeed, as to justify Diderot’s paradox that there is no need of any such thing as love of science for its own sake, since all knowledge repays its acquisition by collateral benefits. A farmer’s boy studying statute law, a lawyer collecting market reports, will sooner or later find a chance to profit by their study. The infinite interaction of human affairs connects the interests of all branches of human knowledge, and makes the humblest handicraft amenable to scientific improvement. Knowledge has never hindered the successful pursuit of any manual vocation. Fifty years ago several states of the [[89]]American Union made it a penal offense to teach a slave reading and writing; and if the planter valued his laborers in proportion to their canine submissiveness, he was perhaps right that “education spoils a nigger.” It qualified his servility, and by making him a better man, made him perhaps a less available dog. But with that single exception, ignorance is a disadvantage, and knowledge an advantage, both to its possessor and his employers. In the solitudes of the Australian bush-land, Frederick Gerstäcker found a herdsman reading Aristophanes in the original. Neither the sheep nor their owners were any the worse for that incidental accomplishment of the poor shepherd, who found his study a sufficient source of pastime, while his comrades were apt to drown their ennui in bad rum. James Cook, the greatest of modern maritime discoverers, served his apprenticeship on board of a coal-barge and employed his leisure in studying works on geography and general history. The knowledge thus acquired might seem of no direct advantage, but three years after, on board of the Eagle frigate, the erudition of the brawny young sailor soon attracted the attention of two intelligent officers whose recommendations proved the stepping-stones of his successful career. Mohammed Baber Khan, the emperor of the Mogul empire, owed his triumphs to his topographical studies of a region which afterward became the battleground of his great campaigns. Mohammed the Prophet gained the confidence of his first employer by his familiarity with the commercial customs of neighboring nations. Superior knowledge [[90]]compels even an unwilling recognition of its prestige. In the Middle Ages, when Moslems and Trinitarians were at daggers drawn, Christian kings sent respectful embassies to solicit the professional advice of Ibn Rushd (“Averroes”), the Moorish physician. During the progress of the life-and-death struggle of France and Great Britain, the discoveries of Sir Humphrey Davy impelled the Academie Française to send their chief prize to England. The benefits of great inventions are too international to leave room for that envy that pursues the glory of military heroes, and the triumphs of science have often united nations whom a unity of religion had failed to reconcile.