THE HIGHEST USE OF LEARNING. THE cause of education, in this country at least, is almost universally popular. Yet were we to pass around the inquiry among the different classes of society, why they regard it so important, we should probably receive very different answers. One man, himself uneducated, places its chief value in the means it affords of defence against the impositions of the designing and unprincipled. Another values it chiefly because it enables him to take advantage of the ignorance of the world in promoting his schemes of self-aggrandizement. A third looks upon the means which education affords for acquiring property, as its highest use. A fourth regards the personal reputation, respect, and influence, which learning bestows, as its chief advantage. A fifth thinks of it mainly as an instrument of advancing civilization, and multiplying the comforts and luxuries of life. A sixth estimates most highly its influence in elevating the lower classes of the community above the condition of mere animals and drudges, and in making them understand that the body is not the only part of man to be cared for. A seventh places the highest use of learning in its power of disciplining and liberalizing the mind, and delivering it from vulgar fears, superstitions, and prejudices; and in giving to men just views of their rights, relations, and destinies. An eighth thinks most of the boundless fields of enjoyment which knowledge opens to the human mind, of a far more noble and refined kind than any dependent upon animal nature. A ninth makes its most important use to consist in its bearings upon religion, both natural and revealed. Now, in my opinion, this ninth man has the right of the matter most decidedly; and yet I fear that his opinion is not the most common, or the most popular. But to my conviction, the religious applications of learning are by far its most important use; and the occasion seems to be a fit one to defend and illustrate this opinion. It needs, I believe, both defence and illustration. For though the belief is general that religion may derive some benefit from particular branches of learning, there is still an impression lingering on many minds, that some sciences are unfriendly in their bearings upon religion, and that others have no relations to religion. Much less is it generally believed that the strongest reason why we should sustain common schools, academies, and colleges, is, that we are thus promoting the cause of true religion. But if this be indeed true, then, when we give our property, our influence, or ourselves, to the cause of learning, we shall do it with a heartier good will and a more entire consecration; and we shall the more cheerfully bear up under the trials, fatigues, disappointments, and perplexities that lie in our path. I would not, indeed, undervalue the secular advantages of learning. They are so obvious and so important, that I could not do it if I would. Those whose experience reaches back fifty, or forty, or even thirty years, have evidence in their own consciousness of the economical value of learning, too strong to be overcome by any speculative argument depreciating its importance. When we compare the present condition of the world, and our own condition, with what they were in our early days, we cannot but be deeply impressed with the rapid progress of society, and the multiplication of secular advantages, and the means of comfort and happiness, growing out of the advancement of learning. Branches of science and literature, which, at the beginning of this century, were tabooed to all who were not residents within the walls of universities and colleges, and even some branches that scarcely had an existence then, are now the theme of familiar conversation in the workshop, on the farm, in the stage coach, the rail car, the steamboat, and the packet. And so simplified are the elementary principles of many of these branches, as to be brought within the comprehension of the child at the primary school. Instead of the stinted sources of information then possessed in a few small newspapers and periodicals in some of the larger cities, and a few republications of small European works, the country is now flooded with newspapers of all sizes below one that will swallow up an octavo, and with periodicals and books to suit all tastes, all purses, and all fancies, from the penny pamphlet up to the seven hundred dollar volumes of Audubon. Still more striking has been the progress of the useful arts from the application of scientific principles. In Great Britain, at this moment, steam performs a work that would require the unaided labor of more than four hundred millions of men; and a work as great probably, in proportion to the population, in our own country. Improvements in machinery and in chemical processes have doubtless within this century made a still greater deduction from the amount of labor necessary; and these improvements reach every class of the community; pointing out to them an easier path to compe- * tence, and affording them leisure to cultivate their intellectual and moral powers. Then, too, how striking the change in |