my pay, and no nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the latter
as effectually as if a law had been passed to confer it upon me. In
short, I owe to the possession of this branch of knowledge everything
that has enabled me to do so many things that very few other men have
done, and that now gives me a degree of influence, such as is possessed
by few others, in the most weighty concerns of the country. The
possession of this branch of knowledge raises you in your own esteem,
gives just confidence in yourself, and prevents you from being the
willing slave of the rich and the titled part of the community. It
enables you to discover that riches and titles do not confer merit; you
think comparatively little of them; and, as far as relates to you, at
any rate, their insolence is innoxious.

48. Hoping that I have said enough to induce you to set resolutely about
the study of _grammar_, I might here leave the subject of _learning_;
arithmetic and grammar, both _well learned_, being as much as I could
wish in a mere youth. But these need not occupy the whole of your spare
time; and, there are other branches of learning which ought immediately
to follow. If your own calling or profession require book-study, books
treating of that are to be preferred to all others; for, the first
thing, the first object in life, is to secure the honest means of
obtaining sustenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable to your
rank, be that rank what it may: excellence in your own calling is,
therefore, the first thing to be aimed at. After this may come _general
knowledge_, and of this, the first is a thorough knowledge of _your own
country_; for, how ridiculous is it to see an English youth engaged in
reading about the customs of the Chinese or of the Hindoos, while he is
content to be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Cornwall! Well
employed he must be in ascertaining how Greece was divided and how the
Romans parcelled out their territory, while he knows not, and apparently