knowledge is power. It may be feared, this maxim oft suggests scarce
other sense, that that deeper insight into the tricks of trade or
politics enables the possessor to outwit competitors for riches or
honors in the game. It is still a low understanding, that knowledge of
nature's laws multiplies the means of physical enjoyment. Knowledge is
power in a higher sense, in that it empowers the possessor to call
forth stores of enjoyment form objects, which seem to vulgar
apprehension most barren of utility. But knowledge--taken for the
round of mental cultivation--is power, in that it is competent to
yield to all more than the delightful sense of conscious superiority,
which vulgar ambition may afford to a few of its successful votaries;
a store, from which each in taking does but multiply the remainder.

But to find it so one must look well, that he apprehend knowledge to be
a good of itself, independently of the distinction it confers. For a
vain ambition often takes this direction; and then it matters little to
one whether himself advance, or others be kept back--since, in either
case, the difference between him and them, the distinction chiefly
enjoyed, is the same.

Now, the love of knowledge is prior in time to the love of distinction;
it should seem then, that, with proper care, it might maintain the
mastery over its rival. The child is delighted with the acquisition of
new ideas, before it thinks of turning them to a vain-glorious account.
It deserves to be considered, whether our modes of education, offering
prizes and honors of scholarship, do not train into the ascendancy that
love of distinction, which education ought and might keep subordinate;
which in fact is one of the greatest hinderances to progress;--for when
one's immediate aim is not truth itself, but the glory which attends
the acquisition, he meets a thousand sidelong impulses from the