deed, does not your interest, no less than consistency, demand, that, in connexion with those labors of the shop, in which you train your eye to observe, and your hand to guide, the processes of your art, you study also the principles of that art,―principles which must always control such processes, and disregarding which, they must inevitably fail. Yes, let it not be forgotten, that complete success in the mechanic arts can be secured only by knowledge; and that the knowledge, which is alone equal to your wants, is that knowledge which combines, with individual experience, the collective and generalized experience of all who have labored and observed in the same sphere.

How, for example, without that knowledge, can you provide for the unexpected emergencies, which await every mechanic in the prosecution of his business? From the state of your instruments and materials, or from the demands of your employers, will arise frequent difficulties, which you have never yet experienced; for which no directions can be found in those guides called 'Assistants,' 'Companions,' &c., and the provision for which, therefore, must be found, if found at all, in the resources of your own mind. But to what, I ask, will his resources amount, who knows nothing of first principles; who has never been accustomed to reflect on the operations in which he is engaged; and who, if he undertakes now, for the first time, to do it, will be almost certain to stumble?

Consider, too, that, if ignorant of the natural laws which govern your processes, you are not prepared to appreciate the inventions and alleged improvements which multiply, with such astonishing rapidity, in every branch of manufactures; and which you are constantly urged to adopt. Some of them are doubtless of great value, while many more are destined no less certainly to follow their predecessors, in a brief though noisy career, to the land of forgetfulness. Now, who can hope to discriminate between the meritorious and the worthless,-between the inferior and the superior,

but he who has qualified himself to look beyond the promises of interested projectors, and the certificates of incompetent or inconsiderate witnesses, and to test the principles involved by the unalterable laws of the Creator?

Consider, also, that an artisan or manufacturer must have a knowledge of the theory and principles of his business, if he would himself become its improver and benefactor; if he would be remembered as the honored inventor of some cheaper, simpler, or more certain, instrument, or process. That thousands upon thousands of such instruments and processes are still undiscovered, and that they lie within the reach of every enterprising and competent artisan, is certain; but it is equally certain, that he alone is competent to the high task of thus adding to the resources of his race, who has knowledge. Rarely, very rarely, indeed, does the uninstructed and unreflecting mechanic compass any great and lasting improvement.

Common sense, as well as the history of the arts, would teach us, that, when such men attempt to innovate, it will generally be in quest of some impracticable end, like perpetual motion; or by means totally inadequate to the object proposed; or for the mere purpose of reinventing, in inferior forms, instruments which are already in existence? And even when they do prosecute an attainable and important end, with skill and apparent success, how often are they arrested and delayed, if not defeated, from being unable to solve the incidental or collateral questions, which start up in the progress of their work. Even Fulton, with all his knowledge and skill, is said to have been delayed, several months, in the completion of his great experiment, for want of the requisite knowledge of the theory of resisting fluids. Whittemore's card-machine, and Perkins's nail-engine, were both long delayed, one of them for years, and were the source (as we are informed*) of

* See Judge Story's Discourse before the Mechanics' Institute of Boston, 1831,

infinite vexation to their authors, simply from the want of an adequate acquaintance with the principles of mechanics. Indeed, I ask, where and when any great invention was perfected, without the aid of knowledge, and of profound thought? These creations of human genius are not struck off, as is generally supposed, at a single heat, or at random. They are not the offspring of some happy accident, nor the almost inspired guess of ignorant, unreflecting minds. No: these may give the first hint; but it is the province of knowledge and thought to seize that hint, and carry it out to its results; to disengage it from the mass of surrounding error, and to clear away the difficulties and doubts which always beset unexplored paths. Who will tell me, that James Watt, or Sir Humphrey Davy, or Sir Richard Arkwright, or Reuben Whitney, or Robert Fulton, projected and invented without knowledge, without science? Who will tell me, that your own Brewster,* uneducated though he was, ever brought his instruments to perfection, without intense and long-continued study; without retiring from the din of business and the distractions of society, and burying himself in the solitude of his chamber? Who does not know how glad he was to call in the aid of books; how much he had derived from the society and instructions of able friends; and how constantly he was driven, for the want of acquired science, to task the powers of his own prolific and original mind? Who ever heard him depreciate a liberal acquaintance with science and literature; and who does not sympathize in the conviction felt, I am told, so deeply, by his friends and by himself, that he wanted but the power, which science would have given him, to have added a long and ever-memorable list to those inventions, which now stand associated with his cherished memory?

* The late Gilbert Brewster, of Poughkeepsie, a man of equal ingenuity and worth; who, by his invention of the Eclipse Speeder, and other improvements in cotton machinery, rendered important service to the manufacturing industry of his country.

In addition, however, to these practical advantages, which would accrue to the artisan, from a knowledge of the principles of his art, there are others, of a moral and intellectual character, which are entitled to at least a passing notice. The habit of studying the theory, as well as the practice, of an art, cannot but have the happiest influence in enlarging and liberalizing the mind. It leads the artisan to regard his occupation as something more than mechanical drudgery; as a liberal and intellectual pursuit, fitted to exercise the powers of his mind, and to raise his thoughts from the humble workmanship of man to that vaster mechanism, which bespeaks the wisdom and power of the Almighty. It affords unfailing topics for reflection and conversation, during his hours of labor, and provides resources, of an intellectual character, on which he can draw, in seasons of leisure, and at the advance of old age. It seems, indeed, high time that the years which have hitherto been employed by the apprentice, in learning the mere handicraft of his art, should be employed, in part at least, in studying its principles, and in tracing the operation of those principles, throughout the works of Nature. It is more than time, that a higher moral and intellectual taste should be cultivated among the artisans of every country; and that hours, now wasted in dissipation, or frittered away in frivolous reading and conversation, should be devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, and the cultivation of virtue. In an age like this, when every species of manual labor is rendered more and more precarious by the changes which are perpetually taking place in the arts, it is the obvious interest of the laboring man to prepare himself, by reading and reflection, either to embrace a new employment, or to conform himself to sudden and unexpected vicissitudes. Independent, however, of interest, there are other and higher considerations, which address him as an intelligent and immortal being, and which urge him to embrace the opportunities of improvement, which have been vouchsafed him, by a kind Providence, even in his ordinary avocations.

I have thus dwelt, on the benefits to be derived by mechanics from liberal and scientific studies. All my remarks are but a commentary on the celebrated maxim of Lord Bacon, that KNOWlLedge is power; and let me add, that, for the human race, there is no other power. Inferior animals are guided in their labors by a blind but unerring instinct; and hence, though destitute of knowledge, they build up works of surpassing beauty and utility. But man comes into being, almost utterly destitute of instinctive skill. Nearly all his capability is the slow growth of effort, of prudence, availing itself of past error, of study, exploring the nature and properties of the material and immaterial objects around him. In books is stored away the fruit of the experience and study of those who have gone before us; and it is in that storehouse that you are to gather power for the discharge of the high trusts, which have been committed to your hands. Left to your own unaided researches, you would learn little of the world on which we all enter, strangers; and you would fall an easy prey to its thousand dangers and deceptions. But when, with your own observations, you combine the accumulated wisdom of ages; and when this wisdom has become your own, by patient reading and reflection, you will, indeed, have POWER. You will have power over the refractory substances on which you are called to labor, and will cause them to bend to your will with an almost magical celerity. You will have power even over future events, for you will be prepared to anticipate their nature, to prepare for their approach, and to employ them as harmless contributors to your advancement. You will have power, too, over the minds with which you associate, since you will know the motives that sway, and the prejudices that pervert, and the high aspirations that warm, them; aspirations, which, though now stifled by worldly pursuits, are yet susceptible of being roused into vigorous and beneficent exercise. And above all, you may, by a proper improvement of the means with which you are intrusted, secure that no