Town Geology | Page 6

heavily enough as they go on in life, without our handicapping them in their first race. Whatever stable they come out of, whatever promise they show, let them all train alike, and start fair, and let the best colt win.
Well: but there is a branch of education in which, even now, the poor man can compete fairly against the rich; and that is, Natural Science. In the first place, the rich, blind to their own interest, have neglected it hitherto in their schools; so that they have not the start of the poor man on that subject which they have on many. In the next place, Natural Science is a subject which a man cannot learn by paying for teachers. He must teach it himself, by patient observation, by patient common sense. And if the poor man is not the rich man's equal in those qualities, it must be his own fault, not his purse's. Many shops have I seen about the world, in which fools could buy articles more or less helpful to them; but never saw I yet an observation-shop, nor a common-sense shop either. And if any man says, "We must buy books:" I answer, a poor man now can obtain better scientific books than a duke or a prince could sixty years ago, simply because then the books did not exist. When I was a boy I would have given much, or rather my father would have given much, if I could have got hold of such scientific books as are to be found now in any first-class elementary school. And if more expensive books are needed; if a microscope or apparatus is needed; can you not get them by the co-operative method, which has worked so well in other matters? Can you not form yourselves into a Natural Science club, for buying such things and lending them round among your members; and for discussion also, the reading of scientific papers of your own writing, the comparing of your observations, general mutual help and mutual instructions? Such societies are becoming numerous now, and gladly should I see one in every town. For in science, as in most matters, "As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend."
And Brotherhood: well, if you want that; if you want to mix with men, and men, too, eminently worth mixing with, on the simple ground that "a man's a man for a' that;" if you want to become the acquaintances, and--if you prove worthy--the friends, of men who will be glad to teach you all they know, and equally glad to learn from you anything you can teach them, asking no questions about you, save, first--Is he an honest student of Nature for her own sake? And next- -Is he a man who will not quarrel, or otherwise behave in an unbrotherly fashion to his fellow-students?--If you want a ground of brotherhood with men, not merely in these islands, but in America, on the Continent--in a word, all over the world--such as rank, wealth, fashion, or other artificial arrangements of the world cannot give and cannot take away; if you want to feel yourself as good as any man in theory, because you are as good as any man in practice, except those who are better than you in the same line, which is open to any and every man; if you wish to have the inspiring and ennobling feeling of being a brother in a great freemasonry which owns no difference of rank, of creed, or of nationality--the only freemasonry, the only International League which is likely to make mankind (as we all hope they will be some day) one--then become men of science. Join the freemasonry in which Hugh Miller, the poor Cromarty stonemason, in which Michael Faraday, the poor bookbinder's boy, became the companions and friends of the noblest and most learned on earth, looked up to by them not as equals merely but as teachers and guides, because philosophers and discoverers.
Do you wish to be great? Then be great with true greatness; which is,--knowing the facts of nature, and being able to use them. Do you wish to be strong? Then be strong with true strength; which is, knowing the facts of nature, and being able to use them. Do you wish to be wise? Then be wise with true wisdom; which is, knowing the facts of nature, and being able to use them. Do you wish to be free? Then be free with true freedom; which is again, knowing the facts of nature, and being able to use them.
I dare say some of my readers, especially the younger ones, will demur to that last speech of mine. Well, I hope they will not be angry with me for saying it. I,