our actions to our purposes depends on
the accuracy of our knowledge, *it is intrinsically fitting ** that our
cognitive powers should be thoroughly developed and trained, and
diligently employed.* Especially is this fitting, because--as has been
already shown--it is through knowledge alone that we can bring our conduct
into conformity with the absolute right, and there is nothing within the
range of our possible knowledge, which may not become in some way
connected with our agency as moral beings.

It is of prime importance that what we seem to know we know accurately;
and as it is through the senses that we acquire our knowledge, not only of
the outward objects with which we are daily conversant, but of other minds
than our own, *the education of the senses* is an obvious duty. There are
few so prolific sources of social evil, injustice, and misery, as the
falsehood of persons who mean to tell the truth, but who see or hear only
in part, and supply the deficiencies of perception by the imagination. In
the acquisition of knowledge of the highest interest and importance this
same hindrance is one of the most frequent obstacles. The careless eye and
the heedless ear waste for many minds a large portion of the time
ostensibly given to serious pursuits, and render their growth pitifully
slow and scanty as compared with their means of culture. The senses may,
especially in early life, be trained to alertness and precision, so that
they shall carry to the mind true and full reports of what they see and
hear; and it is only by such training that the perceptive faculties can
accomplish the whole work for which they are designed and fitted.

There are, also, interior senses, *apprehensive powers of the mind*, which
equally crave culture, and which depend for their precision and force on
careful education and diligent use. Mere observation, experience, or
study, cannot give knowledge that will be of any avail. One may have a
largely and variously stocked memory, and yet be unable to employ its
contents to his own advantage or to the benefit of others. Indeed, there
are minds that are paralyzed by being overloaded,--by taking in freight
faster than they have room for it. It is only materials which the mind has
made its own, incorporated into its substance, that it can fully utilize.
Knowledge must be acted upon by the understanding, the reason, the
judgment, before it can be transmuted into wisdom, and employed either in
the acqu