land
than in any other country: there are most weeds where there is the largest
crop. Speculation, though not encouraged by our Government so much as by
those of the Continent, has had, not indeed such forcing, but much wider
diffusion: few tanks, but many rivulets. On this point I quote from the
preface to the reprint of the work of Ramchundra,[765] which I
superintended for the late Court of Directors of the East India Company.

{375}

"That sound judgment which gives men well to know what is best for them, as
well as that faculty of invention which leads to development of resources
and to the increase of wealth and comfort, are both materially advanced,
perhaps cannot rapidly be advanced without, a great taste for pure
speculation among the general mass of the people, down to the lowest of
those who can read and write. England is a marked example. Many persons
will be surprised at this assertion. They imagine that our country is the
great instance of the refusal of all _unpractical_ knowledge in favor of
what is _useful_. I affirm, on the contrary, that there is no country in
Europe in which there has been so wide a diffusion of speculation, theory,
or what other unpractical word the reader pleases. In our country, the
scientific _society_ is always formed and maintained by the people; in
every other, the scientific _academy_--most aptly named--has been the
creation of the government, of which it has never ceased to be the
nursling. In all the parts of England in which manufacturing pursuits have
given the artisan some command of time, the cultivation of mathematics and
other speculative studies has been, as is well known, a very frequent
occupation. In no other country has the weaver at his loom bent over the
_Principia_ of Newton; in no other country has the man of weekly wages
maintained his own scientific periodical. With us, since the beginning of
the last century, scores upon scores--perhaps hundreds, for I am far from
knowing all--of annuals have run, some their ten years, some their
half-century, some their century and a half, containing questions to be
answered, from which many of our examiners in the universities have culled
materials for the academical contests. And these questions have always been
answered, and in cases without number by the lower order of purchasers, the
mechanics, the weavers, and the printers' workmen. I cannot here digress to
point out the manner in which the concentration of manufact