are dependent upon chemistry. Agriculture, the basis of all
the other arts, is in the same condition. Chemical knowledge, indeed, is
doing for the productive powers of the soil what the application of
steam has done for the increase of mechanical power. The farmer who
wishes to double his crops, finds the means of doing so, not in
multiplying his acres, but in applying a knowledge of the laws of
chemistry to the cultivation of the soil already possessed. Even
physiology is adding to the wealth of the farming interest. The truth
that the production of animal heat implies waste of substance, and that
therefore preventing the loss of heat prevents the need for extra
food--which is a purely theoretical conclusion--now guides the fattening
of cattle. By keeping cattle warm, fodder is saved. Experiments of
physiologists have proved, not only that change of diet is beneficial,
but that digestion is facilitated by a mixture of ingredients in each
meal. Both these truths are now influencing cattle-feeding. In the keen
race of competition, the farmer who has a competent knowledge of the
laws of animal and vegetable physiology and of agricultural chemistry,
will surely distance the one who gropes along by guess and by tradition.
A general diffusion of scientific knowledge saves the community from
innumerable wasteful and foolish mistakes. In England, not many years
ago, the partners in a large mining company were ruined from not knowing
that a certain fossil belonged to the old red sandstone, below which
coal is never found. In another enterprise, L20,000 were lost in the
prosecution of a scheme for collecting the alcohol that distils from
bread in baking, all of which might have been saved, had the parties
known that less than one hundredth part by weight of the flour is
changed in fermentation.

But it is not necessary to multiply illustrations. Suffice it to say, in
conclusion, I hold it to be a most manifest truth, that the general
education of a community increases largely its material wealth, both by
the direct effect which knowledge has upon individuals in making them
individually more productive, and by the increased control which the
diffusion of knowledge gives to mankind over the powers of nature. A
nation or a state is wisely economical which spends largely and even
lavishly upon popular education.

XXX.

WHAT IS EDUCATION?

My last chapter, like the first, begins with a question. Strange to say,
no satisf