education: Freethought supports it. The poor as well as the rich should
share in its blessings. Education is a social capital which should be
supplied to all. It enriches and expands. It not only furnishes the
mind, but strengthens its faculties. Knowledge is power. A race of
giants could not level the Alps; but ordinary men, equipped with
science, bore through their base, and make easy channels for the
intercourse of divided nations.

Growth comes with use, and power with exercise, Education makes both
possible. It puts the means of salvation at the service of all, and
prevents the faculties from moving about _in vacuo_, and finally
standing still from sheer hopelessness. The educated man has a whole
magazine of appliances at his command, and his intellect is trained in
using them, while the uneducated man has nothing but his strength, and
his training is limited to its use.

Freethought demands education for all. It claims a mental inheritance
for every child born into the world. Superstition demands ignorance,
stupidity, and degradation. Wherever the schoolmaster is busy,
Freethought prospers; where he is not found, superstition reigns supreme
and levels the people in the dust.

Free speech and Freethought go together. If one is hampered the other
languishes. What is the use of thinking if I may not express my thought?
We claim equal liberty for all. The priest shall say what he believes
and so shall the sceptic. No law shall protect the one and disfranchise
the other. If any man disapproves what I say, he need not hear me a
second time. What more does he require? Let him listen to what he likes,
and leave others to do the same. Let us have justice and fair play all
round.

Freethought is not only useful but laudable. It involves labor and
trouble. Ours is not a gospel for those who love the soft pillow of
faith. The Freethinker does not let his ship rot away in harbor; he
spreads his canvas and sails the seas of thought. What though tempests
beat and billows roar? He is undaunted, and leaves the avoidance of
danger to the sluggard and the slave. He will not pay their price for
ease and safety. Away he sails with Vigilance at the prow and Wisdom at
the helm. He not only traverses the ocean highways, but skirts unmapped
coasts and ventures on uncharted seas. He gathers spoils in every zone,
and returns with a rich freight that compensates for all hazards. Some
day or other, you say, he will be shipwrecked and lo