THE COMMUNITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 448, 22 February 1890, Page 4

THE COMMUNITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

(By J. C. Fumi.)

In the youth of the English Nation, Knowledge was in the hands of the few. The baron in his castle was nearly as ignorant as the serf in his hovel. The monk alon 0 kept the lamp of Knowledge alight. Dimly it burned in cloistered cell and stately abbey. Still it burned, and we have reason to be grateful to those who with patient industry transcribed the Old Learning from many a musty manuscript, obscured though it was with the mystic disquisitions of the schoolmen and the grotesque superstitions of a dark age. The Universities had fallen into decay. The Wars of the Roses had destroyed the Baronial power, and under this unchecked despotism of Edward the Fourth, learning flickered and liberty almost disappeared. Then, before the close of the fifteenth century, tho capture of Constantinople by the Turks introduced the New Learning into Western Europe, and the printing press made it to some extent common property. From that hour Knowledge and Liberty increased. Both fires burnt downwards. The summits of Society caught first tho morning beams of knowledge, which, spreading slowly downwards for three centuries and a half, at length illumined wide stretches of the social landscape with its life-giving rays. The upper and middle classes were tho first to learn that “Knowledge is Power.” Aided by the inventions and the trade of the last hundred years, the middle class by the Reform Bill and Free Trade, destroyed the power of the aristocracy and won its own freedom. The factory observed the castle, and the masters of the factories imposed a new serfdom upon the common people. Fifty years ago, but a small proportion of the working class could read and write. There was no Community of Knowledge, and therefore, no Community of Power or freedom; nevertheless knowledge continued to spread downwards, until, in our own day, the Education system of the United Kingdom has brought the gleams of knowledge into the homes and hearts of the common people. One of the first results of this Community of Knowledge, has been a great extension of electoral rights, a great advance to a Community of Power. Whilst in 1832 there were but a few hundred thousand electors on the rolls of tho United Kingdom, in 1888 there were nearly six millions of electors on the rolls. As yet not much has been done by this grand electoral army to secure a community of social rights. The English working class are like apprentices learning the use of new tools, like recruits on a parade ground, acquiring a knowledge of discipline and the use of their weapons. As their intelligence increases, aided by the newspaper, which is the Book of the Age, because it is the Record of the Life of the Age, they will learn how to use their power to redress social wrongs of various kinds. Upon the reasonableness and consideration of the English middle class, which now- wields the power, and for a little time will continue to wield it, will depend the nature of the settlement of the social and economic questions which are rapidly maturing. Moderation, consideration and wisdom must be displayed by both parties to the struggle, if confiscatory or revolutionary measures are to be avoided. In the Australasian colonies, in education, independence and political power we are in advance of our countrymen at Home. We may have had more independence to begin with, for it doubtless demands more of a manly spirit of adventure in those who have faced the certain dangers of the deep and the uncertainties of colonial life, than in those who stay at home at ease. We have more enthusiasm than the old folks at Home, due partly, perhaps, to our grand sunshine, which is a better wine of life than . the gin and the whisky, so largely used in countries, where dampness and darkness reign for half the year. We have far more electoral power, which we have not hitherto used either wisely or well. We had a clean sheet, which, like careless schoolboys, we have blotted and smeared a good deal. We have made many mistakes, and the schoolmaster of life has given us some hard knocks. Nevertheless, our enthusiasm happily remains, and though enthusiasm has given many victims to progress, and many martyrs to humanity, we have still faith in ourselves and in our future, and we shall undertake the adjustment of our own social and economic difficulties, with a manly and hopeful courage, not altogether selfish. Our chief efforts will be in the reduction of Governmental expenditure, the lessening of taxation, the equalization of burdens, settlement on the land, and the development of industrial enterprises. The Newspaper Press is tho most efficient and potent agent in diffusing a Community of Knowledge. Of the multiplication of books, good, indifferont, and bad, there is no end, but in these busy days, few, beyond the learned and the idle have time to read many of them. Nor do they bring us.into touch with the living, throbbing pulsations of humanity. The newspaper alone, with its swift-winged messenger the telegraph,by its daily record of the events of .life —of life with its successes and failures,-its conquests and defeats, its selfish greed, its competitions and catastrophes, its noble sacrifices, its sufferings, ' its patient courage, its bitter cries, its rights and Avrongs, its tram pings of armed hosts, its toiling millions, its splendours and miseries, its shams and realities, Its storms and calms, its knowledge and ignorance —all these are flashed along our modern Ariel’s girdle, and read in the palace of the noble, in the shop of the trader, in the cottage of the workman, diffusing daily a Community of Knowledge, which, with the truest touch of nature, inspired by Christ's Christianity, will one day develop a generous sympathy, and “make the whole world kin.” So may it be. “Auckland Star,” February 17.