Towanda daily review. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1879-1921, 1881-04-14
Mr.. lngham's Lecture.
KNOWLEDGE, ITS POWER AND IMPORTANCE.

Though the weather was bad and the walk
ing very disagreeable, yet goodly number
assembled at the Institute on Tuesday night
to listen to the fifth lecture of the Institute
course, by Mr.. INGHAM. The lecturer has a
clear voice and excellent articulation. He
spoke earnestly, rapidly, and held the closest
attention of his audience by his interesting
lecture.
In opening the lecture Mr.. INGHAM said
that they were wrong who differed with
BACON when he said &c knowledge is power"
No truer words were ever spoken. Know-
edge is the power that gives us rule oyer
nature. The wild winds of heaven are caught
and made to turn mills that draw water and
grind grain upon the prairies and mountain
tops. Wind mills pump the water from the
lowlands of Holland and preserve them for
the cultivation of. the people. BY knowledge
the waters of rivers are utilized; by them
factories, machine shops hum with their
thousand trip-hammers and spindles. The
waters ofeven the roaring Niagara are being
made to subserve the uses of man instead of
wasting their energies upon the rugged and
unyielding rocks.
BY the knowledge of steam power what a
wonderful aid to commerce has been secured!
Railroads are banding the earth with net
work of iron upon which the hordes of earth
and products of nations pass rapidly to and
fro; steamships cross the ocean in ten days;
immense vessels plow the waters of every
ocean and lake, caring little for wind or tide.
Henry and Morse by their knowledge of
electricity have given to the world the tele
graph, on whose lightning wings the news Of
the morning speeds to the uJtermost parts of
the earth. BY knowledge the electric light is
Just beginning to shed its effulgence upon the
darkness of the earth. The Illuminating gas
is product of chemical invention. The
kerosene oil so extensively used at the pres
ent time, is refined by skilled hands before it
is fit for use. The telephone is destined to
supplant the telegraph for short distances,
and the time will come when it will be uni
yerSally used. The phonograph, that won
derfu: product of modern thought. will re-
cord the words of orators and statesmen and
preserve for generations their exact words.
1t will do away with reporters and stenO-
graphers in its accurate preservation of
speeches and sermons. BY knowledge, bal
looming has been used to some extent, and
when u greater knowledge of gases is acquired
something for inhatngi may be discovered
that will enable us to ride through the air in
machines of iron. Powder and its use in tun-
neling mountains, in making cuts for rail
roads, in opening the channels of rivers; vac
cination and its prevention of the spread and
virulency of disc lse; life boats and life-saying
machines are the result of knowledge.
knowledge has given to the world the
printing press and the wonderful diffusion Of
the cheap, though excellent, literature that
we have to-day. BY the same power we
have the thousand and one machines for aid
ang man in his work.
Superior knowledge gives man power oyer
beasts. He ensnares them in the jungles of
India, he captures them in the wilds of
Africa, he hunts them successfully in the
forests of the world. Two thousand years
ago the world thought that it had reached the
acme of military prowess, yet to-day with our
firearms a single regiment could resist the
attack of all the warriors that ever trod the
pavements of Rome or marched through the
fields of Attica. The walls that so completely
secured the cities of ancient times would not
stand an hour before the balls of swamp
angel or a Krupp gun.
All history has proved that the people who
possessed the most knowledge have ruled
widest. De Soto by his skill resisted the on
sets of the Indians in his march from Florida
to the Pacific. The United States conquered
Mexico by superior knowledge of military
tactics, not by superior numbers. All India
was subjected by the generalship Of few
Englishmen. A few of the most learned men
Of an age shapes public opinion. Mores was