McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LVI · Part 6: Honesty, Crusoe and good-will

60. Knowledge is Power

Goal: Your child reads a conversation and explains why knowledge can be a blessing or a curse.

⏱ About 25 minutes · 6 steps

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You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook or lined paper and a pencil

What's in the book

A conversation: a bustling little man praises knowledge, and a wise old man answers that knowledge is power, and power can do harm as well as good. He gives examples of a horse, a pond and a ship. Definitions and Exercises follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    The new words are at the end of the lesson, under Definitions. The small number in front of each word is the paragraph or verse where it is used. Read them together before the lesson. A few of them:

    Bustling, very active, stirring.

    Restraint, any thing which hinders.

    Fertile, producing much fruit, rich.

    Ask your child to find two of these words in the lesson and read the sentence each one is in.

  2. Read it aloud

    Your child reads it aloud. Give the little man a quick, eager voice and the old man a slow, thoughtful one. It begins:

    "What an excellent thing is knowledge," said a sharp-looking, bustling little man.

  3. Talk about it

    SayWhat is the subject of this lesson?

    SayIs knowledge always a power? Is it always a blessing?

    SayRelate several examples of power wrongly used.

    SayIf we use the powers that God has given us for bad purposes, what will our knowledge prove to be?

    Let your child look back at the page to find answers.

  4. Tell it back

    Close the book. Your child explains the old man's example of the horse (or the pond, or the ship) in their own words.

  5. Copywork

    Your child copies this from the book, slowly and neatly, minding every capital letter and mark of punctuation:

    Knowledge is only an increase of power, and power may be a bad, as well as a good thing.

  6. Words to learn

    Learn: bustling, subject, meekly, restraint, burdens, trenches, fertile, produce, steered, applied. Spell each aloud, then write it with its meaning.

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