Our Inquiry Meeting: Number Nine

In answer to your inquines, Isaiali, we stated, two weeks since, the best mode of obtaining a thorough knowlcdge of leadingfactsand principies on any subject - by getting the most approvcd works, and becoming completely master of them. - I3ut no seicncc or art is stationary. Progress is the order of the day ; and it i:j manifested by constant innovations on old prácticos and notions, and discoveries of new principies and processes. You must keep pace with the progress of knowledge, by collecting and preserving all the tems of important information you can índ. Let us teil you of a mcthod, which, f carried out in its details, will prove eminenily useful, and place you far above your fellows.You must make yoursclf a Book of ?acts, where you can stow away, under ts appropriate head, every item of valuado facts that you iind in the newspapcrs, nd wish to rcrnember. Now do not nink of your old account books, nor oí' 'our sister's cast-away Album. Go to ne book-store with a dollar, and purchase a new, ruled, blank book, long and narrow in shapc, and containing two or three ïundrcd pages. Divide the book into compartments - of from two to six pages each, according to tho number ana importance of the subjacita of which it is to treat. Your headiogs through the book will be like these : Population, Manufactures, Commerce, Agricultura Railroads, Elections, Army, Navy, SljlHy, War, Intemperance, National SüfffllRs, &c. - In the first pages of your book make an index of these. When you find in the newspapers a valuable fact on any of these topics, cut it out, and paste it carcfully under its appropriate head, one extract under another, like a column in a r.ewspapcr. Number each fact in the margin 1, 2, 3, &c., ond write opposite t) it, in the margin, in a large, full hand, the particular point of which the paragraph treats. For instance, under the general división of Slavery, you will have paragraphs concerning the Education and Religión in Slave Slales, Abolition of Slavery in foreign countms, Free Population of Slave andFree States compare, Slave Laws, rcsults of Emancipation, &c, &c. Lastly, enter the authority on which your stateni-nts are made, and the time to which they refer. The more particular about thLs the better : for you nniy wish to refcr to your book hundreds and thousands of times, and manyyears henee.What do you say : The plan metí he a goed one, but Hiere is no need of all these parliciilars 7 Let us tel) you fhat tliorc is not an eminent lecturer in the country on any subject that does not use some plan for collec'ing facts : and is not a full and systematio plan far preferable to a meagre and insufücient niethod ? You need not despise these suggeslions, Isaah, as mere dabbling in small mattars. - To cut out and preserve one fact, as hcre directed, is, indeed, in one sense, a small matter. It can be done by any body in a minute or two. Yet the' practk k of preserving them may have inighty rcsults on yourself and others. It will infallibly give you influeuce and consideration among your neighbors. To test its effects, let us take your oivn case. You íave as good a mind as lhe generality of men. You are an antislavery man. - You wish to talk on that subject continually to your friends and neighbors - to every body. Suppose that by mcans of this system, and by an active exertion of all your facultics, you learn to-duy aud register in your niind, so that you can iiave at the perfect coimruind of your tongue, one important antislavery fact. To-morrow you wil! add to this a seooiid "act, and next day a third, and so on tiiï the end of a' ycir, v.hea you w lurc at your comtpand, as familinr as houseíoíd words, threc hundi-ed and sixty-five antislavery truths. Then v.-hcn the question of Abolition comes up for discussian in your village debating school, do you not sc'ö what a míghty advantage you ïave over all others? These acquisition?, alone, would make yon a distinguished nan in vour spherc' of influence. Butgo further than this. Carry out your Man' of learning onc antislavery fact a lay fot" ten yem's, and you would thén bc armcd with thrce thousandsix hundml and fifty ppWériul arguments for the an-' ti-s]avcly cause. Witli such a magizine f truths, you would be invulnerable. - Vith onlin'ary prudehce, you could not be broken down in argumeht , and you night fearlessly meet on the floor of the J. S. Senate, John C. Calhoun or Thomas II. Bcnton, face to taco ! ls.iiah, that nán is not to be despiseU who pntiently, systcmatically, and pcrsoveringly g.ulicrs up all the truths within his réach ! -Mark t, he will 1e somebody f Procra-stination is the tbief of time.