KNIGHTS OF LABOR to KNOX page 1008
families enlisted under the banners of wealthy nobles; and it was not long until knighthood, won by military service, was esteemed more honorable than that which attached to the holding of land. The age of knighthood or chivalry may be said to have extended from the time of the crusades to the end of the Wars of the Roses, a period of nearly 400 years. Although knighthood originally was a purely military distinction in the loth century, it came to be conferred on civilians as a reward for valuable services rendered to the crown or to the state. The first civil knight in England was Sir William Walworth, who won his title by slaying Wat Tyler in the presence of King Richard II in 1381. Since the abolition of knight-service, knighthood has been conferred as a mark of the sovereign's esteem, and in recent times it has been conferred as often on civil officers, scholars, lawyers, physicians and artists as on soldiers. See Grose's Military Antiquities; Nicolas' British Orders of Knighthood; and Hallarn's The Middle Ages.
Knights of Labor. See LABOR ORGANIZATIONS.
Knights of Rhodes. See MALTA, KNIGHTS OF.
Knights of St. John. See MALTA, KNIGHTS OF.
Knights Templars. See TEMPLARS.
Knittin Machines were invented in their simplest form, known as the stocking-frame, as early as the i6th century, by Lee of Nottingham, England. All knitting-machines were worked by hand until the ipth century. During the ipth century, however, over 2,000 patents in knitting-machinery were taken out in the United States alone. There are about 100,000 knitting-machines in use in the United States, most of them being circular and each having a series of needles arranged vertically and parallel to one another, inside a vertical cylinder which raises and lowers them with great rapidity. Knitting-machines are adapted to cotton and even silk fabrics as well as woolens.
Knox College, located at Galesburg, 111., is one of the oldest institutions in the central west, having been chartered in 1837. It is co-educational, and has a faculty of 32 and an attendance of 560 students, exclusive of the academy and the conservatory of music. The college has productive funds to the amount, so far, of $300,000 and an income of close upon $50,000. It has a library of about 9,000 volumes.
Knox College of Toronto, Canada, was founded by the (Free) Presbyterian Church of Canada in 1844. The Rev. Dr. Burns took a leading part. The Rev. Michael Willis, a man of great learning, was its first principal. He filled the chair of systematic theology from 1847 to 1870. The college for 20 years occupied premises in which Lord Elgin governor-general of Canada, had resided. For some years there existed an arts department. The majority of students take the complete arts course in the University of Toronto. In 1885 the college was affiliated with the university, and it was federated with it under the federation act of 1890, thereby being constituted an integral portion of the University of Toronto. The college has 750 graduates. The endowments amount to $300,000.
Knox, Henry, an American soldier who highly distinguished himself during the Revolutionary War, was born at Boston, July 25, 1750. He received a good common-school education, and gave considerable attention to military tactics during his boyhood. He participated in the battle of Bunker Hill as a volunteer aid to General Ward, secretly making his way out of Boston for that purpose. During the siege of Boston he attracted Washington's attention by his skill in fortification, He took part in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and was soon after chosen by Congress as brigadier-general of artillery, in which capacity he served with honor and distinction till the close of the war. General Knox stood high in Washington's confidence, and after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown he was made major-general and placed in command at West Point. When Washington became president, Knox was appointed secretary of war, a position in which he exhibited the same faithfulness and efficiency he had always exhibited as a soldier. He died at Thomaston, Me., where he had a large landed estate, on Oct. 25, 1806.
Knox, John, the great Scottish preacher and reformer, was born at Giffordgate, a suburb of Haddington, on Nov. 24, 1505. He received his early education at the grammar-school of his native town, and in 1522 was sent to the University of Glasgow, but left without taking the degree of master of arts. Knox became acquainted with George Wishart, who had lately returned from travel in England and Germany with an ardent zeal to gain Scotland to the reformation. From this time Knox devoted himself with an earnestness and intensity never surpassed to establishing in Scotland what he deemed a church based on the teachings of Christ and his apostles.
In 1546 he preached to the Protestants who, after the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, had taken refuge in the castle of St. Andrew, and on the surrender of the castle, Knox, who had no part in the assassination, was sent, with others, a prisoner on board the French galleys. For nearly two years Knox remained a captive, but in February, 1549, at the solicitation of Edward VI, he was set at liberty. As it was unsafe to return to Scotland, he remained in England for four years, and on the accession of Mary in 1543 he had to seek refuge on the continent; but in September, 1555, he ventured into Scot-
