For the second of these purposes, the maintenance of the forts and

garrisons, an annual sum has been allotted to them by parliament,

generally about L.13,000. For the proper application of this sum, the

committee is obliged to account annually to the cursitor baron of

exchequer; which account is afterwards to be laid before parliament. But

parliament, which gives so little attention to the application of

millions, is not likely to give much to that of L.13,000 a-year; and the

cursitor baron of exchequer, from his profession and education, is not

likely to be profoundly skilled in the proper expense of forts and

garrisons. The captains of his majesty's navy, indeed, or any other

commissioned officers, appointed by the board of admiralty, may inquire

into the condition of the forts and garrisons, and report their

observations to that board. But that board seems to have no direct

jurisdiction over the committee, nor any authority to correct those

whose conduct it may thus inquire into; and the captains of his

majesty's navy, besides, are not supposed to be always deeply learned in

the science of fortification. Removal from an office, which can be

enjoyed only for the term of three years, and of which the lawful

emoluments, even during that term, are so very small, seems to be the

utmost punishment to which any committee-man is liable, for any fault,

except direct malversation, or embezzlement, either of the public money,

or of that of the company; and the fear of the punishment can never be a

motive of sufficient weight to force a continual and careful attention

to a business to which he has no other interest to attend. The committee

are accused of having sent out bricks and stones from England for the

reparation of Cape Coast Castle, on the coast of Guinea; a business for

which parliament had several times granted an extraordinary sum of

money. These bricks and stones, too, which had thus been sent upon so

long a voyage, were said to have been of so bad a quality, that it was

necessary to rebuild, from the foundation, the walls which had been

repaired with them. The forts and garrisons which lie north of Cape

Rouge, are not only maintained at the expense of the state, but are

under the immediate government of the executive power; and why those

which lie south of that cape, and which, too, are, in part at least,

maintained at the expense of the state, should be under a different

government, it seems not very easy even to imagine a good reason. The

protection of the Mediterranean trade was the original purpose or

pretence of the garrisons of Gibraltar and Minorca; and the maintenance

and government of those garrisons have always been, very properly,

committed, not to the Turkey company, but to the executive power. In the

extent of its dominion consists, in a great measure, the pride and

dignity of that power; and it is not very likely to fail in attention to

what is necessary for the defence of that dominion. The garrisons at

Gibraltar and Minorca, accordingly, have never been neglected. Though

Minorca has been twice taken, and is now probably lost for ever, that

disaster has never been imputed to any neglect in the executive power. I

would not, however, be understood to insinuate, that either of those

expensive garrisons was ever, even in the smallest degree, necessary for

the purpose for which they were originally dismembered from the Spanish

monarchy. That dismemberment, perhaps, never served any other real

purpose than to alienate from England her natural ally the king of

Spain, and to unite the two principal branches of the house of Bourbon

in a much stricter and more permanent alliance than the ties of blood

could ever have united them.

Joint-stock companies, established either by royal charter, or by act of

parliament, are different in several respects, not only from regulated

companies, but from private copartneries.

First, In a private copartnery, no partner without the consent of the

company, can transfer his share to another person, or introduce a new

member into the company. Each member, however, may, upon proper warning,

withdraw from the copartnery, and demand payment from them of his share

of the common stock. In a joint-stock company, on the contrary, no

member can demand payment of his share from the company; but each

member can, without their consent, transfer his share to another person,

and thereby introduce a new member. The value of a share in a joint

stock is always the price which it will bring in the market; and this

may be either greater or less in any proportion, than the sum which its

owner stands credited for in the stock of the company.

Secondly, In a private copartnery, each partner is bound for the debts

contracted by the company, to the whole extent of his fortune. In a

joint-stock company, on the contrary, each partner is bound only to the

extent of his share.

The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of

directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects,

to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part

of these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the

business of the company; and when the spirit of faction happens not to

prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receive

contentedly such half-yearly or yearly dividend as the directors think

proper to make to them. This total exemption from trouble and from risk,

beyond a limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers in

joint-stock companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their fortunes

in any private copartnery. Such companies, therefore, commonly draw to

themselves much greater stocks, than any private copartnery can boast

of. The trading stock of the South Sea company at one time amounted to

upwards of thirty-three millions eight hundred thousand pounds. The

divided capital of the Bank of England amounts, at present, to ten

millions seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The directors of such

companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money

than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch

over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a

private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of

a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not

for their master's honour, and very easily give themselves a

dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must

always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a

company. It is upon this account, that joint-stock companies for foreign

trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition against private

adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an

exclusive privilege; and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without

an exclusive privilege, they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an

exclusive privilege, they have both mismanaged and confined it.

The Royal African company, the predecessors of the present African

company, had an exclusive privilege by charter; but as that charter had

not been confirmed by act of parliament, the trade, in consequence of

the declaration of rights, was, soon after the Revolution, laid open to

all his majesty's subjects. The Hudson's Bay company are, as to their

legal rights, in the same situation as the Royal African company. Their

exclusive charter has not been confirmed by act of parliament. The South

Sea company, as long as they continued to be a trading company, had an

exclusive privilege confirmed by act of parliament; as have likewise the

present united company of merchants trading to the East Indies.

The Royal African company soon found that they could not maintain the

competition against private adventurers, whom, notwithstanding the

declaration of rights, they continued for some time to call interlopers,

and to persecute as such. In 1698, however, the private adventurers were

subjected to a duty of ten per cent. upon almost all the different

branches of their trade, to be employed by the company in the

maintenance of their forts and garrisons. But, notwithstanding this

heavy tax, the company were still unable to maintain the competition.

Their stock and credit gradually declined. In 1712, their debts had

become so great, that a particular act of parliament was thought

necessary, both for their security and for that of their creditors. It

was enacted, that the resolution of two-thirds of these creditors in

number and value should bind the rest, both with regard to the time

which should be allowed to the company for the payment of their debts,

and with regard to any other agreement which it might be thought proper

to make with them concerning those debts. In 1730, their affairs were in

so great disorder, that they were altogether incapable of maintaining

their forts and garrisons, the sole purpose and pretext of their

institution. From that year till their final dissolution, the parliament

judged it necessary to allow the annual sum of ten thousand pounds for

that purpose. In 1732, after having been for many years losers by the

trade of carrying negroes to the West Indies, they at last resolved to

give it up altogether; to sell to the private traders to America the

negroes which they purchased upon the coast; and to employ their

servants in a trade to the inland parts of Africa for gold dust,

elephants teeth, dyeing drugs, &c. But their success in this more

confined trade was not greater than in their former extensive one. Their

affairs continued to go gradually to decline, till at last, being in

every respect a bankrupt company, they were dissolved by act of

parliament, and their forts and garrisons vested in the present

regulated company of merchants trading to Africa. Before the erection of

the Royal African company, there had been three other joint-stock

companies successively established, one after another, for the African

trade. They were all equally unsuccessful. They all, however, had

exclusive charters, which, though not confirmed by act of parliament,

were in those days supposed to convey a real exclusive privilege.

The Hudson's Bay company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had

been much more fortunate than the Royal African company. Their necessary

expense is much smaller. The whole number of people whom they maintain

in their different settlements and habitations, which they have honoured

with the name of forts, is said not to exceed a hundred and twenty

persons. This number, however, is sufficient to prepare beforehand the

cargo of furs and other goods necessary for loading their ships, which,

on account of the ice, can seldom remain above six or eight weeks in

those seas. This advantage of having a cargo ready prepared, could not,

for several years, be acquired by private adventurers; and without it

there seems to be no possibility of trading to Hudson's Bay. The

moderate capital of the company, which, it is said, does not exceed one

hundred and ten thousand pounds, may, besides, be sufficient to enable

them to engross the whole, or almost the whole trade and surplus

produce, of the miserable though extensive country comprehended within

their charter. No private adventurers, accordingly, have ever attempted

to trade to that country in competition with them. This company,

therefore, have always enjoyed an exclusive trade, in fact, though they

may have no right to it in law. Over and above all this, the moderate

capital of this company is said to be divided among a very small number

of proprietors. But a joint-stock company, consisting of a small number

of proprietors, with a moderate capital, approaches very nearly to the

nature of a private copartnery, and may be capable of nearly the same

degree of vigilance and attention. It is not to be wondered at,

therefore, if, in consequence of these different advantages, the

Hudson's Bay company had, before the late war, been able to carry on

their trade with a considerable degree of success. It does not seem

probable, however, that their profits ever approached to what the late

Mr Dobbs imagined them. A much more sober and judicious writer, Mr

Anderson, author of the Historical and Chronological Deduction of

Commerce, very justly observes, that upon examining the accounts which

Mr Dobbs himself has given for several years together, of their exports

and imports, and upon making proper allowances for their extraordinary

risk and expense, it does not appear that their profits deserve to be

envied, or that they can much, if at all, exceed the ordinary profits of

trade.

The South Sea company never had any forts or garrisons to maintain, and

therefore were entirely exempted from one great expense, to which other

joint-stock companies for foreign trade are subject; but they had an

immense capital divided among an immense number of proprietors. It was

naturally to be expected, therefore, that folly, negligence, and

profusion, should prevail in the whole management of their affairs. The

knavery and extravagance of their stock-jobbing projects are

sufficiently known, and the explication of them would be foreign to the

present subject. Their mercantile projects were not much better

conducted. The first trade which they engaged in, was that of supplying

the Spanish West Indies with negroes, of which (in consequence of what

was called the Assiento Contract granted them by the treaty of Utrecht)

they had the exclusive privilege. But as it was not expected that much

profit could be made by this trade, both the Portuguese and French

companies, who had enjoyed it upon the same terms before them, having

been ruined by it, they were allowed, as compensation, to send annually

a ship of a certain burden, to trade directly to the Spanish West

Indies. Of the ten voyages which this annual ship was allowed to make,

they are said to have gained considerably by one, that of the Royal

Caroline, in 1731; and to have been losers, more or less, by almost all

the rest. Their ill success was imputed, by their factors and agents, to

the extortion and oppression of the Spanish government; but was,

perhaps, principally owing to the profusion and depredations of those

very factors and agents; some of whom are said to have acquired great

fortunes, even in one year. In 1734, the company petitioned the king,

that they might be allowed to dispose of the trade and tonnage of their

annual ship, on account of the little profit which they made by it, and

to accept of such equivalent as they could obtain from the king of

Spain.

In 1724, this company had undertaken the whale fishery. Of this, indeed,

they had no monopoly; but as long as they carried it on, no other

British subjects appear to have engaged in it. Of the eight voyages

which their ships made to Greenland, they were gainers by one, and

losers by all the rest. After their eighth and last voyage, when they

had sold their ships, stores, and utensils, they found that their whole

loss upon this branch, capital and interest included, amounted to

upwards of two hundred and thirty-seven thousand pounds.

In 1722, this company petitioned the parliament to be allowed to divide

their immense capital of more than thirty-three millions eight hundred

thousand pounds, the whole of which been lent to government, into two

equal parts; the one half, or upwards of sixteen millions nine hundred

thousand pounds, to be put upon the same footing with other government

annuities, and not to be subject to the debts contracted, or losses

incurred, by the directors of the company, in the prosecution of their

mercantile projects; the other half to remain as before, a trading

stock, and to be subject to those debts and losses. The petition was too

reasonable not to be granted. In 1733, they again petitioned the

parliament, that three-fourths of their trading stock might be turned

into annuity stock, and only one-fourth remain as trading stock, or

exposed to the hazards arising from the bad management of their

directors. Both their annuity and trading stocks had, by this time, been

reduced more than two millions each, by several different payments from

government; so that this fourth amounted only to L.3,662,784 : 8 : 6.

In 1748, all the demands of the company upon the king of Spain, in

consequence of the assiento contract, were, by the treaty of

Aix-la-Chapelle, given up for what was supposed an equivalent. An end

was put to their trade with the Spanish West Indies; the remainder of

their trading stock was turned into an annuity stock; and the company

ceased, in every respect, to be a trading company.

It ought to be observed, that in the trade which the South Sea company

carried on by means of their annual ship, the only trade by which it

ever was expected that they could make any considerable profit, they

were not without competitors, either in the foreign or in the home

market. At Carthagena, Porto Bello, and La Vera Cruz, they had to

encounter the competition of the Spanish merchants, who brought from

Cadiz to those markets European goods, of the same kind with the outward

cargo of their ship; and in England they had to encounter that of the

English merchants, who imported from Cadiz goods of the Spanish West

Indies, of the same kind with the inward cargo. The goods, both of the

Spanish and English merchants, indeed, were, perhaps, subject to higher

duties. But the loss occasioned by the negligence, profusion, and

malversation of the servants of the company, had probably been a tax

much heavier than all those duties. That a joint-stock company should be

able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private

adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with

them, seems contrary to all experience.

The old English East India company was established in 1600, by a charter

from Queen Elizabeth. In the first twelve voyages which they fitted out

for India, they appear to have traded as a regulated company, with

separate stocks, though only in the general ships of the company. In

1612, they united into a joint stock. Their charter was exclusive, and,

though not confirmed by act of parliament, was in those days supposed to

convey a real exclusive privilege. For many years, therefore, they were

not much disturbed by interlopers. Their capital, which never exceeded

seven hundred and fourty-four thousand pounds, and of which fifty pounds

was a share, was not so exorbitant, nor their dealings so extensive, as

to afford either a pretext for gross negligence and profusion, or a

cover to gross malversation. Notwithstanding some extraordinary losses,

occasioned partly by the malice of the Dutch East India company, and

partly by other accidents, they carried on for many years a successful

trade. But in process of time, when the principles of liberty were

better understood, it became every day more and more doubtful, how far a

royal charter, not confirmed by act of parliament, could convey an

exclusive privilege. Upon this question the decisions of the courts of

justice were not uniform, but varied with the authority of government,

and the humours of the times. Interlopers multiplied upon them; and

towards the end of the reign of Charles II., through the whole of that

of James II., and during a part of that of William III., reduced them to

great distress. In 1698, a proposal was made to parliament, of advancing

two millions to government, at eight per cent. provided the subscribers

were erected into a new East India company, with exclusive privileges.

The old East India company offered seven hundred thousand pounds, nearly

the amount of their capital, at four per cent. upon the same conditions.

But such was at that time the state of public credit, that it was more

convenient for government to borrow two millions at eight per cent. than

seven hundred thousand pounds at four. The proposal of the new

subscribers was accepted, and a new East India company established in

consequence. The old East India company, however, had a right to

continue their trade till 1701. They had, at the same time, in the name

of their treasurer, subscribed very artfully three hundred and fifteen

thousand pounds into the stock of the new. By a negligence in the

expression of the act of parliament, which vested the East India trade

in the subscribers to this loan of two millions, it did not appear

evident that they were all obliged to unite into a joint stock. A few

private traders, whose subscriptions amounted only to seven thousand two

hundred pounds, insisted upon the privilege of trading separately upon

their own stocks, and at their own risks. The old East India company had

a right to a separate trade upon their own stock till 1701; and they had

likewise, both before and after that period, a right, like that of other

private traders, to a separate trade upon the three hundred and fifteen

thousand pounds, which they had subscribed into the stock of the new

company. The competition of the two companies with the private traders,

and with one another, is said to have well nigh ruined both. Upon a

subsequent occasion, in 1730, when a proposal was made to parliament for

putting the trade under the management of a regulated company, and

thereby laying it in some measure open, the East India company, in

opposition to this proposal, represented, in very strong terms, what had

been, at this time, the miserable effects, as they thought them, of this

competition. In India, they said, it raised the price of goods so high,

that they were not worth the buying; and in England, by overstocking the

market, it sunk their price so low, that no profit could be made by

them. That by a more plentiful supply, to the great advantage and

conveniency of the public, it must have reduced very much the price of

India goods in the English market, cannot well be doubted; but that it

should have raised very much their price in the Indian market, seems not

very probable, as all the extraordinary demand which that competition

could occasion must have been but as a drop of water in the immense

ocean of Indian commerce. The increase of demand, besides, though in the

beginning it may sometimes raise the price of goods, never fails to

lower it in the long-run. It encourages production, and thereby

increases the competition of the producers, who, in order to undersell

one another, have recourse to new divisions of labour and new

improvements of art, which might never otherwise have been thought of.

The miserable effects of which the company complained, were the

cheapness of consumption, and the encouragement given to production;

precisely the two effects which it is the great business of political

economy to promote. The competition, however, of which they gave this

doleful account, had not been allowed to be of long continuance. In

1702, the two companies were, in some measure, united by an indenture

tripartite, to which the queen was the third party; and in 1708, they

were by act of parliament, perfectly consolidated into one company, by

their present name of the United Company of Merchants trading to the

East Indies. Into this act it was thought worth while to insert a

clause, allowing the separate traders to continue their trade till

Michaelmas 1711; but at the same time empowering the directors, upon

three years notice, to redeem their little capital of seven thousand two

hundred pounds, and thereby to convert the whole stock of the company

into a joint stock. By the same act, the capital of the company, in

consequence of a new loan to government, was augmented from two millions

to three millions two hundred thousand pounds. In 1743, the company

advanced another million to government. But this million being raised,

not by a call upon the proprietors, but by selling annuities and

contracting bond-debts, it did not augment the stock upon which the

proprietors could claim a dividend. It augmented, however, their trading

stock, it being equally liable with the other three millions two hundred

thousand pounds, to the losses sustained, and debts contracted by the

company in prosecution of their mercantile projects. From 1708, or at

least from 1711, this company, being delivered from all competitors, and

fully established in the monopoly of the English commerce to the East

Indies, carried on a successful trade, and from their profits, made

annually a moderate dividend to their proprietors. During the French

war, which began in 1741, the ambition of Mr. Dupleix, the French

governor of Pondicherry, involved them in the wars of the Carnatic, and

in the politics of the Indian princes. After many signal successes, and

equally signal losses, they at last lost Madras, at that time their

principal settlement in India. It was restored to them by the treaty of

Aix-la-Chapelle; and, about this time the spirit of war and conquest

seems to have taken possession of their servants in India, and never

since to have left them. During the French war, which began in 1755,

their arms partook of the general good fortune of those of Great

Britain. They defended Madras, took Pondicherry, recovered Calcutta, and

acquired the revenues of a rich and extensive territory, amounting, it

was then said, to upwards of three millions a-year. They remained for

several years in quiet possession of this revenue; but in 1767,

administration laid claim to their territorial acquisitions, and the

revenue arising from them, as of right belonging to the crown; and the

company, in compensation for this claim, agreed to pay to government

four hundred thousand pounds a-year. They had, before this, gradually

augmented their dividend from about six to ten per cent.; that is, upon

their capital of three millions two hundred thousand pounds, they had

increased it by a hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds, or had

raised it from one hundred and ninety-two thousand to three hundred and

twenty thousand pounds a-year. They were attempting about this time to

raise it still further, to twelve and a-half per cent., which would have

made their annual payments to their proprietors equal to what they had

agreed to pay annually to government, or to four hundred thousand pounds

a-year. But during the two years in which their agreement with

government was to take place, they were restrained from any further

increase of dividend by two successive acts of parliament, of which the

object was to enable them to make a speedier progress in the payment of

their debts, which were at this time estimated at upwards of six or

seven millions sterling. In 1769, they renewed their agreement with

government for five years more, and stipulated, that during the course

of that period, they should be allowed gradually to increase their

dividend to twelve and a-half per cent; never increasing it, however,

more than one per cent. in one year. This increase of dividend,

therefore, when it had risen to its utmost height, could augment their

annual payments, to their proprietors and government together, but by

six hundred and eight thousand pounds, beyond what they had been before

their late territorial acquisitions. What the gross revenue of those

territorial acquisitions was supposed to amount to, has already been

mentioned; and by an account brought by the Cruttenden East Indiaman in

1769, the neat revenue, clear of all deductions and military charges,

was stated at two millions forty-eight thousand seven hundred and

forty-seven pounds. They were said, at the same time, to possess another

revenue, arising partly from lands, but chiefly from the customs

established at their different settlements, amounting to four hundred

and thirty-nine thousand pounds. The profits of their trade, too,

according to the evidence of their chairman before the house of commons,

amounted, at this time, to at least four hundred thousand pounds a-year;

according to that of their accountant, to at least five hundred

thousand; according to the lowest account, at least equal to the highest

dividend that was to be paid to their proprietors. So great a revenue

might certainly have afforded augmentation of six hundred and eight

thousand pounds in their annual payments; and, at the same time, have

left a large sinking fund, sufficient for the speedy reduction of their

debt. In 1773, however, their debts, instead of being reduced, were

augmented by an arrear to the treasury in the payment of the four

hundred thousand pounds; by another to the custom-house for duties

unpaid; by a large debt to the bank, for money borrowed; and by a

fourth, for bills drawn upon them from India, and wantonly accepted, to

the amount of upwards of twelve hundred thousand pounds. The distress

which these accumulated claims brought upon them, obliged them not only

to reduce all at once their dividend to six per cent. but to throw

themselves upon the mercy of government, and to supplicate, first, a

release from the further payment of the stipulated four hundred thousand

pounds a-year; and, secondly, a loan of fourteen hundred thousand, to

save them from immediate bankruptcy. The great increase of their fortune

had, it seems, only served to furnish their servants with a pretext for

greater profusion, and a cover for greater malversation, than in

proportion even to that increase of fortune. The conduct of their

servants in India, and the general state of their affairs both in India

and in Europe, became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry: in

consequence of which, several very important alterations were made in

the constitution of their government, both at home and abroad. In India,

their principal settlements of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, which had

before been altogether independent of one another, were subjected to a

governor-general, assisted by a council of four assessors, parliament

assuming to itself the first nomination of this governor and council,

who were to reside at Calcutta; that city having now become, what Madras

was before, the most important of the English settlements in India. The

court of the Mayor of Calcutta, originally instituted for the trial of

mercantile causes, which arose in the city and neighbourhood, had

gradually extended its jurisdiction with the extension of the empire. It

was now reduced and confined to the original purpose of its institution.

Instead of it, a new supreme court of judicature was established,

consisting of a chief justice and three judges, to be appointed by the

crown. In Europe, the qualification necessary to entitle a proprietor to

vote at their general courts was raised, from five hundred pounds, the

original price of a share in the stock of the company, to a thousand

pounds. In order to vote upon this qualification, too, it was declared

necessary, that he should have possessed it, if acquired by his own

purchase, and not by inheritance, for at least one year, instead of six

months, the term requisite before. The court of twenty-four directors

had before been chosen annually; but it was now enacted, that each

director should, for the future, be chosen for four years; six of them,

however, to go out of office by rotation every year, and not be capable

of being re-chosen at the election of the six new directors for the

ensuing year. In consequence of these alterations, the courts, both of

the proprietors and directors, it was expected, would be likely to act

with more dignity and steadiness than they had usually done before. But

it seems impossible, by any alterations, to render those courts, in any

respect, fit to govern, or even to share in the government of a great

empire; because the greater part of their members must always have too

little interest in the prosperity of that empire, to give any serious

attention to what may promote it. Frequently a man of great, sometimes

even a man of small fortune, is willing to purchase a thousand pounds

share in India stock, merely for the influence which he expects to

acquire by a vote in the court of proprietors. It gives him a share,

though not in the plunder, yet in the appointment of the plunderers of

India; the court of directors, though they make that appointment, being

necessarily more or less under the influence of the proprietors, who not

only elect those directors, but sometimes over-rule the appointments of

their servants in India. Provided he can enjoy this influence for a few

years, and thereby provide for a certain number of his friends, he

frequently cares little about the dividend, or even about the value of

the stock upon which his vote in founded. About the prosperity of the

great empire, in the government of which that vote gives him a share, he

seldom cares at all. No other sovereigns ever were, or, from the nature

of things, ever could be, so perfectly indifferent about the happiness

or misery of their subjects, the improvement or waste of their

dominions, the glory or disgrace of their administration, as, from

irresistible moral causes, the greater part of the proprietors of such a

mercantile company are, and necessarily must be. This indifference, too,

was more likely to be increased than diminished by some of the new

regulations which were made in consequence of the parliamentary inquiry.

By a resolution of the house of commons, for example, it was declared,

that when the L.1,400,000 lent to the company by government, should be

paid, and their bond-debts be reduced to L.1,500,000, they might then,

and not till then, divide eight per cent. upon their capital; and that

whatever remained of their revenues and neat profits at home should be

divided into four parts; three of them to be paid into the exchequer for

the use of the public, and the fourth to be reserved as a fund, either

for the further reduction of their bond-debts, or for the discharge of

other contingent exigencies which the company might labour under. But if

the company were bad stewards and bad sovereigns, when the whole of

their neat revenue and profits belonged to themselves, and were at their

own disposal, they were surely not likely to be better when

three-fourths of them were to belong to other people, and the other

fourth, though to be laid out for the benefit of the company, yet to be

so under the inspection and with the approbation of other people.

It might be more agreeable to the company, that their own servants and

dependants should have either the pleasure of wasting, or the profit of

embezzling, whatever surplus might remain, after paying the proposed

dividend of eight per cent. than that it should come into the hands of a

set of people with whom those resolutions could scarce fail to set them

in some measure at variance. The interest of those servants and

dependants might so far predominate in the court of proprietors, as

sometimes to dispose it to support the authors of depredations which had

been committed in direct violation of its own authority. With the

majority of proprietors, the support even of the authority of their own

court might sometimes be a matter of less consequence than the support

of those who had set that authority at defiance.

The regulations of 1773, accordingly, did not put an end to the disorder

of the company's government in India. Notwithstanding that, during a

momentary fit of good conduct, they had at one time collected into the

treasury of Calcutta more than L.3,000,000 sterling; notwithstanding

that they had afterwards extended either their dominion or their

depredations over a vast accession of some of the richest and most

fertile countries in India, all was wasted and destroyed. They found

themselves altogether unprepared to stop or resist the incursion of

Hyder Ali; and in consequence of those disorders, the company is now

(1784) in greater distress than ever; and, in order to prevent immediate

bankruptcy, is once more reduced to supplicate the assistance of

government. Different plans have been proposed by the different parties

in parliament for the better management of its affairs; and all those

plans seem to agree in supposing, what was indeed always abundantly

evident, that it is altogether unfit to govern its territorial

possessions. Even the company itself seems to be convinced of its own

incapacity so far, and seems, upon that account willing to give them up

to government.

With the right of possessing forts and garrisons in distant and

barbarous countries, is necessarily connected the right of making peace

and war in those countries. The joint-stock companies, which have had

the one right, have constantly exercised the other, and have frequently

had it expressly conferred upon them. How unjustly, how capriciously,

how cruelly, they have commonly exercised it, is too well known from

recent experience.

When a company of merchants undertake, at their own risk and expense, to

establish a new trade with some remote and barbarous nation, it may not

be unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint-stock company, and to

grant them, in case of their success, a monopoly of the trade for a

certain number of years. It is the easiest and most natural way in which

the state can recompense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive

experiment, of which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit. A

temporary monopoly of this kind may be vindicated, upon the same

principles upon which a like monopoly of a new machine is granted to its

inventor, and that of a new book to its author. But upon the expiration

of the term, the monopoly ought certainly to determine; the forts and

garrisons, if it was found necessary to establish any, to be taken into

the hands of government, their value to be paid to the company, and the

trade to be laid open to all the subjects of the state. By a perpetual

monopoly, all the other subjects of the state are taxed very absurdly in

two different ways: first, by the high price of goods, which, in the

case of a free trade, they could buy much cheaper; and, secondly, by

their total exclusion from a branch of business which it might be both

convenient and profitable for many of them to carry on. It is for the

most worthless of all purposes, too, that they are taxed in this manner.

It is merely to enable the company to support the negligence, profusion,

and malversation of their own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom

allows the dividend of the company to exceed the ordinary rate of profit

in trades which are altogether free, and very frequently makes it fall

even a good deal short of that rate. Without a monopoly, however, a

joint-stock company, it would appear from experience, cannot long carry

on any branch of foreign trade. To buy in one market, in order to sell

with profit in another, when there are many competitors in both; to

watch over, not only the occasional variations in the demand, but the

much greater and more frequent variations in the competition, or in the

supply which that demand is likely to get from other people; and to suit

with dexterity and judgment both the quantity and quality of each

assortment of goods to all these circumstances, is a species of warfare,

of which the operations are continually changing, and which can scarce

ever be conducted successfully, without such an unremitting exertion of

vigilance and attention as cannot long be expected from the directors of

a joint-stock company. The East India company, upon the redemption of

their funds, and the expiration of their exclusive privilege, have a

right, by act of parliament, to continue a corporation with a joint

stock, and to trade in their corporate capacity to the East Indies, in

common with the rest of their fellow subjects. But in this situation,

the superior vigilance and attention of a private adventurer would, in

all probability, soon make them weary of the trade.

An eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political

economy, the Abbe Morellet, gives a list of fifty-five joint-stock

companies for foreign trade, which have been established in different

parts of Europe since the year 1600, and which, according to him, have

all failed from mismanagement, notwithstanding they had exclusive

privileges. He has been misinformed with regard to the history of two or

three of them, which were not joint-stock companies and have not failed.

But, in compensation, there have been several joint-stock companies

which have failed, and which he has omitted.

The only trades which it seems possible for a joint-stock company to

carry on successfully, without an exclusive privilege, are those, of

which all the operations are capable of bring reduced to what is called

a routine, or to such a uniformity of method as admits of little or no

variation. Of this kind is, first, the banking trade; secondly, the

trade of insurance from fire and from sea risk, and capture in time of

war; thirdly, the trade of making and maintaining a navigable cut or

canal; and, fourthly, the similar trade of bringing water for the supply

of a great city.

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse,

the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon

any occasion from those rules, in consequence of some flattering

speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous

and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it. But the

constitution of joint-stock companies renders them in general, more

tenacious of established rules than any private copartnery. Such

companies, therefore, seem extremely well fitted for this trade. The

principal banking companies in Europe, accordingly, are joint-stock

companies, many of which manage their trade very successfully without

any exclusive privilege. The bank of England has no other exclusive

privilege, except that no other banking company in England shall consist

of more than six persons. The two banks of Edinburgh are joint-stock

companies, without any exclusive privilege.

The value of the risk, either from fire, or from loss by sea, or by

capture, though it cannot, perhaps, be calculated very exactly, admits,

however, of such a gross estimation, as renders it, in some degree,

reducible to strict rule and method. The trade of insurance, therefore,

may be carried on successfully by a joint-stock company, without any

exclusive privilege. Neither the London Assurance, nor the Royal

Exchange Assurance companies, have any such privilege.

When a navigable cut or canal has been once made, the management of it

becomes quite simple and easy, and it is reducible to strict rule and

method. Even the making of it is so, as it may be contracted for with

undertakers, at so much a mile, and so much a lock. The same thing may

be said of a canal, an aqueduct, or a great pipe for bringing water to

supply a great city. Such undertakings, therefore, may be, and

accordingly frequently are, very successfully managed by joint-stock

companies, without any exclusive privilege.

To establish a joint-stock company, however, for any undertaking, merely

because such a company might be capable of managing it successfully; or,

to exempt a particular set of dealers from some of the general laws

which take place with regard to all their neighbours, merely because

they might be capable of thriving, if they had such an exemption, would

certainly not be reasonable. To render such an establishment perfectly

reasonable, with the circumstance of being reducible to strict rule and

method, two other circumstances ought to concur. First, it ought to

appear with the clearest evidence, that the undertaking is of greater

and more general utility than the greater part of common trades; and,

secondly, that it requires a greater capital than can easily be

collected into a private copartnery. If a moderate capital were

sufficient, the great utility of the undertaking would not be a

sufficient reason for establishing a joint-stock company; because, in

this case, the demand for what it was to produce, would readily and

easily be supplied by private adventurers. In the four trades above

mentioned, both those circumstances concur.

The great and general utility of the banking trade, when prudently

managed, has been fully explained in the second book of this Inquiry.

But a public bank, which is to support public credit, and, upon

particular emergencies, to advance to government the whole produce of a

tax, to the amount, perhaps, of several millions, a year or two before

it comes in, requires a greater capital than can easily be collected

into any private copartnery.

The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private

people, and, by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin

an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society. In

order to give this security, however, it is necessary that the insurers

should have a very large capital. Before the establishment of the two

joint-stock companies for insurance in London, a list, it is said, was

laid before the attorney-general, of one hundred and fifty private

insurers, who had failed in the course of a few years.

That navigable cuts and canals, and the works which are sometimes

necessary for supplying a great city with water, are of great and

general utility, while, at the same time, they frequently require a

greater expense than suits the fortunes of private people, is

sufficiently obvious.

Except the four trades above mentioned, I have not been able to

recollect any other, in which all the three circumstances requisite for

rendering reasonable the establishment of a joint-stock company concur.

The English copper company of London, the lead-smelting company, the

glass-grinding company, have not even the pretext of any great or

singular utility in the object which they pursue; nor does the pursuit

of that object seem to require any expense unsuitable to the fortunes of

many private men. Whether the trade which those companies carry on, is

reducible to such strict rule and method as to render it fit for the

management of a joint-stock company, or whether they have any reason to

boast of their extraordinary profits, I do not pretend to know. The

mine-adventurers company has been long ago bankrupt. A share in the

stock of the British Linen company of Edinburgh sells, at present, very

much below par, though less so than it did some years ago. The

joint-stock companies, which are established for the public-spirited

purpose of promoting some particular manufacture, over and above

managing their own affairs ill, to the diminution of the general stock

of the society, can, in other respects, scarce ever fail to do more harm

than good. Notwithstanding the most upright intentions, the unavoidable

partiality of their directors to particular branches of the manufacture,

of which the undertakers mislead and impose upon them, is a real

discouragement to the rest, and necessarily breaks, more or less, that

natural proportion which would otherwise establish itself between

judicious industry and profit, and which, to the general industry of the

country, is of all encouragements the greatest and the most effectual.

ART. II.--_Of the Expense of the Institution for the Education of

Youth._

The institutions for the education of the youth may, in the same manner,

furnish a revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense. The fee or

honorary, which the scholar pays to the master, naturally constitutes a

revenue of this kind.

Even where the reward of the master does not arise altogether from this

natural revenue, it still is not necessary that it should be derived

from that general revenue of the society, of which the collection and

application are, in most countries, assigned to the executive power.

Through the greater part of Europe, accordingly, the endowment of

schools and colleges makes either no charge upon that general revenue,

or but a very small one. It everywhere arises chiefly from some local or

provincial revenue, from the rent of some landed estate, or from the

interest of some sum of money, allotted and put under the management of

trustees for this particular purpose, sometimes by the sovereign

himself, and sometimes by some private donor.

Have those public endowments contributed in general, to promote the end

of their institution? Have they contributed to encourage the diligence,

and to improve the abilities, of the teachers? Have they directed the

course of education towards objects more useful, both to the individual

and to the public, than those to which it would naturally have gone of

its own accord? It should not seem very difficult to give at least a

probable answer to each of those questions.

In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who

exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of

making that exertion. This necessity is greatest with those to whom the

emoluments of their profession are the only source from which they

expect their fortune, or even their ordinary revenue and subsistence. In

order to acquire this fortune, or even to get this subsistence, they

must, in the course of a year, execute a certain quantity of work of a

known value; and, where the competition is free, the rivalship of

competitors, who are all endeavouring to justle one another out of

employment, obliges every man to endeavour to execute his work with a

certain degree of exactness. The greatness of the objects which are to

be acquired by success in some particular professions may, no doubt,

sometimes animate the exertion of a few men of extraordinary spirit and

ambition. Great objects, however, are evidently not necessary, in order

to occasion the greatest exertions. Rivalship and emulation render

excellency, even in mean professions, an object of ambition, and

frequently occasion the very greatest exertions. Great objects, on the

contrary, alone and unsupported by the necessity of application, have

seldom been sufficient to occasion any considerable exertion. In

England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great

objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have

ever in this country been eminent in that profession?

The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished, more

or less, the necessity of application in the teachers. Their

subsistence, so far as it arises from their salaries, is evidently

derived from a fund, altogether independent of their success and

reputation in their particular professions.

In some universities, the salary makes but a part, and frequently but a

small part, of the emoluments of the teacher, of which the greater part

arises from the honoraries or fees of his pupils. The necessity of

application, though always more or less diminished, is not, in this

case, entirely taken away. Reputation in his profession is still of some

importance to him, and he still has some dependency upon the affection,

gratitude, and favourable report of those who have attended upon his

instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is likely to gain in no

way so well as by deserving them, that is, by the abilities and

diligence with which he discharges every part of his duty.

In other universities, the teacher is prohibited from receiving any

honorary or fee from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the whole of

the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this

case, set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set

it. It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he

can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does

or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his

interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect

it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not

suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a

manner as that authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a

lover of labour, it is his interest to employ that activity in any way

from which he can derive some advantage, rather than in the performance

of his duty, from which he can derive none.

If the authority to which he is subject resides in the body corporate,

the college, or university, of which he himself is a member, and in

which the greater part of the other members are, like himself, persons

who either are, or ought to be teachers, they are likely to make a

common cause, to be all very indulgent to one another, and every man to

consent that his neighbour may neglect his duty, provided he himself is

allowed to neglect his own. In the university of Oxford, the greater

part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up

altogether even the pretence of teaching.

If the authority to which he is subject resides, not so much in the body

corporate, of which he is a member, as in some other extraneous persons,

in the bishop of the diocese, for example, in the governor of the

province, or, perhaps, in some minister of state, it is not, indeed, in

this case, very likely that he will be suffered to neglect his duty

altogether. All that such superiors, however, can force him to do, is to

attend upon his pupils a certain number of hours, that is, to give a

certain number of lectures in the week, or in the year. What those

lectures shall be, must still depend upon the diligence of the teacher;

and that diligence is likely to be proportioned to the motives which he

has for exerting it. An extraneous jurisdiction of this kind, besides,

is liable to be exercised both ignorantly and capriciously. In its

nature, it is arbitrary and discretionary; and the persons who exercise

it, neither attending upon the lectures of the teacher themselves, nor

perhaps understanding the sciences which it is his business to teach,

are seldom capable of exercising it with judgment. From the insolence of

office, too, they are frequently indifferent how they exercise it, and

are very apt to censure or deprive him of his office wantonly and

without any just cause. The person subject to such jurisdiction is

necessarily degraded by it, and, instead of being one of the most

respectable, is rendered one of the meanest and most contemptible

persons in the society. It is by powerful protection only, that he can

effectually guard himself against the bad usage to which he is at all

times exposed; and this protection he is most likely to gain, not by

ability or diligence in his profession, but by obsequiousness to the

will of his superiors, and by being ready, at all times, to sacrifice to

that will the rights, the interest, and the honour of the body

corporate, of which he is a member. Whoever has attended for any

considerable time to the administration of a French university, must

have had occasion to remark the effects which naturally result from an

arbitrary and extraneous jurisdiction of this kind.

Whatever forces a certain number of students to any college or

university, independent of the merit or reputation of the teachers,

tends more or less to diminish the necessity of that merit or

reputation.

The privileges of graduates in arts, in law, physic, and divinity, when

they can be obtained only by residing a certain number of years in

certain universities, necessarily force a certain number of students to

such universities, independent of the merit or reputation of the

teachers. The privileges of graduates are a sort of statutes of

apprenticeship, which have contributed to the improvement of education,

just as the other statutes of apprenticeship have to that of arts and

manufactures.

The charitable foundations of scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, &c.

necessarily attach a certain number of students to certain colleges,

independent altogether of the merit of those particular colleges. Were

the students upon such charitable foundations left free to choose what

college they liked best, such liberty might perhaps contribute to excite

some emulation among different colleges. A regulation, on the contrary,

which prohibited even the independent members of every particular

college from leaving it, and going to any other, without leave first

asked and obtained of that which they meant to abandon, would tend very

much to extinguish that emulation.

If in each college, the tutor or teacher, who was to instruct each

student in all arts and sciences, should not be voluntarily chosen by

the student, but appointed by the head of the college; and if, in case

of neglect, inability, or bad usage, the student should not be allowed

to change him for another, without leave first asked and obtained; such

a regulation would not only tend very much to extinguish all emulation

among the different tutors of the same college, but to diminish very

much, in all of them, the necessity of diligence and of attention to

their respective pupils. Such teachers, though very well paid by their

students, might be as much disposed to neglect them, as those who are

not paid by them at all or who have no other recompense but their

salary.

If the teacher happens to be a man of sense, it must be an unpleasant

thing to him to be conscious, while he is lecturing to his students,

that he is either speaking or reading nonsense, or what is very little

better than nonsense. It must, too, be unpleasant to him to observe,

that the greater part of his students desert his lectures; or perhaps,

attend upon them with plain enough marks of neglect, contempt, and

derision. If he is obliged, therefore, to give a certain number of

lectures, these motives alone, without any other interest, might dispose

him to take some pains to give tolerably good ones. Several different

expedients, however, may be fallen upon, which will effectually blunt

the edge of all those incitements to diligence. The teacher, instead of

explaining to his pupils himself the science in which he proposes to

instruct them, may read some book upon it; and if this book is written

in a foreign and dead language, by interpreting it to them into their

own, or, what would give him still less trouble, by making them

interpret it to him, and by now and then making an occasional remark

upon it, he may flatter himself that he is giving a lecture. The

slightest degree of knowledge and application will enable him to do

this, without exposing himself to contempt or derision, by saying any

thing that is really foolish, absurd, or ridiculous. The discipline of

the college, at the same time, may enable him to force all his pupils to

the most regular attendance upon his sham lecture, and to maintain the

most decent and respectful behaviour during the whole time of the

performance.

The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not

for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or, more properly

speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to

maintain the authority of the master, and, whether he neglects or

performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him

as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems

to presume perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest

weakness and folly in the other. Where the masters, however, really

perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater

part of the students ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever

requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the

attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given. Force

and restraint may, no doubt, be in some degree requisite, in order to

oblige children, or very young boys, to attend to those parts of

education, which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during that

early period of life; but after twelve or thirteen years of age,

provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be

necessary to carry on any part of education. Such is the generosity of

the greater part of young men, that so far from being disposed to

neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shews

some serious intention of being of use to them, they are generally

inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of

his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of

gross negligence.

Those parts of education, it is to be observed, for the teaching of

which there are no public institutions, are generally the best taught.

When a young man goes to a fencing or a dancing school, he does not,

indeed, always learn to fence or to dance very well; but he seldom fails

of learning to fence or to dance. The good effects of the riding school

are not commonly so evident. The expense of a riding school is so great,

that in most places it is a public institution. The three most

essential parts of literary education, to read, write, and account, it

still continues to be more common to acquire in private than in public

schools; and it very seldom happens, that anybody fails of acquiring

them to the degree in which it is necessary to acquire them.

In England, the public schools are much less corrupted than the

universities. In the schools, the youth are taught, or at least may be

taught, Greek and Latin; that is, every thing which the masters pretend

to teach, or which it is expected they should teach. In the

universities, the youth neither are taught, nor always can find any

proper means of being taught the sciences, which it is the business of

those incorporated bodies to teach. The reward of the schoolmaster, in

most cases, depends principally, in some cases almost entirely, upon the

fees or honoraries of his scholars. Schools have no exclusive

privileges. In order to obtain the honours of graduation, it is not

necessary that a person should bring a certificate of his having studied

a certain number of years at a public school. If, upon examination, he

appears to understand what is taught there, no questions are asked about

the place where he learnt it.

The parts of education which are commonly taught in universities, it may

perhaps be said, are not very well taught. But had it not been for those

institutions, they would not have been commonly taught at all; and both

the individual and the public would have suffered a good deal from the

want of those important parts of education.

The present universities of Europe were originally, the greater part of

them, ecclesiastical corporations, instituted for the education of

churchmen. They were founded by the authority of the pope; and were so

entirely under his immediate protection, that their members, whether

masters or students, had all of them what was then called the benefit of

clergy, that is, were exempted from the civil jurisdiction of the

countries in which their respective universities were situated, and were

amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals. What was taught in the

greater part of those universities was suitable to the end of their

institution, either theology, or something that was merely preparatory

to theology.

When Christianity was first established by law, a corrupted Latin had

become the common language of all the western parts of Europe. The

service of the church, accordingly, and the translation of the Bible

which were read in churches, were both in that corrupted Latin; that is,

in the common language of the country. After the irruption of the

barbarous nations who overturned the Roman empire, Latin gradually

ceased to be the language of any part of Europe. But the reverence of

the people naturally preserves the established forms and ceremonies of

religion long after the circumstances which first introduced and

rendered them reasonable, are no more. Though Latin, therefore, was no

longer understood anywhere by the great body of the people, the whole

service of the church still continued to be performed in that language.

Two different languages were thus established in Europe, in the same

manner as in ancient Egypt: a language of the priests, and a language of

the people; a sacred and a profane, a learned and an unlearned language.

But it was necessary that the priests should understand something of

that sacred and learned language in which they were to officiate; and

the study of the Latin language therefore made, from the beginning, an

essential part of university education.

It was not so with that either of the Greek or of the Hebrew language.

The infallible decrees of the church had pronounced the Latin

translation of the Bible, commonly called the Latin Vulgate, to have

been equally dictated by divine inspiration, and therefore of equal

authority with the Greek and Hebrew originals. The knowledge of those

two languages, therefore, not being indispensably requisite to a

churchman, the study of them did not for a long time make a necessary

part of the common course of university education. There are some

Spanish universities, I am assured, in which the study of the Greek

language has never yet made any part of that course. The first reformers

found the Greek text of the New Testament, and even the Hebrew text of

the Old, more favourable to their opinions than the vulgate translation,

which, as might naturally be supposed, had been gradually accommodated

to support the doctrines of the Catholic Church. They set themselves,

therefore, to expose the many errors of that translation, which the

Roman catholic clergy were thus put under the necessity of defending or

explaining. But this could not well be done without some knowledge of

the original languages, of which the study was therefore gradually

introduced into the greater part of universities; both of those which

embraced, and of those which rejected, the doctrines of the reformation.

The Greek language was connected with every part of that classical

learning, which, though at first principally cultivated by catholics and

Italians, happened to come into fashion much about the same time that

the doctrines of the reformation were set on foot. In the greater part

of universities, therefore, that language was taught previous to the

study of philosophy, and as soon as the student had made some progress

in the Latin. The Hebrew language having no connection with classical

learning, and, except the Holy Scriptures, being the language of not a

single book in any esteem the study of it did not commonly commence

till after that of philosophy, and when the student had entered upon the

study of theology.

Originally, the first rudiments, both of the Greek and Latin languages,

were taught in universities; and in some universities they still

continue to be so. In others, it is expected that the student should

have previously acquired, at least, the rudiments of one or both of

those languages, of which the study continues to make everywhere a very

considerable part of university education.

The ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three great branches;

physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic.

This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things.

The great phenomenon of nature, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies,

eclipses, comets; thunder and lightning, and other extraordinary

meteors; the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and

animals; are objects which, as they necessarily excite the wonder, so

they naturally call forth the curiosity of mankind to inquire into their

causes. Superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by

referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the

gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them from more

familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with,

than the agency of the gods. As those great phenomena are the first

objects of human curiosity, so the science which pretends to explain

them must naturally have been the first branch of philosophy that was

cultivated. The first philosophers, accordingly, of whom history has

preserved any account, appears to have been natural philosophers.

In every age and country of the world, men must have attended to the

characters, designs, and actions of one another; and many reputable

rules and maxims for the conduct of human life must have been laid down

and approved of by common consent. As soon as writing came into fashion,

wise men, or those who fancied themselves such, would naturally

endeavour to increase the number of those established and respected

maxims, and to express their own sense of what was either proper or

improper conduct, sometimes in the more artificial form of apologues,

like what are called the fables of AEsop; and sometimes in the more

simple one of apophthegms or wise sayings, like the proverbs of Solomon,

the verses of Theognis and Phocyllides, and some part of the works of

Hesiod. They might continue in this manner, for a long time, merely to

multiply the number of those maxims of prudence and morality, without

even attempting to arrange them in any very distinct or methodical

order, much less to connect them together by one or more general

principles, from which they were all deducible, like effects from their

natural causes. The beauty of a systematical arrangement of different

observations, connected by a few common principles, was first seen in

the rude essays of those ancient times towards a system of natural

philosophy. Something of the same kind was afterwards attempted in

morals. The maxims of common life were arranged in some methodical

order, and connected together by a few common principles, in the same

manner as they had attempted to arrange and connect the phenomena of

nature. The science which pretends to investigate and explain those

connecting principles, is what is properly called Moral Philosophy.

Different authors gave different systems, both of natural and moral

philosophy. But the arguments by which they supported those different

systems, far from being always demonstrations, were frequently at best

but very slender probabilities, and sometimes mere sophisms, which had

no other foundation but the inaccuracy and ambiguity of common language.

Speculative systems, have, in all ages of the world, been adopted for

reasons too frivolous to have determined the judgment of any man of

common sense, in a matter of the smallest pecuniary interest. Gross

sophistry has scarce ever had any influence upon the opinions of

mankind, except in matters of philosophy and speculation; and in these

it has frequently had the greatest. The patrons of each system of

natural and moral philosophy, naturally endeavoured to expose the

weakness of the arguments adduced to support the systems which were

opposite to their own. In examining those arguments, they were

necessarily led to consider the difference between a probable and a

demonstrative argument, between a fallacious and a conclusive one; and

logic, or the science of the general principles of good and bad

reasoning, necessarily arose out of the observations which a scrutiny of

this kind gave occasion to; though, in its origin, posterior both to

physics and to ethics, it was commonly taught, not indeed in all, but in

the greater part of the ancient schools of philosophy, previously to

either of those sciences. The student, it seems to have been thought,

ought to understand well the difference between good and bad reasoning,

before he was led to reason upon subjects of so great importance.

This ancient division of philosophy into three parts was, in the greater

part of the universities of Europe, changed for another into five.

In the ancient philosophy, whatever was taught concerning the nature

either of the human mind or of the Deity, made a part of the system of

physics. Those beings, in whatever their essence might be supposed to

consist, were parts of the great system of the universe, and parts, too,

productive of the most important effects. Whatever human reason could

either conclude or conjecture concerning them, made, as it were, two

chapters, though no doubt two very important ones, of the science which

pretended to give an account of the origin and revolutions of the great

system of the universe. But in the universities of Europe, where

philosophy was taught only as subservient to theology, it was natural to

dwell longer upon these two chapters than upon any other of the science.

They were gradually more and more extended, and were divided into many

inferior chapters; till at last the doctrine of spirits, of which so

little can be known, came to take up as much room in the system of

philosophy as the doctrine of bodies, of which so much can be known. The

doctrines concerning those two subjects were considered as making two

distinct sciences. What are called metaphysics, or pneumatics, were set

in opposition to physics, and were cultivated not only as the more

sublime, but, for the purposes of a particular profession, as the more

useful science of the two. The proper subject of experiment and

observation, a subject in which a careful attention is capable of making

so many useful discoveries, was almost entirely neglected. The subject

in which, after a very few simple and almost obvious truths, the most

careful attention can discover nothing but obscurity and uncertainty,

and can consequently produce nothing but subtleties and sophisms, was

greatly cultivated.

When these two sciences had thus been set in opposition to one another,

the comparison between them naturally gave birth to a third, to what was

called ontology, or the science which treated of the qualities and

attributes which were common to both the subjects of the other two

sciences. But if subtleties and sophisms composed the greater part of

the metaphysics or pneumatics of the schools, they composed the whole of

this cobweb science of ontology, which was likewise sometimes called

metaphysics.

Wherein consisted the happiness and perfection of a man, considered not

only as an individual, but as the member of a family, of a state, and of

the great society of mankind, was the object which the ancient moral

philosophy proposed to investigate. In that philosophy, the duties of

human life were treated of as subservient to the happiness and

perfection of human life. But when moral, as well as natural philosophy,

came to be taught only as subservient to theology, the duties of human

life were treated of as chiefly subservient to the happiness of a life

to come. In the ancient philosophy, the perfection of virtue was

represented as necessarily productive, to the person who possessed it,

of the most perfect happiness in this life. In the modern philosophy, it

was frequently represented as generally, or rather as almost always,

inconsistent with any degree of happiness in this life; and heaven was

to be earned only by penance and mortification, by the austerities and

abasement of a monk, not by the liberal, generous, and spirited conduct

of a man. Casuistry, and an ascetic morality, made up, in most cases,

the greater part of the moral philosophy of the schools. By far the most

important of all the different branches of philosophy became in this

manner by far the most corrupted.

Such, therefore, was the common course of philosophical education in the

greater part of the universities in Europe. Logic was taught first;

ontology came in the second place; pneumatology, comprehending the

doctrine concerning the nature of the human soul and of the Deity, in

the third; in the fourth followed a debased system of moral philosophy,

which was considered as immediately connected with the doctrines of

pneumatology, with the immortality of the human soul, and with the

rewards and punishments which, from the justice of the Deity, were to be

expected in a life to come: a short and superficial system of physics

usually concluded the course.

The alterations which the universities of Europe thus introduced into

the ancient course of philosophy were all meant for the education of

ecclesiastics, and to render it a more proper introduction to the study

of theology. But the additional quantity of subtlety and sophistry, the

casuistry and ascetic morality which those alterations introduced into

it, certainly did not render it more for the education of gentlemen or

men of the world, or more likely either to improve the understanding or

to mend the heart.

This course of philosophy is what still continues to be taught in the

greater part of the universities of Europe, with more or less diligence,

according as the constitution of each particular university happens to

render diligence more or less necessary to the teachers. In some of the

richest and best endowed universities, the tutors content themselves

with teaching a few unconnected shreds and parcels of this corrupted

course; and even these they commonly teach very negligently and

superficially.

The improvements which, in modern times, have been made in several

different branches of philosophy, have not, the greater part of them,

been made in universities, though some, no doubt, have. The greater part

of universities have not even been very forward to adopt those

improvements after they were made; and several of those learned

societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in

which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and

protection, after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the

world. In general, the richest and best endowed universities have been

slowest in adopting those improvements, and the most averse to permit

any considerable change in the established plan of education. Those

improvements were more easily introduced into some of the poorer

universities, in which the teachers, depending upon their reputation for

the greater part of their subsistence, were obliged to pay more

attention to the current opinions of the world.

But though the public schools and universities of Europe were originally

intended only for the education of a particular profession, that of

churchmen; and though they were not always very diligent in instructing

their pupils, even in the sciences which were supposed necessary for

that profession; yet they gradually drew to themselves the education of

almost all other people, particularly of almost all gentlemen and men of

fortune. No better method, it seems, could be fallen upon, of spending,

with any advantage, the long interval between infancy and that period of

life at which men begin to apply in good earnest to the real business of

the world, the business which is to employ them during the remainder of

their days. The greater part of what is taught in schools and

universities, however, does not seem to be the most proper preparation

for that business.

In England, it becomes every day more and more the custom to send young

people to travel in foreign countries immediately upon their leaving

school, and without sending them to any university. Our young people, it

is said, generally return home much improved by their travels. A young

man, who goes abroad at seventeen or eighteen, and returns home at

one-and-twenty, returns three or four years older than he was when he

went abroad; and at that age it is very difficult not to improve a good

deal in three or four years. In the course of his travels, he generally

acquires some knowledge of one or two foreign languages; a knowledge,

however, which is seldom sufficient to enable him either to speak or

write them with propriety. In other respects, he commonly returns home

more conceited, more unprincipled, more dissipated, and more incapable

of any serious application, either to study or to business, than he

could well have become in so short a time had he lived at home. By

travelling so very young, by spending in the must frivolous dissipation

the most precious years of his life, at a distance from the inspection

and controul of his parents and relations, every useful habit, which the

earlier parts of his education might have had some tendency to form in

him, instead of being riveted and confirmed, is almost necessarily

either weakened or effaced. Nothing but the discredit into which the

universities are allowing themselves to fall, could ever have brought

into repute so very absurd a practice as that of travelling at this

early period of life. By sending his son abroad, a father delivers

himself, at least for some time, from so disagreeable an object as that

of a son unemployed, neglected, and going to ruin before his eyes.

Such have been the effects of some of the modern institutions for

education.

Different plans and different institutions for education seem to have

taken place in other ages and nations.

In the republics of ancient Greece, every free citizen was instructed,

under the direction of the public magistrate, in gymnastic exercises and

in music. By gymnastic exercises, it was intended to harden his body, to

sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers of

war; and as the Greek militia was, by all accounts, one of the best that

ever was in the world, this part of their public education must have

answered completely the purpose for which it was intended. By the other

part, music, it was proposed, at least by the philosophers and

historians, who have given us an account of those institutions, to

humanize the mind, to soften the temper, and to dispose it for

performing all the social and moral duties of public and private life.

In ancient Rome, the exercises of the Campus Martius answered the same

purpose as those of the Gymnasium in ancient Greece, and they seem to

have answered it equally well. But among the Romans there was nothing

which corresponded to the musical education of the Greeks. The morals of

the Romans, however, both in private and public life, seem to have been,

not only equal, but, upon the whole, a good deal superior to those of

the Greeks. That they were superior in private life, we have the express

testimony of Polybius, and of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, two authors

well acquainted with both nations; and the whole tenor of the Greek and

Roman history bears witness to the superiority of the public morals of

the Romans. The good temper and moderation of contending factions seem

to be the most essential circumstances in the public morals of a free

people. But the factions of the Greeks were almost always violent and

sanguinary; whereas, till the time of the Gracchi, no blood had ever

been shed in any Roman faction; and from the time of the Gracchi, the

Roman republic may be considered as in reality dissolved.

Notwithstanding, therefore, the very respectable authority of Plato,

Aristotle, and Polybius, and notwithstanding the very ingenious reasons

by which Mr. Montesquieu endeavours to support that authority, it seems

probable that the musical education of the Greeks had no great effect in

mending their morals, since, without any such education, those of the

Romans were, upon the whole, superior. The respect of those ancient

sages for the institutions of their ancestors had probably disposed

them to find much political wisdom in what was, perhaps, merely an

ancient custom, continued, without interruption, from the earliest

period of those societies, to the times in which they had arrived at a

considerable degree of refinement. Music and dancing are the great

amusements of almost all barbarous nations, and the great

accomplishments which are supposed to fit any man for entertaining his

society. It is so at this day among the negroes on the coast of Africa.

It was so among the ancient Celtes, among the ancient Scandinavians,

and, as we may learn from Homer, among the ancient Greeks, in the times

preceding the Trojan war. When the Greek tribes had formed themselves

into little republics, it was natural that the study of those

accomplishments should for a long time make a part of the public and

common education of the people.

The masters who instructed the young people, either in music or in

military exercises, do not seem to have been paid, or even appointed by

the state, either in Rome or even at Athens, the Greek republic of whose

laws and customs we are the best informed. The state required that every

free citizen should fit himself for defending it in war, and should upon

that account, learn his military exercises. But it left him to learn

them of such masters as he could find; and it seems to have advanced

nothing for this purpose, but a public field or place of exercise, in

which he should practise and perform them.

In the early ages, both of the Greek and Roman republics, the other

parts of education seem to have consisted in learning to read, write,

and account, according to the arithmetic of the times. These

accomplishments the richer citizens seem frequently to have acquired at

home, by the assistance of some domestic pedagogue, who was, generally,

either a slave or a freedman; and the poorer citizens in the schools of

such masters as made a trade of teaching for hire. Such parts of

education, however, were abandoned altogether to the care of the parents

or guardians of each individual. It does not appear that the state ever

assumed any inspection or direction of them. By a law of Solon, indeed,

the children were acquitted from maintaining those parents who had

neglected to instruct them in some profitable trade or business.

In the progress of refinement, when philosophy and rhetoric came into

fashion, the better sort of people used to send their children to the

schools of philosophers and rhetoricians, in order to be instructed in

these fashionable sciences. But those schools were not supported by the

public. They were, for a long time, barely tolerated by it. The demand

for philosophy and rhetoric was, for a long time, so small, that the

first professed teachers of either could not find constant employment in

any one city, but were obliged to travel about from place to place. In

this manner lived Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many

others. As the demand increased, the schools, both of philosophy and

rhetoric, became stationary, first in Athens, and afterwards in several

other cities. The state, however, seems never to have encouraged them

further, than by assigning to some of them a particular place to teach

in, which was sometimes done, too, by private donors. The state seems to

have assigned the Academy to Plato, the Lyceum to Aristotle, and the

Portico to Zeno of Citta, the founder of the Stoics. But Epicurus

bequeathed his gardens to his own school. Till about the time of Marcus

Antoninus, however, no teacher appears to have had any salary from the

public, or to have had any other emoluments, but what arose from the

honoraries or fees of his scholars. The bounty which that philosophical

emperor, as we learn from Lucian, bestowed upon one of the teachers of

philosophy, probably lasted no longer than his own life. There was

nothing equivalent to the privileges of graduation; and to have attended

any of those schools was not necessary, in order to be permitted to

practise any particular trade or profession. If the opinion of their own

utility could not draw scholars to them, the law neither forced anybody

to go to them, nor rewarded anybody for having gone to them. The

teachers had no jurisdiction over their pupils, nor any other authority

besides that natural authority which superior virtue and abilities never

fail to procure from young people towards those who are entrusted with

any part of their education.

At Rome, the study of the civil law made a part of the education, not of

the greater part of the citizens, but of some particular families. The

young people, however, who wished to acquire knowledge in the law, had

no public school to go to, and had no other method of studying it, than

by frequenting the company of such of their relations and friends as

were supposed to understand it. It is, perhaps, worth while to remark,

that though the laws of the twelve tables were many of them copied from

those of some ancient Greek republics, yet law never seems to have grown

up to be a science in any republic of ancient Greece. In Rome it became

a science very early, and gave a considerable degree of illustration to

those citizens who had the reputation of understanding it. In the

republics of ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, the ordinary courts

of justice consisted of numerous, and therefore disorderly, bodies of

people, who frequently decided almost at random, or as clamour, faction,

and party-spirit, happened to determine. The ignominy of an unjust

decision, when it was to be divided among five hundred, a thousand, or

fifteen hundred people (for some of their courts were so very

numerous), could not fall very heavy upon any individual. At Rome, on

the contrary, the principal courts of justice consisted either of a

single judge, or of a small number of judges, whose characters,

especially as they deliberated always in public, could not fail to be

very much affected by any rash or unjust decision. In doubtful cases

such courts, from their anxiety to avoid blame, would naturally

endeavour to shelter themselves under the example or precedent of the

judges who had sat before them, either in the same or in some other

court. This attention to practice and precedent, necessarily formed the

Roman law into that regular and orderly system in which it has been

delivered down to us; and the like attention has had the like effects

upon the laws of every other country where such attention has taken

place. The superiority of character in the Romans over that of the

Greeks, so much remarked by Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was

probably more owing to the better constitution of their courts of

justice, than to any of the circumstances to which those authors ascribe

it. The Romans are said to have been particularly distinguished for

their superior respect to an oath. But the people who were accustomed to

make oath only before some diligent and well informed court of justice,

would naturally be much more attentive to what they swore, than they who

were accustomed to do the same thing before mobbish and disorderly

assemblies.

The abilities, both civil and military, of the Greeks and Romans, will

readily be allowed to have been at least equal to those of any modern

nation. Our prejudice is perhaps rather to overrate them. But except in

what related to military exercises, the state seems to have been at no

pains to form those great abilities; for I cannot be induced to believe

that the musical education of the Greeks could be of much consequence in

forming them. Masters, however, had been found, it seems, for

instructing the better sort of people among those nations, in every art

and science in which the circumstances of their society rendered it

necessary or convenient for them to be instructed. The demand for such

instruction produced, what it always produces, the talent for giving it;

and the emulation which an unrestrained competition never fails to

excite, appears to have brought that talent to a very high degree of

perfection. In the attention which the ancient philosophers excited, in

the empire which they acquired over the opinions and principles of their

auditors, in the faculty which they possessed of giving a certain tone

and character to the conduct and conversation of those auditors, they

appear to have been much superior to any modern teachers. In modern

times, the diligence of public teachers is more or less corrupted by the

circumstances which render them more or less independent of their

success and reputation in their particular professions. Their salaries,

too, put the private teacher, who would pretend to come into competition

with them, in the same state with a merchant who attempts to trade

without a bounty, in competition with those who trade with a

considerable one. If he sells his goods at nearly the same price, he

cannot have the same profit; and poverty and beggary at least, if not

bankruptcy and ruin, will infallibly be his lot. If he attempts to sell

them much dearer, he is likely to have so few customers, that his

circumstances will not be much mended. The privileges of graduation,

besides, are in many countries necessary, or at least extremely

convenient, to most men of learned professions, that is, to the far

greater part of those who have occasion for a learned education. But

those privileges can be obtained only by attending the lectures of the

public teachers. The most careful attendance upon the ablest

instructions of any private teacher cannot always give any title to

demand them. It is from these different causes that the private teacher

of any of the sciences, which are commonly taught in universities, is,

in modern times, generally considered as in the very lowest order of men

of letters. A man of real abilities can scarce find out a more

humiliating or a more unprofitable employment to turn them to. The

endowments of schools and colleges have in this manner not only

corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost

impossible to have any good private ones.

Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science,

would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the

circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or

convenient, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could

never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated

system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally

believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and

nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those

incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are

in a great measure independent of their industry. Were there no public

institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through, with

application and abilities, the most complete course of education which

the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come

into the world completely ignorant of every thing which is the common

subject of conversation among gentlemen and men of the world.

There are no public institutions for the education of women, and there

is accordingly nothing useless, absurd, or fantastical, in the common

course of their education. They are taught what their parents or

guardians judge it necessary or useful for them to learn, and they are

taught nothing else. Every part of their education tends evidently to

some useful purpose; either to improve the natural attractions of their

person, or to form their mind to reserve, to modesty, to chastity, and

to economy; to render them both likely to become the mistresses of a

family, and to behave properly when they have become such. In every part

of her life, a woman feels some conveniency or advantage from every part

of her education. It seldom happens that a man, in any part of his life,

derives any conveniency or advantage from some of the most laborious and

troublesome parts of his education.

Ought the public, therefore, to give no attention, it may be asked, to

the education of the people? Or, if it ought to give any, what are the

different parts of education which it ought to attend to in the

different orders of the people? and in what manner ought it to attend to

them?

In some cases, the state of society necessarily places the greater part

of individuals in such situations as naturally form in them, without any

attention of government, almost all the abilities and virtues which that

state requires, or perhaps can admit of. In other cases, the state of

the society does not place the greater part of individuals in such

situations; and some attention of government is necessary, in order to

prevent the almost entire corruption and degeneracy of the great body of

the people.

In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far

greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of

the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations;

frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of

men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose

whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the

effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has

no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in

finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He

naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally

becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to

become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of

relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of

conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of

forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of

private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is

altogether incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have

been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending

his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally

corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard, with abhorrence,

the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts

even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his

strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment, than that

to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade

seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his

intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and

civilized society, this is the state into which the labouring poor, that

is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless

government takes some pains to prevent it.

It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as they are commonly called,

of hunters, of shepherds, and even of husbandmen in that rude state of

husbandry which precedes the improvement of manufactures, and the

extension of foreign commerce. In such societies, the varied occupations

of every man oblige every man to exert his capacity, and to invent

expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring.

Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that

drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the

understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those

barbarous societies, as they are called, every man, it has already been

observed, is a warrior. Every man, too, is in some measure a statesman,

and can form a tolerable judgment concerning the interest of the

society, and the conduct of those who govern it. How far their chiefs

are good judges in peace, or good leaders in war, is obvious to the

observation of almost every single man among them. In such a society,

indeed, no man can well acquire that improved and refined understanding

which a few men sometimes possess in a more civilized state. Though in a

rude society there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every

individual, there is not a great deal in those of the whole society.

Every man does, or is capable of doing, almost every thing which any

other man does, or is capable of doing. Every man has a considerable

degree of knowledge, ingenuity, and invention; but scarce any man has a

great degree. The degree, however, which is commonly possessed, is

generally sufficient for conducting the whole simple business of the

society. In a civilized state, on the contrary, though there is little

variety in the occupations of the greater part of individuals, there is

an almost infinite variety in those of the whole society. These varied

occupations present an almost infinite variety of objects to the

contemplation of those few, who, being attached to no particular

occupation themselves, have leisure and inclination to examine the

occupations of other people. The contemplation of so great a variety of

objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons end

combinations, and renders their understandings, in an extraordinary

degree, both acute and comprehensive. Unless those few, however, happen

to be placed in some very particular situations, their great abilities,

though honourable to themselves, may contribute very little to the good

government or happiness of their society. Notwithstanding the great

abilities of those few, all the nobler parts of the human character may

be, in a great measure, obliterated end extinguished in the great body

of the people.

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and

commercial society, the attention of the public, more than that of

people of some rank and fortune. People of some rank and fortune are

generally eighteen or nineteen years of age, before they enter upon that

particular business, profession, or trade, by which they propose to

distinguish themselves in the world. They have, before that, full time

to acquire, or at least to fit themselves for afterwards acquiring,

every accomplishment which can recommend them to the public esteem, or

render them worthy of it. Their parents or guardians are generally

sufficiently anxious that they should be so accomplished, and are, in

most cases, willing enough to lay out the expense which is necessary for

that purpose. If they are not always properly educated, it is seldom

from the want of expense laid out upon their education, but from the

improper application of that expense. It is seldom from the want of

masters, but from the negligence and incapacity of the masters who are

to be had, and from the difficulty, or rather from the impossibility,

which there is, in the present state of things, of finding any better.

The employments, too, in which people of some rank or fortune spend the

greater part of their lives, are not, like those of the common people,

simple and uniform. They are almost all of them extremely complicated,

and such as exercise the head more than the hands. The understandings of

those who are engaged in such employments, can seldom grow torpid for

want of exercise. The employments of people of some rank and fortune,

besides, are seldom such as harass them from morning to night. They

generally have a good deal of leisure, during which they may perfect

themselves in every branch, either of useful or ornamental knowledge, of

which they may have laid the foundation, or for which they may have

acquired some taste in the earlier part of life.

It is otherwise with the common people. They have little time to spare

for education. Their parents can scarce afford to maintain them, even in

infancy. As soon as they are able to work, they must apply to some

trade, by which they can earn their subsistence. That trade, too, is

generally so simple and uniform, as to give little exercise to the

understanding; while, at the same time, their labour is both so constant

and so severe, that it leaves them little leisure and less inclination

to apply to, or even to think of any thing else.

But though the common people cannot, in any civilized society, be so

well instructed as people of some rank and fortune; the most essential

parts of education, however, to read, write, and account, can be

acquired at so early a period of life, that the greater part, even of

those who are to be bred to the lowest occupations, have time to acquire

them before they can be employed in those occupations. For a very small

expense, the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose

upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring

those most essential parts of education.

The public can facilitate this acquisition, by establishing in every

parish or district a little school, where children may be taught for a

reward so moderate, that even a common labourer may afford it; the

master being partly, but not wholly, paid by the public; because, if he

was wholly, or even principally, paid by it, he would soon learn to

neglect his business. In Scotland, the establishment of such parish

schools has taught almost the whole common people to read, and a very

great proportion of them to write and account. In England, the

establishment of charity schools has had an effect of the same kind,

though not so universally, because the establishment is not so

universal. If, in those little schools, the books by which the children

are taught to read, were a little more instructive than they commonly

are; and if, instead of a little smattering in Latin, which the children

of the common people are sometimes taught there, and which can scarce

ever be of any use to them, they were instructed in the elementary parts

of geometry and mechanics; the literary education of this rank of people

would, perhaps, be as complete as can be. There is scarce a common

trade, which does not afford some opportunities of applying to it the

principles of geometry and mechanics, and which would not, therefore,

gradually exercise and improve the common people in those principles,

the necessary introduction to the most sublime, as well as to the most

useful sciences.

The public can encourage the acquisition of those most essential

parts of education, by giving small premiums, and little badges of

distinction, to the children of the common people who excel in them.

The public can impose upon almost the whole body of the people the

necessity of acquiring the most essential parts of education, by

obliging every man to undergo an examination or probation in them,

before he can obtain the freedom in any corporation, or be allowed to

set up any trade, either in a village or town corporate.

It was in this manner, by facilitating the acquisition of their military

and gymnastic exercises, by encouraging it, and even by imposing upon

the whole body of the people the necessity of learning those exercises,

that the Greek and Roman republics maintained the martial spirit of

their respective citizens. They facilitated the acquisition of those

exercises, by appointing a certain place for learning and practising

them, and by granting to certain masters the privilege of teaching in

that place. Those masters do not appear to have had either salaries or

exclusive privileges of any kind. Their reward consisted altogether in

what they got from their scholars; and a citizen, who had learnt his

exercises in the public gymnasia, had no sort of legal advantage over

one who had learnt them privately, provided the latter had learned them

equally well. Those republics encouraged the acquisition of those

exercises, by bestowing little premiums and badges of distinction upon

those who excelled in them. To have gained a prize in the Olympic,

Isthmian, or Nemaean games, gave illustration, not only to the person who

gained it, but to his whole family and kindred. The obligation which

every citizen was under, to serve a certain number of years, if called

upon, in the armies of the republic, sufficient imposed the necessity of

learning those exercises, without which he could not be fit for that

service.

That in the progress of improvement, the practice of military exercises,

unless government takes proper pains to support it, goes gradually to

decay, and, together with it, the martial spirit of the great body of

the people, the example of modern Europe sufficiently demonstrates. But

the security of every society must always depend, more or less, upon the

martial spirit of the great body of the people. In the present times,

indeed, that martial spirit alone, and unsupported by a well-disciplined

standing army, would not, perhaps, be sufficient for the defence and

security of any society. But where every citizen had the spirit of a

soldier, a smaller standing army would surely be requisite. That spirit,

besides, would necessarily diminish very much the dangers to liberty,

whether real or imaginary, which are commonly apprehended from a

standing army. As it would very much facilitate the operations of that

army against a foreign invader; so it would obstruct them as much, if

unfortunately they should ever be directed against the constitution of

the state.

The ancient institutions of Greece and Rome seem to have been much more

effectual for maintaining the martial spirit of the great body of the

people, than the establishment of what are called the militias of modern

times. They were much more simple. When they were once established, they

executed themselves, and it required little or no attention from

government to maintain them in the most perfect vigour. Whereas to

maintain, even in tolerable execution, the complex regulations of any

modern militia, requires the continual and painful attention of

government, without which they are constantly falling into total neglect

and disuse. The influence, besides, of the ancient institutions, was

much more universal. By means of them, the whole body of the people was

completely instructed in the use of arms; whereas it is but a very small

part of them who can ever be so instructed by the regulations of any

modern militia, except, perhaps, that of Switzerland. But a coward, a

man incapable either of defending or of revenging himself, evidently

wants one of the most essential parts of the character of a man. He is

as much mutilated and deformed in his mind as another is in his body,

who is either deprived of some of its most essential members, or has

lost the use of them. He is evidently the more wretched and miserable of

the two; because happiness and misery, which reside altogether in the

mind, must necessarily depend more upon the healthful or unhealthful,

the mutilated or entire state of the mind, than upon that of the body.

Even though the martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the

defence of the society, yet, to prevent that sort of mental mutilation,

deformity, and wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily involves in it,

from spreading themselves through the great body of the people, would

still deserve the most serious attention of government; in the same

manner as it would deserve its most serious attention to prevent a

leprosy, or any other loathsome and offensive disease, though neither

mortal nor dangerous, from spreading itself among them; though, perhaps,

no other public good might result from such attention, besides the

prevention of so great a public evil.

The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which,

in a civilized society, seem so frequently to benumb the understandings

of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the proper use of the

intellectual faculties of a man, is, if possible, more contemptible than

even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed in a still more

essential part of the character of human nature. Though the state was to

derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of

people, it would still deserve its attention that they should not be

altogether uninstructed. The state, however, derives no inconsiderable

advantage from their instruction. The more they are instructed, the less

liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which,

among ignorant nations frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders.

An instructed and intelligent people, besides, are always more decent

and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one. They feel themselves, each

individually, more respectable, and more likely to obtain the respect of

their lawful superiors, and they are, therefore, more disposed to

respect those superiors. They are more disposed to examine, and more

capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction and

sedition; and they are, upon that account, less apt to be misled into

any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of government. In

free countries, where the safety of government depends very much upon

the favourable judgment which the people may form of its conduct, it

must surely be of the highest importance, that they should not be

disposed to judge rashly or capriciously concerning it.

ART. III.--_Of the Expense of the Institutions for the Instruction of

People of all Ages._

The institutions for the instruction of people of all ages, are chiefly

those for religious instruction. This is a species of instruction, which

the object is not so much to render the people good citizens in this

world, as to prepare them for another and a better world in the life to

come. The teachers of the doctrine which contains this instruction, in

the same manner as other teachers, may either depend altogether for

their subsistence upon the voluntary contributions of their hearers; or

they may derive it from some other fund, to which the law of their

country may entitle them; such as a landed estate, a tythe or land tax,

an established salary or stipend. Their exertion, their zeal and

industry, are likely to be much greater in the former situation than in

the latter. In this respect, the teachers of a new religion have always

had a considerable advantage in attacking these ancient and established

systems, of which the clergy, reposing themselves upon their benefices,

had neglected to keep up the fervour of faith and devotion in the great

body of the people; and having given themselves up to indolence, were

become altogether incapable of making any vigorous exertion in defence

even of their own establishment. The clergy of an established and well

endowed religion frequently become men of learning and elegance, who

possess all the virtues of gentlemen, or which can recommend them to the

esteem of gentlemen; but they are apt gradually to lose the qualities,

both good and bad, which gave them authority and influence with the

inferior ranks of people, and which had perhaps been the original causes

of the success and establishment of their religion. Such a clergy, when

attacked by a set of popular and bold, though perhaps stupid and

ignorant enthusiasts, feel themselves as perfectly defenceless as the

indolent, effeminate, and full fed nations of the southern parts of

Asia, when they were invaded by the active, hardy, and hungry Tartars of

the north. Such a clergy, upon such an emergency, have commonly no other

resource than to call upon the civil magistrate to persecute, destroy,

or drive out their adversaries, as disturbers of the public peace. It

was thus that the Roman catholic clergy called upon the civil magistrate

to persecute the protestants, and the church of England to persecute the

dissenters; and that in general every religious sect, when it has once

enjoyed, for a century or two, the security of a legal establishment,

has found itself incapable of making any vigorous defence against any

new sect which chose to attack its doctrine or discipline. Upon such

occasions, the advantage, in point of learning and good writing, may

sometimes be on the side of the established church. But the arts of

popularity, all the arts of gaining proselytes, are constantly on the

side of its adversaries. In England, those arts have been long neglected

by the well endowed clergy of the established church, and are at present

chiefly cultivated by the dissenters and by the methodists. The

independent provisions, however, which in many places have been made for

dissenting teachers, by means of voluntary subscriptions, of trust

rights, and other evasions of the law, seem very much to have abated the

zeal and activity of those teachers. They have many of them become very

learned, ingenious, and respectable men; but they have in general ceased

to be very popular preachers. The methodists, without half the learning

of the dissenters, are much more in vogue.

In the church of Rome the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are

kept more alive by the powerful motive of self-interest, than perhaps in

any established protestant church. The parochial clergy derive many of

them, a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary

oblations of the people; a source of revenue, which confession gives

them many opportunities of improving. The mendicant orders derive their

whole subsistence from such oblations. It is with them as with the

hussars and light infantry of some armies; no plunder, no pay. The

parochial clergy are like those teachers whose reward depends partly

upon their salary, and partly upon the fees or honoraries which they get

from their pupils; and these must always depend, more or less, upon

their industry and reputation. The mendicant orders are like those

teachers whose subsistence depends altogether upon their industry. They

are obliged, therefore, to use every art which can animate the devotion

of the common people. The establishment of the two great mendicant

orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis, it is observed by Machiavel,

revived, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the languishing

faith and devotion of the catholic church. In Roman catholic countries,

the spirit of devotion is supported altogether by the monks, and by the

poorer parochial clergy. The great dignitaries of the church, with all

the accomplishments of gentlemen and men of the world, and sometimes

with those of men of learning, are careful to maintain the necessary

discipline over their inferiors, but seldom give themselves any trouble

about the instruction of the people.

"Most of the arts and professions in a state," says by far the most

illustrious philosopher and historian of the present age, "are of such a

nature, that, while they promote the interests of the society, they are

also useful or agreeable to some individuals; and, in that case, the

constant rule of the magistrate, except, perhaps, on the first

introduction of any art, is, to leave the profession to itself, and

trust its encouragement to the individuals who reap the benefit of it.

The artisans, finding their profits to rise by the favour of their

customers, increase, as much as possible, their skill and industry; and

as matters are not disturbed by any injudicious tampering, the commodity

is always sure to be at all times nearly proportioned to the demand."

"But there are also some callings which, though useful and even

necessary in a state, bring no advantage or pleasure to any individual;

and the supreme power is obliged to alter its conduct with regard to the

retainers of those professions. It must give them public encouragement

in order to their subsistence; and it must provide against that

negligence to which they will naturally be subject, either by annexing

particular honours to profession, by establishing a long subordination

of ranks, and a strict dependence, or by some other expedient. The

persons employed in the finances, fleets, and magistracy, are instances

of this order of men.

"It may naturally be thought, at first sight, that the ecclesiastics

belong to the first class, and that their encouragement, as well as that

of lawyers and physicians, may safely be entrusted to the liberality of

individuals, who are attached to their doctrines, and who find benefit

or consolation from their spiritual ministry and assistance. Their

industry and vigilance will, no doubt, be whetted by such an additional

motive; and their skill in the profession, as well as their address in

governing the minds of the people, must receive daily increase, from

their increasing practice, study, and attention.

"But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find that this

interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will

study to prevent; because, in every religion except the true, it is

highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the

truth, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and

delusion. Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more

precious and sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with

the most violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually

endeavour, by some novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his

audience. No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency, in the

doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the

disorderly affections of the human frame. Customers will be drawn in

each conventicle by new industry and address, in practising on the

passions and credulity of the populace. And, in the end, the civil

magistrate will find that he has dearly paid for his intended frugality,

in saving a fixed establishment for the priests; and that, in reality,

the most decent and advantageous composition, which he can make with the

spiritual guides, is to bribe their indolence, by assigning stated

salaries to their profession, and rendering it superfluous for them to

be farther active, than merely to prevent their flock from straying in

quest of new pastors. And in this manner ecclesiastical establishments,

though commonly they arose at first from religious views, prove in the

end advantageous to the political interests of society."

But whatever may have been the good or bad effects of the independent

provision of the clergy, it has, perhaps, been very seldom bestowed upon

them from any view to those effects. Times of violent religious

controversy have generally been times of equally violent political

faction. Upon such occasions, each political party has either found it,

or imagined it, for his interest, to league itself with some one or

other of the contending religious sects. But this could be done only by

adopting, or, at least, by favouring the tenets of that particular sect.

The sect which had the good fortune to be leagued with the conquering

party necessarily shared in the victory of its ally, by whose favour and

protection it was soon enabled, in some degree, to silence and subdue

all its adversaries. Those adversaries had generally leagued themselves

with the enemies of the conquering party, and were, therefore the

enemies of that party. The clergy of this particular sect having thus

become complete masters of the field, and their influence and authority

with the great body of the people being in its highest vigour, they were

powerful enough to overawe the chiefs and leaders of their own party,

and to oblige the civil magistrate to respect their opinions and

inclinations. Their first demand was generally that he should silence

and subdue all their adversaries; and their second, that he should

bestow an independent provision on themselves. As they had generally

contributed a good deal to the victory, it seemed not unreasonable that

they should have some share in the spoil. They were weary, besides, of

humouring the people, and of depending upon their caprice for a

subsistence. In making this demand, therefore, they consulted their own

ease and comfort, without troubling themselves about the effect which it

might have, in future times, upon the influence and authority of their

order. The civil magistrate, who could comply with their demand only by

giving them something which he would have chosen much rather to take, or

to keep to himself, was seldom very forward to grant it. Necessity,

however, always forced him to submit at last, though frequently not till

after many delays, evasions, and affected excuses.