That navigable cuts and canals, and the works which are fometimes neceffary for fupplying a great city with water, are of great and general utility; while at the fame time they frequently require a greater expenfe than fuits the fortunes of private people, is fufficiently obvious.

men.

Except the four trades above-mentioned, I have not been able to recollect any other in which all the three circumftances, requifite for rendering rea sonable the establishment of a joint stock company, concur. The English copper company of London, the lead fmelting company, the glafs grinding company, have not even the pretext of any great or fingular utility in the object which they pursue; nor does the purfuit of that object feem to require any expense unfuitable to the fortunes of many private Whether the trade which those companies carry on, is reducible to fuch ftrict rule and method as to render it fit for the management of a joint stock company, or whether they have any reafon to boast of their extraordinary profits, I do not pretend to know. The mine- adventurers company has been long ago bankrupt. A fhare in the ftock of the British Linen company of Edinburgh fells, at present, very much below par, though lefs fo than it did fome years ago. The joint ftock companies, which are established for the public fpirited purpofe of promoting fome particular manufacture, over and above managing their own affairs ill, to the diminution of the general flock of the fociety, can in other refpects fcarce 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 difcouragement to the reft, and neceffarily breaks, more or lefs, 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.

ARTICLE

II.

Of the Expense of the Inftitutions for the Education

of Youth.

THE inftitutions for the education of the youth may, in the fame manner, furnish a revenue fufficient for defraying their own expense. The fee or honorary which the fcholar pays to the mafter naturally constitutes a revenue of this kind.

Even where the reward of the mafter does not arife altogether from this natural revenue, it ftill is not neceffary that it fhould be derived from that general revenue of the fociety, of which the collection and application is, in most countries, affigned 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 fmall one. It every where arifes chiefly from fome local and provincial revenue, from the rent of fome landed eftate, or from the intereft of fome fum of money allotted and put under the management of trustees for this particular purpose, fometimes by the fovereign himfelf, and fometimes by fome private donor.

Have those public endowments contributed in general to promote the end of, their inftitution? Have they contributed to encourage the diligence, and to improve the abilities of the teachers? Have they directed the courfe of education towards objects more useful, both to the individual and to the public, than thofe to which it would na turally have gone of its own accord? It should not seem very difficult to give at least a probable anfwer to each of thofe questions.

In every profeffion, the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise, it, is always in proportion to the neceffity they are under of making that exertion. This neceffity is greatest with those to whom the emoluments of their profeffion are the only fource from which they expect their fortune or even their ordinary revenue and fubfiftence. In order to acquire this fortune, or even to get this fubfiftence, they muft, 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 fuccefs in fome particular profeffions may, no doubt, fometimes animate the exertion of a few men of extraordinary fpirit and ambition. Great objects, however, are evidently not neceffary in order to occafion the greatest exertions. Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in mean profeffions, an object of

ambition, and frequently occafion the very greatest exertions. Great objects, on the contrary, alone and unfupported by the neceffity of application, have feldom been fufficient to occafion any confiderable exertion. In England, fuccefs in the profeffion of the law leads to fome very great objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to eafy fortunes, have ever in this country been eminent in that profeffion!

The endowments of fchools and colleges have neceffarily diminished more or lefs the neceffity of application in the teachers. Their fubfiftence, fo far as it arifes from their falaries, is evidently derived from a fund altogether independent of their fuccefs and reputation in their particular profeffions.

In fome universities the falary makes but a part, and frequently but a fmall part of the emoluments of the teacher, of which the greater part arifes from the honoraries or fees of his pupils. The neceffity of application, though always more or lefs diminished, is not in this cafe entirely taken. away. Reputation in his profeffion is ftill of fome importance to him, and he ftill has fome dependency upon the affection, gratitude, and favorable report of those who have attended upon his inftructions; and these favorable fentiments he is likely to gain in no way fo well as by deferving them, that is, by the abilities and diligence with which he discharges every part of his duty.

In other univerfities the teacher is prohibited from receiving any honorary or fee from his pupils,

and his falary constitutes the whole of the revenue which he derives from his office. His intereft is in this case, set as directly in oppofition to his duty as it is poffible to fet it. It is the intereft of every man to live as much at his eafe as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the fame, whether he does, or does not perform fome very laborious duty, it is certainly his intereft, at least as intereft is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is fubject to fome authority which will not fuffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and flovenly a manner as that authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a lover of labor, it is his intereft to employ that activity in any way, from which he can derive fome advantage, rather than in the performance of his duty, from which he can derive none.

1

If the authority to which he is fubject refides in the body corporate, the college, or univerfity, of which he himself is a member, and in which the greater part of the other members are, like himself, perfons 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 profeffors have, for thefe many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.

If the authority to which he is fubject refides, not fo much in the body corporate of which he