place in order to find constant employment. Afterwards, when schools were established, the state did no more than assign them particular places to teach in. To Plato the state assigned the Academy, the Lycæum to Aristotle, and the Portico to Zeno, whilst Epicurus and his followers established themselves in the Garden, pp. 360, 361.

At Rome the study of the civil law made part of the education of some particular families, but there was no public school to go to. It is worth notice that in Greece, where law never seems to have been a science, the constitution of the courts of justice was very inferior to that of Rome, where law was very early considered as a science. In Greece in general, and at Athens in particular, the courts of justice consisted of numerous and therefore disorderly bodies of people (500 to 1,500), whose passions were influenced by sympathy, and responsibility weakened by division. At Rome, on the contrary, the chief courts had few judges, and even an Appius Claudius could not be wholly indifferent to the effect of an unjust decision, the more fatal to the character of the judge as the deliberation preceding it was always conducted in public, pp. 361, 362.

The abilities of the Greeks and Romans will be readily allowed to have been equal to those of any modern nation. Yet the state was at no pains to form those abilities. Masters were found for instructing the people in every necessary art and science. The demand for instruction always produces the talent for giving it, and emulation appears to have brought that talent to perfection. The ancient philosophers (in their influence over the thoughts and characters of their pupils) seem to have been superior to modern teachers.' In

In discussing the respective advantages of home and public education, neither Aristotle nor Quintilian ever contemplated the alienation of the subject of it from the legitimate influences of his home and relations. Both appear to have wished to free the teacher from the caprice

modern times the diligence of public teachers is corrupted by the circumstances which render them independent of their success and reputation in their profession. Their salaries too put it out of the power of private teachers to come in competition with them. Thus the endowments of colleges have not only corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private ones, pp. 362-3.

Were there no public institutions for education, no science would be taught for which there was not some demand.1 A private teacher could not find his account in teaching either an exploded or antiquated system of science. Such systems can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their reputation and industry. There are no public institutions for the education of women, and they are taught nothing but what their parents judge it necessary or useful for them to learn, nothing that does not tend 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 life a woman feels some advantage from every part of her education. It seldom of individual parents, and to excite in the pupils a healthy spirit of emulation, but both would have recoiled from the thought of weakening the institution of the family. On the other hand the boarding school system at present in vogue in England (whose merits have indeed been declared to be an article of faith' with the Englishman) is the most systematic attack on the influences of the family of which we have any record. It is scarcely too much to say that all close communion of thought and feeling between English parents and their sons ceases at a very early age (at least in a vast majority of instances) among the educated classes.

6

That is to say, no science would be taught of which people ignorant of the said science did not feel the need!! In other words, the uncultivated would be made judges of cultivation. See Mill, v. 11. 8. & 15.

2 To us at the present time this doctrine appears strangely false. It must be remembered that during the last century the education of women in Scotland was of a very practical character. See (e.g.) the Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville.

happens that a man, in any part of his life, derives any advantage from some of the most laborious parts of his education, p. 364.

Ought the public, therefore, to give no attention to the education of the people? In some cases it is not In the progress of the

necessary, in others it may be. division of labour, the employment of the great body of the people comes to be confined to a few very simple operations. The mind is formed by its employment. The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention.' His dexterity at his own trade seems to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. This is the state of the poor in every improved society, unless government take pains to prevent it. It is otherwise in barbarous societies, as they are called, of hunters, etc. In these, invention is kept alive: every man is a warrior, and, in some measure, a statesman too. In such a society, indeed, no man can acquire that improved understanding which a few men sometimes possess in a more civilised state, yet every man does or is capable of doing almost everything which any other man does or is capable of doing. Though in a rude society there is a good deal of variety in the occupation of individuals, there is not a great deal in those of the whole society. In a civilised state, though there is little variety in the occupation of individuals, there is an almost infinite variety in those of the whole society, and the few who have nothing to do but to observe and to reflect possess understandings in an extraordinary degree, both acute and comprehensive. It is unfortunate that such capacities are often wasted in voluntary or compulsory retirement, pp. 364–67.

The education of common people requires, in a civilised and commercial society, the attention of the

See the editor's Questions and Exercises in Political Economy, p. 13, question 6, and the authorities therein quoted.

public more than that of people of some rank and fortune who have time and opportunity of acquiring every necessary accomplishment, whose employments are such as exercise the head more than the hands, and who have leisure to improve their minds. The common people ought to be taught to read, write, and account, to which might be added the elementary parts of geometry and mechanics. There is scarce a common trade which does not afford some opportunities of applying the principles of geometry and mechanics. The public should facilitate this sort of instruction, by giving small premiums to the children who excel in it, and by some kind of public examinations. In this manner military and gymnastic exercises were acquired by the Greeks and Romans, pp. 367-69.

A martial spirit ought also to be infused into the great body of the people, for upon a martial spirit the security of the society depends. Where every citizen had the spirit of a soldier, a smaller standing army would be requisite: that spirit would, besides, diminish the dangers to liberty, whether real or imaginary, apprehended from the standing army. The ancient institutions of Greece and Rome appear to have been more effectual for maintaining the martial spirit of the people than the establishment of modern militias. They were more simple. Their influence was more universal. A man incapable of defending or of revenging himself wants one of the most essential parts of the character of a man. 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 deformity from spreading among the people, it would deserve the attention of government. The same thing may be said of gross ignorance, which, in a civilised society, seems to benumb the understanding of the inferior ranks of the people, rendering them an easy prey to enthusiasm and superstition, if not to sedition and faction, pp. 370-72.

ARTICLE III. Of the Expense of Institutions for the Instruction of People of all Ages.

These institutions are chiefly those for religious instruction. The teachers of the doctrine which contains this instruction may either depend wholly for subsistence upon the voluntary contributions of their hearers, or they may derive it from some other fund to which the law may entitle them, such as landed estates, tithe, or an established salary. Their exertions are likely to be greater in the former situation than in the latter. In this respect the teachers of new religions have had the advantage in attacking the ancient and established the clergy systems, of which reposing themselves upon their benefices, had neglected to keep up the devotional fervour of the people, and were become incapable of any vigorous exertion in defence even of their own establishment. Upon such an emergency, the clergy have no other resource than to call upon the civil magistrate to persecute their adversaries. Thus the Roman Catholic clergy called upon the civil magistrate to persecute the Protestants: and the Church of England, to persecute the Dissenters; and in general, every sect, when it has enjoyed for a century or two the security of legal establishment, has found itself incapable of vigorous defence against any new sect of popular and bold, though perhaps stupid and ignorant, enthusiasts that chose to attack its doctrine or discipline, pp. 372-74.

In the Church of Rome, the industry of the inferior clergy, deriving as they do a considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary oblations of the people, is kept more alive by self-interest than perhaps in any established Protestant church, whilst the support of the mendicant orders depends altogether upon such oblations. The great dignitaries of the Church of Rome, with all the accomplishments of men of the world, and