shelter they afford broke forth the first great regenerator of practical politics; and the origin of the Wealth of Nations was founded in the industrious tranquillity of a professorship at Glasgow.*

Let us then eschew all that false and mercantile liberalism of the day which would destroy the high seats and shelters of Learning, and would leave what is above the public comprehension to the chances of the public sympathy. It is possible that endowments favour many drones-granted-but if they produce one great philosopher, whose mind would otherwise have been bowed to lower spheres, that advantage counterbalances a thousand drones. How many sluggards will counterpoise an Adam Smith! If you form but a handful of wise men," said Julian, you do more for the world than many kings can do." And if it be true that he who has planted a blade of corn in the spot which was barren before is a benefactor to his species; what shall we not pardon to a system by which a nobler labourer is enabled to plant in the human mind an idea which was unknown to it till then?

But if ever endowments for the cultivators of the higher letters were required, it is now. As education is popularized, its tone grows more familiar, but its research less deep-the demand for the elements of knowledge vulgarizes scholarship to the necessity of the times-there is an impatience of that austere and vigorous toil by which alone men can extend the knowledge already in the world. As you diffuse the stream, guard well the fountains. But it is vain for us-it is in vain, sir, even for you, how influential soever your virtues and your genius, to exert yourself in behalf of our Educational Endowments, if they themselves very long continue unadapted to the growing knowledge of the world. Even the superior classes are awakened to a sense of the insufficiency of fashionable education-of the vast expense and the little profit of the system pursued at existing schools and universities.

One great advantage of diffusing knowledge among the lower classes is the necessity thus imposed on the higher of increasing knowledge among themselves. I suspect that the new modes and systems of education which succeed the most among the people will ultimately be adopted by the gentry. Seeing around them the mighty cities of a new Education-the education of the nineteenth century-they will no longer be contented to give their children the education of three hundred years ago. One of two consequences will happen: either public schools will embrace improved modes and additional branches of learning, or it will cease to be the fashion to support them. The more aristocratic families who have no interest in their foundations will desert them, and

Dr. Chalmers eloquently complains, that they made Dr. Smith a commissioner of customs, and thereby lost to the public his projected work on Jurisprudence.

they will gradually be left as monastic reservoirs to college institutions.*

Let us hope to avert this misfortune while we may, and, by exciting among the teachers of education a wholesome and legitimate spirit of alarm, arouse in them the consequent spirit of reform. Let us interest the higher classes in the preservation of their own power let them, while encouraging schools for the children of the poor, improve, by their natural influence, the schools adapted for their own; the same influence that now supports a superficial education, would as easily expedite the progress of a sound one, and it would become the fashion to be educated well, as it is now the fashion to be educated ill. Will they refuse or dally with this necessity?-they cannot know its importance to themselves. If the aristocracy would remain the most powerful class, they must continue to be the most intelligent. The art of printing was explained to a savage king, the Napoleon of his tribes. "A magnificent conception," said he, after a pause, “but it can never be introduced into my domains; it would make knowledge equal, and I should fall. How can I govern my subjects, except by being wiser than they?"-Profound reflection, which contains the germ of all legislative control! When knowledge was confined to the cloister, the monks were the most powerful part of the community; gradually it extended to the nobles, and gradually the nobles supplanted the priests the shadow of the orb has advanced-it is resting over the people-it is for you, who, for centuries, have drunk vigour from the beams-it is for you to say if the light shall merely extend to a more distant circle, or if it shall darken from your own. It is only by diverting the bed of the Mighty River, that your city can be taken, and your kingdom can pass away!

* For one source of advantage in the public schools will remain unchoked-they will continue to be the foundation on which certain University Emoluments are built. College scholarships, college fellowships, and college livings, will still present to the poorer gentry and clergy an honourable inducement to send their sons to the public schools; and these will, therefore, still remain a desirable mode of disposing of children, despite of their incapacities to improve them. If we could reform the conditions on which University endowments are bestowed on individuals, a proportionate reform in the scholars ambitious to obtain them would be a necessary consequence. This may be difficult to do with the old endowments, and the readiest mode would be to found new endowments on a better principle and under better patronage, as a counterpoise to the abuses of the old. Thus, not by destroying old endowments, but by creating new, shall we best serve the purpose of the loftier knowledge.

CHAPTER II.

STATE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE MIDDLING CLASSES.

Religion more taught in Schools for the Middle Orders than those for the Higher. -But Moral Science equally neglected.-King's College, and the London University.

A VERY few words will dismiss this part of my subject. The middle classes, by which I mean chiefly shopkeepers and others engaged in trade, naturally enjoy a more average and even education, than either those above or below them;-it continues a shorter time than the education of the aristocracy-it embraces fewer objects-its discipline is usually more strict: it includes Latin, but not too much of it; and arithmetic and caligraphy, merely nominal with the aristocratic teachers, are the main matters considered, where the pupils are intended for trade. English themes usually make a part of their education, instead of Latin Sapphics; but as critical lectures do not enlighten and elevate the lesson, the utmost acquired is a style tolerably grammatic. Religion is more attended to: and explanations of the Bible are sometimes a weekly lesson. Different schools give, of course, more or less into religious knowledge; but, generally speaking, all schools intended to form the trader, pay more attention to religion than those that rear the gentleman. Religion may not be minutely explained, but it is much that its spirit is attended to; and the pupil carries a reverence for it in the abstract, throughout life, even though, in the hurry of commercial pursuits, he may neglect its principles. Hence the middle classes, with us, have a greater veneration than others for religion; hence their disposition, often erroneous, to charity, in their situation of overseers and parochial officers; hence the desire (weak in the other classes) with them so strong, of keeping holy the Sabbath-day; hence their enthusiasm for diffusing religious knowledge among the negroes; hence their easy proselytism to the stricter creeds of Dissenting Sects.

But if the spirit of religion is more maintained in their education, the science of morals, in its larger or abstruser principles, is equally neglected. Moral works, by which I mean the philosophy of morals, make no part of their general instruction; they are not taught, like the youth of Germany, to think-to reflect-so that goodness may

122

Min persily

LONDON UNIVERSITY

sink, as it were, into their minds and pervade their actions, as well as command their vague respect. Hence, they are often narrow and insulated in their moral views, and fall easily, in after life, into their great characteristic error, of considering Appearances as the substance of Virtues.

**The great experiment of the day for the promotion of Education among the middle classes, has been the foundation of the London University and King's College. The first is intended for all religions, and therefore all religion is banished from it!-a main cause of the difficulties with which it has had to contend, and of the jealousy with which it has been regarded. Its real capital was 158,8827. 10s., but this vast sum has not sufficed to set the University clear from the most grievous embarrassments. In its February report of this year (1833), it gives a view of its financial state, by which it calculates, that in October next there will be a total balance against it of 37151. The Council are charmed with every thing in the progress of the University,-except the finances; they call on the proprietors to advance a further sum, or else, they drily declare, they may be under the necessity of giving notice, that the Institution cannot be reopened upon its present footing." And what is the sum they require ?-what sum will preserve the University ?—what sum will establish this Great Fountain of Intelligence, in the heart of the richest and vastest Metropolis in the world, and for the benefit of the most respectable bodies of dissent in the Christian community? One additional thousand a year!—It is for this paltry pittance that the Council are disquieted, and proprietors are appealed to.See now the want of a paternal and providing State! In any other country, the Government would at once supply the deficiency. King's College, with a more lordly and extensive patronage, is equally mournful, when it turns to the pounds and pence part of the prospect: it has a necessity of completing the "River Front;" it calls upon the proprietors for an additional loan of ten per cent., and for their influence to obtain new subscriptions-the sum required is about 80007. As they demand it merely as a loan, and promise speedy repayment, a State that watched over Education would be no less serviceable to King's College than to the London University.

At both these Universities the Medicine Class is the most numerous. At King's College the proportions are as follows (April, 1833).

Regular Students for the prescribed Course of Education,
Occasional ditto in various departments of Science and Li-
terature,

109

196

305

Medical Department.

{

Regular Students for the whole Course of Medical educa-
tion,

77

Occasional ditto in various branches of Medical Science,

233

310-Total 615

I am informed, too, that of the general Lectures, those upon Chemistry are the most numerously attended.

At the London University, February, 1833, the proportions are in favour of Me dical Science.

At the London University there is a just complaint of the indifference to that class of sciences, the knowledge of which is not profitable to the possessor in a pecuniary point of view, but which exert a great influence on the "well-being of

It was

society," viz. Moral Philosophy-Political Economy and Jurisprudence.
in order," say the Council," to afford opportunities for the study of these sciences,
and to confer on this country the facilities given by foreign universities, that this
university was mainly founded and supported. The advantage of these studies
being rather felt by their gradual operation upon society, than by any specific be-
nefit to the possessor, the taste for them must be created by pointing out the
nature of these advantages to the public and to the student in other words, the
study must be produced by teaching them."

This, sir, is in the spirit of your own incontrovertible argument for endowments -viz. that the higher and less worldly studies must be obtruded upon men-they will not seek them of themselves. This obtrusion ought not to be left to individuals -it is the proper province of the State.

At King's College there is no professorship of Moral Philosophy, that study is held to be synonymous with Divinity. In my survey of the State of Morality, I think I shall be able to show, that no doctrine can be more mischievous to accurate morals and to uncorrupted religion.

To both these Universities schools are attached, and these I apprehend will prove much more immediately successful than the Colleges.

At the school attached to King's College there are already (April, 1833) 319 pupils.

At that belonging to the London University (February, 1833) 249.

Viz. at the latter a number about equal to the number of boys at the ancient establishment of Westminster.

At King's College School, the business of each day commences with prayers and the reading of the scriptures; the ordinary educational system of the great public schools is adopted.

At the London University School there is a great, though perhaps a prudent, timidity in trying new educational systems; but there is less learning by heart than at other schools, and the wise and common result of all new systems, viz. the plan of a close and frequent questioning, is carefully adopted.

At both Schools (and this is a marked feature in their system) there is strict abstinence from corporal punishment.

In both these Universities the Schools answer better than the Colleges, and have immeasurably outstripped the latter in the numeral progression of students, because the majority of pupils are intended for commercial pursuits, and their education ceases at sixteen; viz. the age at which the instruction of the College commences. If this should continue, and the progressing School supplant the decaying College, the larger experiment in both Universities will have failed, and the two Colleges be merely additional cheap schools pursuing the old system, and speedily falling into the old vices of tuition.

Be it observed, that the terms at neither of these Universities, (or rather at the schools attached to them, for Universities, nowadays, can scarcely be intended for the poor, viz. the working poor*) are low enough to admit the humble, and are, therefore, solely calculated to comprehend the children of the middling orders.

The school tuition, at King's College, is for boys, nominated by a proprietor, 157. 15s. per annum. To boys not so nominated, 187. 11s. per annum. The school tuition for those at the London University is 157. a year.