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But the higher sciences ought to be cultivated, hence another necessity for endowments. Wherever endowments are the most flourishing, thither learning is the most attracted. Thus you have rightly observed, and Adam Smith before you, that in whatever country the colleges are more affluent than the church, colleges exhibit the most brilliant examples of learning. Wherever, on the other hand, the church is more richly endowed than the college, the pulpit absorbs the learning of the chair. Hence in England, the learning of the clergy; and in Scotland, that of the professors.* Let me add to this, the example of Germany, where there is scarce a professor who does not enjoy a well-earned celebrity-the example of France, where in Voltaire's time, when the church was so wealthy he could only find one professor ofany literary merit (and he but of mediocre claims), and where, in the present time, when the church is impoverished, the most remarkable efforts of Christian philosophy have emanated from the chairs of the professional lecturer.†

I have said that the public will not so reward the professor of the higher sciences as to sanction the idea, that we may safely leave him to their mercy. Let us suppose, however, that the public are more covetous of lofty knowledge than we imagine. Let us suppose that the professor of philosophy can obtain sufficient pupils to maintain him, but that by pupils alone he is maintained, what would be the probable result? Why, that he would naturally seek to enlarge the circle of his pupils-that in order to enlarge it, he would stoop from the starred and abstruse sphere of his research-that he would dwell on the more familiar and less toilsome elements of science-that he would fear to lose his pupils by soaring beyond the average capacity that he would be, in a word, a teacher of the rudiments of science, not an investigator of its difficult results. Thus we should have, wherever we turned, nothing but elementary knowledge and facts made easy-thus we should contract the eagle wing of philosophy to a circle of male Mrs.

*"Half the distinguished authorship of Scotland has been professional."Chalmers on Endowments.

If in the meditated reform of the church the average revenues of the clergy be more equalized, the Professorships would gain something in learning, while the Church would still be so affluent as to lose nothing. The chair and the pulpit should be tolerably equalized in endowments, in order to prevent the one subtracting from the intellectual acquirements of the other.

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Marcets-ever dwelling on the threshold of knowledge, and trembling to penetrate the temple.

Endowments raise (as the philosopher should be raised) the lofty and investigating scholar above the necessity of humbling his intellect in order to earn his bread-they give him up to the serene meditation from which he distils the essence of the diviner-nay, even the more useful, but hitherto undiscovered -wisdom. If from their shade has emanated the vast philosophy of Kant, which dwarfs into littleness the confined materialism of preceding schools, so also from amidst the 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 the great Julian, "you do more for the world than many kings can do." And if it be true that he who 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 men alone can extend the knowledge already in the world. As you diffuse the stream, guard well the fountains. But it is in vain for us-it is in vain, sir, even for you, how influential soever your virtues 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.

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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 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

* For one source of advantage in the public schools will remain unchokedthey 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 poor 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 purposes of the loftier knowledge.

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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 shall it darken from your own. It is only by diverting the bed of the Mighty River, that your city can be taken, and your kingdom pass away!

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 calligraphy, merely nominal with the aristocratic teachers, are

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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 1 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 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 158,8821. 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, 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 37157. The council