By founding universities, and other places of education; by endowing professorships and lectureships; by creating literary academies; by patronising literature and science, and by assisting public instruction, it has, indeed, contributed powerfully to the diffusion of opinions on many important subjects; but it has left, in general, to the several professors and teachers the liberty of forming their own judgment as to the opinions which they would inculcate, and has not sought to induce them to make the matter of their teaching square with a prescribed standard. Without going the length of saying, that a government ought to be wholly indifferent to the character of the opinions diffused under its superintendence—without adopting the maxim, Si рориlus vult decipi, decipiatur—we may affirm that, after it has taken effectual means for encouraging the diffusion of knowledge, and for promoting the selection of fit teachers, it ought to exercise extreme reserve in regulating the opinions of the persons so employed. And we may here add that, if the State ought not to prescribe the opinions of endowed teachers of scientific, literary, and historical branches of knowledge-in most of which there are recognised standards, and a generally admitted authority-still less ought it to take a decisive part in religious questions, as to which there is no common authority generally received and respected by all the Christian sects. It is by scientific and literary endowments, in connection with universities, places of learning, academies, observatories, botanical gardens, museums, public libraries, and similar institutions, that the best provision can be made for those men of science and letters, whose pursuits are not of such a nature as to afford them the means of a decent and permanent subsistence.' Poets, writers of found it necessary to declare that, in illustrating the propositions relative to the heliocentric theory, they treated it as a mere hypothesis, and they professed, with a grave irony, their submission to the decrees of the church against the motion of the earth: Cæterum latis a summis Pontificibus contra telluris motum decretis nos obsequi profitemur.' The works of Galileo and Copernicus were inserted in the index of prohibited books; and to this day the Ptolemaic system is the official doctrine of the Church of Rome. 1 Lord Bacon, Adv. of Learning, vol. II. p. 94, speaks of the defect which is in public lectures; namely, in the smallness and meanness of the salary or reward which, in most places, is assigned unto them; whether they be lectures of arts or professions. For it is necessary to the progression of sciences that readers [i.e. lecturers] be of the most able and sufficient men; as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of sciences, and not for transitory use. This cannot be, except their condition and endowment be such as may content the ablest man to appropriate his whole fiction, and others, who can amuse and delight the public, may derive a profit from their literary works; those, again, who digest and arrange existing knowledge for the instruction of their readers, may obtain considerable pecuniary rewards for their labours, in the present state of civilisation; but those who originate new ideas, who explore the untrodden, and cultivate the waste tracts of science, cannot expect to reap any profit from their exertions. Unless they possess the means of independent support, the best maintenance for them is a literary endowment, of the sort just described; professors, too, in a place of learning, who are remunerated for the lectures which they give, can study a subject in order to teach it, and devote their spare time to the composition of books. Why teachers should not be rewarded for their services, I can see no valid reason; the objection of Socrates to the paid teaching of the Sophists of his time seems to have been partly founded in his opinion, that their lessons were valueless, and partly in the Greek prejudice against illiberal arts.2 1 As has been just remarked, the State may, as with respect to religious instruction, interfere for the support and patronage of the secular instruction of the young, so as to give currency to certain opinions on subjects unconnected with religion. Aristotle, apparently, approves of the Lacedæmonian system, according to which all free children, after a certain age, were taken out of the care of their parents, and placed under the discipline of the State. This system, however, had almost exclusively a military object. Though carried, for a long time, into labour, and continue his whole age, in that function and attendance; and therefore must have a proportion answerable to that mediocrity or competency of advancement which may be expected from a profession, or the practice of a profession.' 1 Mr. John Mill, in his Principles of Political Economy, vol. I. p. 468, throws out a doubt whether there is not something radically amiss in the idea of authorship as a profession; and whether any social arrangement, under which the teachers of mankind consist of persons giving out doctrines for bread, is suited to be, or can possibly be, a permanent thing.' Compare Comte, Cours de Phil. Pos. tom. VI. p. 466. 2 Adam Smith was led, by the abuses of universities in his time, and by their lazy and unimproving spirit, to underrate the advantages of literary endowments, in promoting the cultivation of those branches of knowledge which are not useful, (in the vulgar sense of the word,)—that is, which do not yield an immediate return to the learner, by fitting him for a gainful occupation, (Wealth of Nations, b. V. ch. 1, art. 2). He admits, however, the advantage of an endowment for the instruction of the poor. See, with respect to this subject, the instructive work of Dr. Chalmers, On Endowments. The recent history of the German universities sufficiently proves, that literary endowments do not necessarily lead to the abuses adverted to by Adam Smith. 3 Eth. Nic. X. 10; Pol. VIII. 1. Aristot. Pol. VII. 2. Compare c. 14. effect by the singularly rigid spirit of that little commonwealth, it was too extensive an interference with parental authority and natural affection for imitation, even by the most military republics of antiquity, such as the Romans; and, in modern times, no such entire substitution of the political for domestic control over children is likely to be seriously entertained. The chief patronage which the State, in modern times, gives to instruction, is by appointing and endowing teachers, of different sorts and degrees, from universities and colleges, down to elementary schools for the poor. This assistance is afforded on the assumption, that some public contribution is requisite for enabling the parents to instruct and train their children in their respective callings and walks of life; and that the State has an interest in the proper education, moral and intellectual, of its members. Aids afforded from the public purse, for the establishment and maintenance of astronomical observatories and botanical gardens ; for scientific voyages and travels; for the formation of museums of natural history and antiquities, of public libraries, and of collections of works of art; for the publication of expensive books; for the encouragement of literature; and for the support or remuneration of persons connected with these several institutions or purposes, fall under the same general head. Public expenditure of this sort is intended to afford to the cultivators of sound knowledge and learning facilities which they could not derive, in an equal degree, either from their own. means or from private patronage.2 § 13. In every case, however, in which the government interferes to assist and encourage science and learning, or to diffuse secular knowledge, it ought to avoid predetermining any set of opinions to be adopted by the teacher, or other object of its patronage. It ought to abstain from stereotyping any modes or formulas of thought; from imposing any test, or requiring an The cases in which the State maintains as well as teaches the scholar, and therefore stands to him in loco parentis, are those in which a child is destitute, through the death or desertion of his parents. The assumption of the parental authority by the State, in these cases, is not sought, but forced upon it. . 2 The establishment of the observatories of Paris and Greenwich, in 1667 and 1675, 'may be considered (says Dr. Whewell) to be a kind of public recognition of the astronomy of observation, as an object on which it was the advantage and the duty of Lations to bestow their wealth.'-Phil. of Ind. Sci. vol. II. p. 432. See also his account of public observatories, of patronage of astronomy by governments, and of astronomical expeditions made at the public expense, in his History of the Inductive Sciences, b. VII. c. 6, §§ 2, 4, and 5. adhesion to any party or section, scientific, literary, or historical. The persons who may be thus assisted by the State, ought merely to receive facilities for prosecuting an independent and unprejudiced search after truth, but ought not to be expected to work up to a prescribed conclusion. The influence of a government, as an authority in matters of opinion and practice, is greatly enhanced by its confining itself to its legitimate province, and not attempting to pronounce on questions which it is not competent to decide. A court of justice, which was highly esteemed for its judgments on questions of law, would render itself ridiculous, and shake its authority, even within its own sphere, if it attempted to determine questions of science or literature. If a government should suborn, as it were, its endowed teachers, by inducing them to take its own opinion, and not truth, as their standard, it would impair their influence with the public, and at the same time diminish its own authority upon questions, as to which its judgment would otherwise be respected and valued. § 14. For a government, although it cannot regulate opinion as it can fix the rates of the public taxes, the forms of judicial procedure, or the scale of legal punishments, can yet exercise a considerable influence upon its movements and direction. Without undertaking to pronounce definitively a precise judgment upon disputed questions of speculation, or to enforce that judgment by its legal and coercive powers, a government possesses a moral authority, by which it can stamp a character of public approbation upon certain acts and certain opinions. It is placed on a high and conspicuous eminence; its voice will be heard far and wide; many people will incline to imitate its tendencies; and its judgments, on subjects upon which it is competent to judge, will not fail to produce a powerful impression on the public. A government, considered as a source of authority, furnishes a model, or pattern, and does not act by compulsory and imperative laws. Its subjects fashion their actions, by a voluntary and selfimposed imitation, according to the type which it places before them--like the pupils copying a model in a school of design. They are not coerced into uniformity by the voice of command, like soldiers at drill. In absolute monarchies, the personal influence of the monarch, or of his court, in establishing a standard of manners and morals, as well as of taste, and in determining the aim and course of per sonal ambition in the numerous aspirers to honour and public employment, has often been most extensive. In constitutional monarchies, and other free governments, the ruling power is more divided, and its influence less concentrated; but, even here, its moral weight, in determining public opinion and conduct, is not inconsiderable. Bad examples set by rulers are almost invariably followed, to a greater or less extent, by their subjects. And, on the other hand, a good moral influence, in respect either of conduct or opinion, on the part of a government, can scarcely fail to produce a beneficial effect.1 Indirectly, in the way of example and patronage, by the remuneration of merit and the distribution of honours, a government, and persons in eminent stations, can do much to countenance sound opinions, to establish a correct standard of conduct, and to 1 πόλις γὰρ ἐστὶ πᾶσα τῶν ἡγουμένων, στρατός τε σύμπας· οἱ δ ̓ ἀκοσμοῦντες βροτῶν (SOPH. Phil. 386-8.) Cicero particularly dwells on the moral effect produced by the example of the chief persons in the State: Nec enim tantum mali est peccare principes (quamquam est magnum hoc per se ipsum malum) quantum illud, quod permulti imitatores principum existunt. Nam licet videre, si velis replicare memoriam temporum, qualescumque summi civitatis viri fuerint, talem civitatem fuisse: quæcunque mutatio morum in principibus extiterit, eandem in populo secutam. . . . Pauci, atque admodum pauci, honore et gloriâ amplificati, vel corrumpere mores civitatis, vel corrigere possunt.'De Leg. III. 14. Claudian applies the same sentiment to the imperial period :— Componitur orbis Regis ad exemplum; nec sic inflectere sensus Humanos edicta valent, ut vita regentis. Mobile mutatur semper cum principe vulgus. (De IV. Cons. Honor. 299-302.) Machiavel repeats these views, with examples derived from more recent times: 'Non si dolghino i principi d'alcun peccato che facciano i popoli ch'egli abbiano in governo, perchè tali peccati conviene che naschino o per sua negligenza, o per esser egli macchiato di simili errori. E chi discorrerà i popoli che ne' nostri tempi sono stati tenuti pieni di ruberie e di simili peccati, vedrà che sarà al tutto nato da quelli che li governavano, che erano di simile natura. La Romagna innanzi che in quella fussero spenti da Papa Alessandro VI. quelli signori che la comandavano, era un esempio d'ogni scelleratissima vita, perchè quivi si vedeva per ogni leggiera cagione seguire uccisioni e rapine grandissime. Il che nasceva dalla tristizia di que' Principi, non dalla natura trista de li uomini, come loro dicevano.'-Disc. III. 29, where the following verses of Lorenzo dei Medici are also quoted : E quel che fa il Signor fanno poi molti, |