Their subsistence, so far as it arises from their salaries, is evidently derived from a fund altogether independent of their success and reputation in their particular professions.
The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished more or less the necessity of application in the teachers. In England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great objects of ambition and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have ever in this country been eminent in that profession! Great objects, on the contrary, alone and unsupported by the necessity of application, have seldom been sufficient to occasion any considerable exertion. Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in mean professions, an object of ambition, and frequently occasion the very greatest exertions. Great objects, however, are evidently not necessary in order to occasion the greatest exertions. The greatness of the objects which are to be acquired by success in some particular professions may, no doubt, sometimes animate the exertion of a few men of extraordinary spirit and ambition. In order to acquire this fortune, or even to get this subsistence, they must, 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. This necessity is greatest with those to whom the emoluments of their profession are the only source from which they expect their fortune, or even their ordinary revenue and subsistence. In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise it is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of making that exertion. Have those public endowments contributed in general to promote the end of their institution? Have they contributed to encourage the diligence and to improve the abilities of the teachers? Have they directed the course of education towards objects more useful, both to the individual and to the public, than those to which it would naturally have gone of its own accord? It should not seem very difficult to give at least a probable answer to each of those questions. It everywhere arises chiefly from some local or provincial revenue, from the rent of some landed estate, or from the interest of some sum of money allotted and put under the management of trustees for this particular purpose, sometimes by the sovereign himself, and sometimes by some private donor. 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 small one.
The fee or honorary which the scholar pays to the master naturally constitutes a revenue of this kind.Įven where the reward of the master does not arise altogether from this natural revenue, it still is not necessary that it should be derived from that general revenue of the society, of which the collection and application is, in most countries, assigned to the executive power. The institutions for the education of the youth may, in the same manner, furnish a revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense. Part III: On the Expense of Public Works and Public InstitutionsĪrticle II: On the Expense of the Institutions for the Education of Youth Wealth of Nations - Bk 5 Chpt 01 (Part III)īook V: On the Revenue of the Sovereign or CommonwealthĬhapter I: On the Expenses of the Sovereign or Commonwealth
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