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. Great
objects, however, are evidently not necessary,
in order to occasion the greatest exertions.
Rivalship and emulation render excellency,
even in mean professions, an object of ambition,
and frequently occasion the very greatest
exertions. Great objects, on the contrary,
alone and unsupported by the necessity
of application, have seldom been sufficient to
occasion any considerable exertion. 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?
The endowments of schools and colleges
have necessarily diminished, more or less, the
necessity of application in the teachers. 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.
In some universities, the salary makes but
a part, and frequently but a small part, of
the emoluments of the teacher, of which the
greater part arises from the honoraries or fees
of his pupils. The necessity of application,
though always more or less diminished, is
not, in this case, entirely taken away. Reputation
in his profession is still of some importance
to him, and he still has some dependency
upon the affection, gratitude, and
favourable report of those who have attended
upon his instructions; and these favourable
sentiments he is likely to gain in no way so
well as by deserving them, that is, by the
abilities and diligence with which he discharges
every part of his duty.
In other universities, the teacher is prohibited
from receiving any honorary or fee
from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the
whole of the revenue which he derives from
his office. His interest is, in this case, set
as directly in opposition to his duty as it is
possible to set it. It is the interest of every
man to live as much at his ease as he can;
and if his emoluments are to be precisely the
same, whether he does or does not perform
some very laborious duty, it is certainly his
interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood,
either to neglect it altogether, or,
if he is subject to some authority which will
not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as
careless and slovenly a manner as that authority
will permit. If he is naturally active
and a lover of labour, it is his interest to employ
that activity in any way from which he
can derive some advantage, rather than in the
performance of his duty, from which he can
derive none.
If the authority to which he is subject resides
in the body corporate, the college, or
university, of which he himself is a member,
and in which the greater part of the other
members are, like himself, persons who either
are, or ought to be teachers, they are likely
to make a common cause, to be all very indulgent
to one another, and every man to
consent that his neighbour may neglect his
duty, provided he himself is allowed to neglect
his own. In the university of Oxford,
the greater part of the public professors have,
for these many years, given up altogether
even the pretence of teaching.
If the authority to which he is subject resides,
not so much in the body corporate, of
which he is a member, as in some other extraneous
persons, in the bishop of the diocese,
for example, in the governor of the province,
or, perhaps, in some minister of state,
it is not, indeed, in this case, very likely that
he will be suffered to neglect his duty altogether.
All that such superiors, however,
can force him to do, is to attend upon his
pupils a certain number of hours, that is, to
give a certain number of lectures in the week,
or in the year. What those lectures shall
be, must still depend upon the diligence of
the teacher; and that diligence is likely to be
proportioned to the motives which he has for
exerting it. An extraneous jurisdiction of
this kind, besides, is liable to be exercised
both ignorantly and capriciously. In its nature,
it is arbitrary and discretionary; and
the persons who exercise it, neither attending
upon the lectures of the teacher themselves,
nor perhaps understanding the sciences which
it is his business to teach, are seldom capable
of exercising it with judgment. From the
insolence of office, too, they are frequently
indifferent how they exercise it, and are very
apt to censure or deprive him of his office
wantonly and without any just cause. The
person subject to such jurisdiction is necessarily
degraded by it, and, instead of being
one of the most respectable, is rendered one
of the meanest and most contemptible persons
in the society. It is by powerful protection
only, that he can effectually guard
himself against the bad usage to which he is
at all times exposed; and this protection he
is most likely to gain, not by ability or diligence
in his profession, but by obsequiousness
to the will of his superiors, and by being
ready, at all times, to sacrifice to that will
the rights, the interest, and the honour of
the body corporate, of which he is a member.
Whoever has attended for any considerable
time to the administration of a French university,
must have had occasion to remark the
effects which naturally result from an arbitrary
and extraneous jurisdiction of this kind.
Whatever forces a certain number of students
to any college or university, independent
of the merit or reputation of the teachers,
tends more or less to diminish the necessity
of that merit or reputation.