and inclination to examine the occupations
of other people. The contemplation of so
great a variety of objects necessarily exercises
their minds in endless comparisons end combinations,
and renders their understandings,
in an extraordinary degree, both acute and
comprehensive. Unless those few, however,
happen to be placed in some very particular
situations, their great abilities, though honourable
to themselves, may contribute very
little to the good government or happiness of
their society. Notwithstanding the great abilities
of those few, all the nobler parts of the
human character may be, in a great measure,
obliterated end extinguished in the great
body of the people.
The education of the common people requires,
perhaps, in a civilized and commercial
society, the attention of the public, more than
that of people of some rank and fortune.
People of some rank and fortune are generally
eighteen or nineteen years of age, before
they enter upon that particular business, profession,
or trade, by which they propose to
distinguish themselves in the world. They
have, before that, full time to acquire, or at
least to fit themselves for afterwards acquiring,
every accomplishment which can recommend
them to the public esteem, or render
them worthy of it. Their parents or guardians
are generally sufficiently anxious that
they should be so accomplished, and are, in
most cases, willing enough to lay out the expense
which is necessary for that purpose. If
they are not always properly educated, it is
seldom from the want of expense laid out upon
their education, but from the improper application
of that expense. It is seldom from
the want of masters, but from the negligence
and incapacity of the masters who are to be
had, and from the difficulty, or rather from
the impossibility, which there is, in the present
state of things, of finding any better.
The employments, too, in which people of
some rank or fortune spend the greater part
of their lives, are not, like those of the common
people, simple and uniform. They are
almost all of them extremely complicated,
and such as exercise the head more than the
hands. The understandings of those who are
engaged in such employments, can seldom
grow torpid for want of exercise. The
employments of people of some rank and fortune,
besides, are seldom such as harass them
from morning to night. They generally have
a good deal of leisure, during which they
may perfect themselves in every branch, either
of useful or ornamental knowledge, of which
they may have laid the foundation, or for
which they may have acquired some taste in
the earlier part of life.
It is otherwise with the common people.
They have little time to spare for education.
Their parents can scarce afford to maintain
them, even in infancy. As soon as they are
able to work, they must apply to some trade,
by which they can earn their subsistence.
That trade, too, is generally so simple and
uniform, as to give little exercise to the understanding;
while, at the same time, their
labour is both so constant and so severe, that
it leaves them little leisure and less inclination
to apply to, or even to think of any thing
else.
But though the common people cannot, in
any civilized society, be so well instructed as
people of some rank and fortune; the most
essential parts of education, however, to read,
write, and account, can be acquired at so
early a period of life, that the greater part,
even of those who are to be bred to the lowest
occupations, have time to acquire them before
they can be employed in those occupations.
For a very small expense, the public can facilitate,
can encourage, and can even impose
upon almost the whole body of the people, the
necessity of acquiring those most essential
parts of education.
The public can facilitate this acquisition,
by establishing in every parish or district a
little school, where children may be taught
for a reward so moderate, that even a common
labourer may afford it; the master being partly,
but not wholly, paid by the public; because, if
he was wholly, or even principally, paid by it,
he would soon learn to neglect his business.
In Scotland, the establishment of such parish
schools has taught almost the whole common
people to read, and a very great proportion of
them to write and account. In England, the
establishment of charity schools has had an
effect of the same kind, though not so universally,
because the establishment is not so
universal. If, in those little schools, the
books by which the children are taught to
read, were a little more instructive than they
commonly are; and if, instead of a little
smattering in Latin, which the children of the
common people are sometimes taught there,
and which can scarce ever be of any use to
them, they were instructed in the elementary
parts of geometry and mechanics; the literary
education of this rank of people would, perhaps,
be as complete as can be. There is
scarce a common trade, which does not afford
some opportunities of applying to it the principles
of geometry and mechanics, and which
would not, therefore, gradually exercise and
improve the common people in those principles,
the necessary introduction to the most
sublime, as well as to the most useful sciences.
The public can encourage the acquisition
of those most essential parts of education, by
giving small premiums, and little badges of
distinction, to the children of the common
people who excel in them.
The public can impose upon almost the
whole body of the people the necessity of acquiring
the most essential parts of education,
by obliging every man to undergo an examination