Excerpt from Select Works of Thomas Chalmers, D.D. LL. D, Vol. 11

It is further Obvious that, in this View, bursaries have the same character and effect with other endowments. They draw a greater number Of students to the higher seminaries of education than would otherwise attend them. They go to augment the income of the teacher beyond what he would enjoy, were scholar ship, like an article of ordinary merchandise, left to the pure Operation Of demand and supply, unfostered by bounties, and nu forced by compulsory enactments. Our main inquiry is, in how far education should be so left, or whether it has not been both sublimed in its character, and increased in amount, by those artificial encouragements which our forefathers have annexed to it.

Certain it is, that somewhat Of an adverse feeling to these encouragements has been generated by the reigning taste and philosophy of our times. We are now quite familiarized to the discovery, that in commerce there has been a cumbrous excess of legislation, and from which, when delivered, it regains the healthful play of nature and liberty. And the same principle which has been verified both by experience and reasoning, in the business of ordinary trade, has also been applied to the business of education. The bounties, in particular, which have been demonstrated to be so hurtful to the one, are vaguely imagined to be alike hurtful to the other; and so it is conceived that scholarship will best thrive when placed in the circumstances in which it is now found that merchandise best thrives - that is, when let alone, or when, relieved both from the fetters and from the encouragements which have been laid upon it by the state, it is entirely upholden by the demand of society, and by the price which society is willing to give for its lessons.

Dr. Smith was the first who proclaimed these principles, and not without effect, we apprehend, on the legislators both Of this and of other countries. During the anarchy Of the French Re volution, the schools and establishments for medical education were suspended, and their places supplied by a few irregular lectures given by individuals. The inconvenience Of this was repaired by the Convention, impelled to the re endowment of colleges and classes, by the pressing wants of the army for a competent supply of properly educated surgeons. But while government kept up the higher schools, they neglected the schools of general education; and the system Of allowing them to increase or diminish according to the abilities or inclination of individuals, was defended on the authority of Smith.

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