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THE NATURE ANJ) CAUSES OF

eminent teachers, in those times, is represented by Plato , assplendid even to ostentation. Plato himself is said to havelived with a good deal of magnificence. Aristotle , after hav-ing been tutor to Alexander, and most munificently rewarded,as it is universally agreed, both by him and his father Philip,thought it worth while, notwithstanding, to return to Athens ,in order to resume the teaching of his school. Teachers ofthe sciences were probably in those times less common thanthey came to be in an age or two afterward, when the com-petition had probably somewhat reduced both the price oftheir labour and the admiration for their persons. The mosteminent of them, however, appear always to have enjoyed adegree of consideration much superior to any of the like pro-fession in the present times. The Athenians sent Carneades the academic, and Diogenes the stoic, upon a solemn embassyto Rome , and though their city had then declined from itsformer grandeur, it was still an independent and considerablerepublic. Carneades too was a Babylonian by birth, and asthere never was a people more jealous of admitting foreignersto public offices than the Athenians , their consideration forhim must have been very great.

This inequality is upon the whole, perhaps, rather advan-tageous than hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degradethe profession of a public teacher; but the cheapness of lite-rary education is surely an advantage which greatly over-balances this trifling inconveniency. The public too mightderive still greater benefit from it, if the constitution of thoseschools and colleges, in which education is carried on, wasmore reasonable than it is at present through the greater partof Europe .

Thirdly, the policy of Europe , by obstructing the free cir-culation of labour and stock both from employment to em-ployment, and from place to place, occasions in some cases avery inconvenient inequality in the whole of the advantagesand disadvantages of their different employments.

The statute of apprenticeship obstructs the free circulationof labour from one employment to another, even in the sameplace. The exclusive privileges of corporations obstruct itfrom one place to another, even in the same employment.

It frequently happens that while high wages are given tothe workmen in one manufacture, those in another are obligedto content themselves with bare subsistence. The one is inan advancing state, and has, therefore, a continual demand