An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsSmith, Adam
General
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Smith, Adam
Economics
not appear extraordinary from so great a city to so famous a teacher,
who taught, too, what was at that time the most fashionable of all
sciences, rhetoric. He must have made, therefore, by each course of
lectures, a thousand minæ, or L.3333 : 6 : 8. A thousand minæ,
accordingly, is said by Plutarch, in another place, to have been his
didactron, or usual price of teaching. Many other eminent teachers in
those times appear to have acquired great fortunes. Georgias made a
present to the temple of Delphi of his own statue in solid gold. We must
not, I presume, suppose that it was as large as the life. His way of
living, as well as that of Hippias and Protagoras, two other eminent
teachers of those times, is represented by Plato as splendid, even to
ostentation. Plato himself is said to have lived with a good deal of
magnificence. Aristotle, after having 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 of the
sciences were probably in those times less common than they came to be
in an age or two afterwards, when the competition had probably somewhat
reduced both the price of their labour and the admiration for their
persons. The most eminent of them, however, appear always to have
enjoyed a degree of consideration much superior to any of the like
profession in the present times. The Athenians sent Carneades the
academic, and Diogenes the stoic, upon a solemn embassy to Rome; and
though their city had then declined from its former grandeur, it was
still an independent and considerable republic. Carneades, too, was a
Babylonian by birth; and as there never was a people more jealous of
admitting foreigners to public offices than the Athenians, their
consideration for him must have been very great.
This inequality is, upon the whole, perhaps rather advantageous than
hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degrade the profession of a
public teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an
advantage which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency. The
public, too, might derive still greater benefit from it, if the
constitution of those schools and colleges, in which education is
carried on, was more reasonable than it is at present through the
greater part of Europe.
Thirdly, the policy of Europe, by obstructing the free circulation of
labour and stock, both from employment to employment, and from place to
place, occasions, in some cases, a very inconvenient inequality in the
whole of the advantages and disadvantages of their different
employments.
The statute of apprenticeship obstructs the free circulation of labour
from one employment to another, even in the same place. The exclusive
privileges of corporations obstruct it from one place to another, even
in the same employment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account