THE ECONOMICS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 373 



wholly condemning the system of paying partly by a share 

 in the fees, which obtains in many Colleges, it is sufficient to 

 say that it is open to the objection that in framing the curricula 

 both the Professors and the Governing Body are apt to be 

 influenced by considerations as to the effect of their regulations 

 on the finances of the teachers, and not solely by educational 

 advantages. 



And this leads me to the general criticism that Adam Smith's 

 arguments appear to be based almost entirely on the view that 

 a University is a place where instruction is bought and sold, 

 not a place where professor and student are linked together as 

 leader and follower in a common search after knowledge. 



For the mere purpose of securing the minimum amount of 

 knowledge necessary for a particular purpose, such as entering 

 a profession or passing an examination, it is, I think, possible to 

 maintain that direct financial reward for imparting the precise 

 information most likely to attain the object produces efficient 

 teaching. It is a system of piece work which has some of the 

 merits of the now discredited system of payment by results ; 

 but it has the inherent vice that it aims at imparting the minimum 

 of necessary information. To teach anything not immediately 

 required for the object in view is a breach of the implied contract 

 to concentrate attentirn and effort only on what is likely to 

 "pay." It is avowedly a system of instruction, and of instruc- 

 tion devoted only to an end which the student is to secure, or 

 to fail to secure, in the immediate future. 



A system of education is, however, based on more far- 

 sighted views. In the course of his studies the pupil will 

 receive a great deal of instruction which may, and indeed should, 

 be calculated to be of direct use to him hereafter. But the 

 object to be attained is not immediate utility, but that training 

 of his intellectual powers which will not only give him know- 

 ledge, but also enable him to wield it as a weapon. The candi- 

 date for success has first to break down the barrier which bars 

 entrance to his profession. But, once inside the gate, he has 

 the harder task of fighting his way to the front among a crowd 

 of competitors, and in that struggle not merely strength but 

 dexterity is needed. It is one of the aims of education, as 

 distinguished from instruction, to impart this intellectual 

 dexterity, and experience shows that it is best attained, not 

 by training the student to be skilful in deciding on the minimum 



