260 on schoolmaster’s salaries. June 253. 
annuities-of twenty pounds each, to.be given as salaries to. 
men, for.opening schools in certain parts of the country, 
for teaching poor children. The salaries have been ever 
since afsigned to those who. were judged well qualified for - 
the task. Schools have also been opened by these seve- 
_ral teachers, that no legal abjection might he against their - 
drawing the salaries ; but few, indeed, are the scholars 
that have. been taught at, these schools. Similar effects. 
will ever be experienced in similar circumstances. 
Thus are we led, from a candid examination of particu- 
lars, to conclude, That no beneficial effects whatever 
could pofsibly.result to.the community, if the prayer of 
the petition fhould. be. complied with; but that, on the 
contrary, many hurtful consequences would result from it. | 
It could not tend to make education cheaper than at pre-_ 
sent, but the reverse ;. nor could it make. teachers more 
afsiduous and attentive, but rather weuld make them care-. 
lef and indolent. It would thus tend very much to dis- 
eourage the cause of literature, instead of promoting it, in 
Scotland. It would not even make the teachers them- 
selves more wealthy, or put them upon a more respectable 
footing, than they now are ; but would render them poor- 
er, and more abject in circumstances, than it is pofsible far 
ys at present to conceive. It would deprive a great body. 
of the people of a-considerable part of their property, for 
the sele purpose of encouraging idlenefs, without any pros- 
pect of benefiting the public in the smallest degree. —From 
which considerations, and others that might be added, I 
am led to conclude, that the present demand of the school- 
masters is improper in every: sense of the word; that the 
granting the prayer of their petition, would be highly im- 
politic, and would tend to introduce adisorder into the com-. 
munity, that would in time be attended with the most perni- 
cious consequences, which could uct without great difiicyl- 
