WEALTH OF NATIONS. 249 



cases where there is great public benefit to be derived 

 from the trade they undertake, and where private 

 adventure would be insufficient to conduct it. There 

 seem to be only four kinds of business which justify 

 their formation banking, insurances, canals, water- 

 works. Had Dr. Smith lived to our day, he would 

 have included railways. The numbers of such com- 

 panies for purposes of foreign trade which have failed, 

 when not supported by the grant of exclusive privi- 

 leges, is so great, that, a century ago, the Abbe 

 Morellet enumerated no less than fifty-five such in- 

 stances in one hundred and fifty years. 



(2.) Institutions for the education of children or 

 youth do not necessarily fall on the State to maintain 

 them; they may defray their own expenses. The 

 general rule of such establishments is, that they are 

 founded or endowed by private munificence, sometimes 

 by the bounty of former sovereigns. Dr. Smith con- 

 tends that their instruction is always worse than that of 

 schools and colleges which subsist by the exertions of 

 teachers paid by school fees. He also objects to such 

 endowments, as drawing to literary pursuits a greater 

 number of persons than would naturally devote them- 

 selves to a literary life, or than its gains can support. 

 He seems to admit, however, that there is an advantage 

 even in the small amount of education bestowed in 

 endowed schools and colleges, so very much underrated 

 by him ; for he suggests that without them there might 

 have been nothing taught at all. He has even carried 

 his view further, and allowed that the public should 

 establish parish schools ; apparently on the ground that 

 the very ignorance which such establishments are calcu- 

 lated to remove, if left to operate, would prevent the 

 bulk of mankind from making any exertion to obtain 

 schools and teachers, by preventing men from being 

 aware of their own deficiencies. 



(3.) The institutions for adult education are chiefly 

 those for teaching religion. Dr. Smith does not give a 



