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The simple truth is, that the burthen of the pecuniary sup- 

 plies indispensable to the promotion of learning, has fallen, in 



an oppressive degree, on that very class of persons, few in 

 number and little able to bear it, who have been also entirely 

 relied on to sustain the necessary labors of study and investi- 

 gation. Beyond this narrow circle, this great interest has de- 

 pended very much on individual charity, while governments, 

 with some notable exceptions, have either neglected it, or con- 

 tributed with a reluctant and sparing hand to its support. It 

 is painful to be obliged to add, that in no enlightened country 

 has so httle been done for the cause under public authority, as 

 in our own. It is time, however, that the truth on this sub- 

 ject should be boldly spoken ; and, for one, I am fully resolved 

 that no false pride of country shall prevent me from giving it 

 distinct and emphatic utterance. 



Of the necessity of endowment from some quarter, to sus- 

 tain and encourage learning, not only in its higher walks, but 

 in nearly all its departments, it seems to me that no one who 

 Avill cast an eye over the tract of its history can entertain a 

 doubt. It never would have been doubted, even perhaps by 

 Adam Smith, but for the abuses which have sometimes grown 

 out of particular systems. The evils which belonged to cer- 

 tain modes of encouragement, have been imputed to encou- 

 ragement itself One thing is at least indisputable. Learning 

 has in fact been sustained throughout the world by endow- 

 ment; and I hold it idle to pretend that the educational and 

 scientific institutions of any country ever have been, or could 

 be supported permanently without it. It must be borne in 

 mind, that just in the degree in which learning every where 

 fails to sustain itself, it is sustained by endowment; and it is 

 better that we should accustom ourselves to the use of the term 

 in this sense. In every conceivable shape in which aid comes 

 to an educational or hterary establishment, beyond what it re- 

 ceives in direct return for services rendered, it is actual, benefi- 

 cial endowment. If an institution be possessed of an ancient 

 territorial estate, as the corporations of Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge ; if its members receive a stated salary from the govern- 

 ment, as those of the French Institute; if bequests or dona- 



