Key Arguments

• Endowments render public teachers' income largely independent of their industry, so their diligence is 'corrupted' and they can continue to teach obsolete or pedantic content without losing their livelihood.
• In a system without public educational institutions, 'no system, no science, would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable to learn,' so useless sciences would naturally cease to be taught.
• A private teacher 'could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense,' because students would not pay for such instruction.
• Obsolete systems and useless sciences 'can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their industry,' since only such insulated corporations can afford to maintain them.
• By attracting students through legal privileges and endowments, these public institutions crowd out potential private competitors who might otherwise offer more relevant and demanding instruction.

Source Quotes

only corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private ones. Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science, would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable to learn.

only corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private ones. Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science, would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense.

Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science, would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their industry.

A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their industry. Were there no public institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through, with application and abilities, the most complete course of education which the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of conversation among gentlemen and men of the world.

Key Concepts

• only corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private ones.
• Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science, would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable to learn.
• A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense.
• Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their industry.

Context

Book V, Chapter I, Part III ('Of the Expense of public Works and public Institutions'); Smith is extending his critique of endowed universities by arguing that their financial insulation both corrupts public teachers and shields obsolete or useless branches of learning from competitive pressures that would otherwise eliminate them.