ependent artists; and the new
improvements so eagerly grasped by the competition of freedom, are
admitted with slow and sullen reluctance in those proud corporations,
above the fear of a rival, and below the confession of an error. We
may scarcely hope that any reformation will be a voluntary act; and so
deeply are they rooted in law and prejudice, that even the omnipotence
of parliament would shrink from an inquiry into the state and abuses of
the two universities.

The use of academical degrees, as old as the thirteenth century, is
visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations; in which an apprentice,
after serving his time, obtains a testimonial of his skill, and a
licence to practise his trade and mystery. It is not my design to
depreciate those honours, which could never gratify or disappoint
my ambition; and I should applaud the institution, if the degrees
of bachelor or licentiate were bestowed as the reward of manly and
successful study: if the name and rank of doctor or master were strictly
reserved for the professors of science, who have approved their title to
the public esteem.

In all the universities of Europe, excepting our own, the languages and
sciences are distributed among a numerous list of effective professors:
the students, according to their taste, their calling, and their
diligence, apply themselves to the proper masters; and in the annual
repetition of public and private lectures, these masters are assiduously
employed. Our curiosity may inquire what number of professors has
been instituted at Oxford? (for I shall now confine myself to my own
university;) by whom are they appointed, and what may be the probable
chances of merit or incapacity; how many are stationed to the three
faculties, and how many are left for the liberal arts? what is the form,
and what the substance, of their lessons? But all these questions are
silenced by one short and singular answer, "That in the University of
Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have for these many
years given up altogether even the pretence of teaching." Incredible as
the fact may appear, I must rest my belief on the positive and impartial
evidence of a master of moral and political wisdom, who had himself
resided at Oxford. Dr. Adam Smith assigns as the cause of their
indolence, that, instead of being paid by voluntary contributions, which
would urge them to increase the number, and to deserve the gratitude
of their pupils, the Oxfo