students they should be obliged to depend,
not upon their privileges but upon their merit, upon their
abilities to teach and their diligence in teaching; and that
they should not have it in their power to use any of those
quackish arts which have disgraced and degraded the half of
them.

A degree which can be conferred only upon students of a
certain standing is a statute of apprenticeship which is
likely to contribute to the advancement of science, just as
other statutes of apprenticeship have contributed to that of
arts and manufactures. Those statutes of apprenticeship,
assisted by other corporation laws, have banished arts and
manufactures from the greater part of towns corporate. Such
degrees, assisted by some other regulations of a similar
tendency, have banished almost all useful and solid
education from the greater part of universities. Bad work
and high price have been the effect of the monopoly
introduced by the former; quackery, imposture, and
exorbitant fees have been the consequences of that
established by the latter. The industry of manufacturing
villages has remedied in part the inconveniences which the
monopolies established by towns corporate had occasioned.
The private interest of some poor Professors of Physic in
some poor universities inconveniently situated for the
resort of students has in part remedied the inconveniences
which would certainly have resulted from that sort of
monopoly which the great and rich universities had attempted
to establish. The great and rich universities seldom
graduated anybody but their own students, and not even these
till after a long and tedious standing; five and seven years
for a Master of Arts; eleven and sixteen for a Doctor of
Law, Physic, or Divinity. The poor universities on account
of the inconvenience of their situation, not being able to
get many students, endeavoured to turn a penny in the only
way in which they could turn it, and sold their degrees to
whoever would buy them, generally without requiring any
residence or standing, and frequently without subjecting the
candidate even to a decent examination. The less trouble
they gave, the more money they got, and I certainly do not
pretend to vindicate so dirty a practice. All universities
being ecclesiastic