t. About the extent of those functions there
has been much difference of opinion among ingenious men. There are some
who hold that it is the business of a government to meddle with every
part of the system of human life, to regulate trade by bounties and
prohibitions, to regulate expenditure by sumptuary laws, to regulate
literature by a censorship, to regulate religion by an inquisition.
Others go to the opposite extreme, and assign to government a very
narrow sphere of action. But the very narrowest sphere that ever was
assigned to governments by any school of political philosophy is quite
wide enough for my purpose. On one point all the disputants are agreed.
They unanimously acknowledge that it is the duty of every government
to take order for giving security to the persons and property of the
members of the community.

This being admitted, can it be denied that the education of the common
people is a most effectual means of securing our persons and our
property? Let Adam Smith answer that question for me. His authority,
always high, is, on this subject, entitled to peculiar respect, because
he extremely disliked busy, prying, interfering governments. He was for
leaving literature, arts, sciences, to take care of themselves. He was
not friendly to ecclesiastical establishments. He was of opinion, that
the State ought not to meddle with the education of the rich. But he has
expressly told us that a distinction is to be made, particularly in a
commercial and highly civilised society, between the education of the
rich and the education of the poor. The education of the poor, he
says, is a matter which deeply concerns the commonwealth. Just as the
magistrate ought to interfere for the purpose of preventing the leprosy
from spreading among the people, he ought to interfere for the purpose
of stopping the progress of the moral distempers which are inseparable
from ignorance. Nor can this duty be neglected without danger to the
public peace. If you leave the multitude uninstructed, there is serious
risk that religious animosities may produce the most dreadful disorders.
The most dreadful disorders! Those are Adam Smith's own words; and
prophetic words they were. Scarcely had he given this warning to
our rulers when his prediction was fulfilled in a manner never to be
forgotten. I speak of the No Popery riots of 1780. I do not know that I
could find in all history a stronger proof of the proposition, that the
ignorance of t