still tainted with the vices of their origin. Their primitive
discipline was adapted to the education of priests and monks; and
the government still remains in the hands of the clergy, an order of
men whose manners are remote from the present world, and whose eyes
are dazzled by the light of philosophy. The legal incorporation of
these societies by the charters of popes and kings had given them a
monopoly of the public instruction; and the spirit of monopolists is
narrow, lazy, and oppressive; their work is more costly and less
productive than that of independent 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