Southey's
_Life_, i. 138.
[39] Horace, Satires, i. 6. 65-88.
[40] Dr. Adam Smith, who was for some time a Professor in the
University of Glasgow, has uttered, in his _Wealth of Nations_ [v. I,
iii. 2], some reflections upon this subject which are certainly not well
founded, and seem to be invidious. BOSWELL.
[41] See _ante,_ ii. 98.
[42] Gibbon denied this. 'The diligence of the tutors is voluntary, and
will consequently be languid, while the pupils themselves, or their
parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change,' _Misc.
Works_, i. 54. Of one of his tutors he wrote:--'He well remembered that
he had a salary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to
perform.' _Ib_. p. 58. Boswell, _post_, end of Nov. 1784, blames Dr.
Knox for 'ungraciously attacking his venerable _Alma Mater_.' Knox, who
was a Fellow of St. John's, left Oxford in 1778. In his _Liberal
Education_, published in 1781, he wrote:--'I saw immorality, habitual
drunkenness, idleness and ignorance, boastingly obtruding themselves on
public view.' Knox's _Works_, iv. 138. 'The general tendency of the
universities is favourable to the diffusion of ignorance, idleness,
vice, and infidelity among young men.
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