ved from the imparting of the elements of education is so
great to all that its cost may legitimately be laid upon the community
in its corporate capacity. It is on this ground of education being
beneficial to the whole society that Adam Smith declares that the
expense of the institutions for education may, without injustice, be
defrayed by the general contributions of the whole society. But at the
same time Adam Smith recognises that education provides an immediate and
personal benefit, and that the expense might with equal propriety be
laid upon the shoulders of those benefited.

In the second place, it may be maintained that the imposition of school
fees created such a hindrance in a large number of cases to the
fulfilment of the moral obligation that it was expedient on the part of
the State to remove this obstacle by freeing education as a whole. In
support of this, it might be further urged that the difficulty of
discriminating between the marginal cases in which the imposition of
school fees really proved a hindrance and those in which it did not is
great, and that the partial relief of payment of school fees laid the
stigma of pauperism upon many who from unpreventable causes were unable
to meet the direct cost of the education of their children.

But, except on the grounds that either the protective benefit to society
is so great and so important, or that the charging of any part of the
cost directly to the parent imposes a hindrance in a large number of
cases, there is no justification for the contention that because the
State compels the individual to educate his children, therefore the
State should fully provide the means.

If this be so, then the further contention that the means of education
from the elementary to the university stage should be provided at the
public expense, and that no part of the cost should be laid directly
upon the individual parent's shoulders, must also be judged to be
erroneous.

The first duty of the State, in the matter of the provision of higher
education, is limited to seeing that the provision of the means of
higher education is adequate to the demand made for it; further, it may
endeavour to encourage and to stimulate this demand in various ways. The
means being provided, the second duty of the State is to endeavour to
secure that any hindrance which might reasonably prevent the use of
these means by those fitted to benefit therefrom should be removed. But
the only justif