s. per quarter. Between 40 and 50 local Sabbath schools were
opened, where more than 1000 children were taught the elements of
secular and religious education. The parish was divided into 25
districts embracing from 60 to 100 families, over each of which an elder
and a deacon were placed, the former taking oversight of their
spiritual, the latter of their physical needs. Chalmers was the
mainspring of the whole system, not merely superintending the
visitation, but personally visiting all the families, and holding
evening meetings, when he addressed those whom he had visited. This
parochial machinery enabled him to make a singularly successful
experiment in dealing with the problem of poverty. At this time there
were not more than 20 parishes north of the Forth and Clyde where there
was a compulsory assessment for the poor, but the English method of
assessment was rapidly spreading. Chalmers believed that compulsory
assessment ended by swelling the evil it was intended to mitigate, and
that relief should be raised and administered by voluntary means. His
critics replied that this was impossible in large cities. When he
undertook the management of the parish of St John's, the poor of the
parish cost the city L1400 per annum, and in four years, by the adoption
of his method, the pauper expenditure was reduced to L280 per annum. The
investigation of all new applications for relief was committed to the
deacon of the district, and every effort was made to enable the poor to
help themselves. When once the system was in operation it was found that
a deacon, by spending an hour a week among the families committed to his
charge, could keep himself acquainted with their character and
condition.

In 1823, after eight years of work at high pressure, he was glad to
accept the chair of moral philosophy at St Andrews, the seventh academic
offer made to him during his eight years in Glasgow. In his lectures he
excluded mental philosophy and included the whole sphere of moral
obligation, dealing with man's duty to God and to his fellow-men in the
light of Christian teaching. Many of his lectures are printed in the
first and second volumes of his published works. In ethics he made
contributions to the science in regard to the place and functions of
volition and attention, the separate and underived character of the
moral sentiments, and the distinction between the virtues of perfect and
imperfect obligation. His lectures kindled the relig