In 1832 I wrote several papers for the first series of Tait’s Magazine, and one for a quarterly periodical called the Jurist, which had been founded, and for a short time carried on, by a set of friends, all lawyers and law reformers, with several of whom I was acquainted. The paper in question is the one on the rights and duties of the State respecting Corporation and Church Property, now standing first among the collected “Dissertations and Discussions;” where one of my articles in Tait, “The Currency Juggle,” also appears. In the whole mass of what I wrote previous to these, there is nothing of sufficient permanent value to justify reprinting. The paper in the Jurist, which I still think a very complete discussion of the rights of the State over Foundations, showed both sides of my opinions, asserting as firmly as I should have done at any time, the doctrine that all endowments are national property, which the government may and ought to control; but not, as I should once have done, condemning endowments in themselves, and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On the contrary, I urged strenuously the importance of having a provision for education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to establish and keep up a higher standard of instruction than is likely to be spontaneously demanded by the buyers of the article. All these opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by the whole course of my subsequent reflections.
Note from KBJ: Mill turned 26 on 20 May 1832. What were you doing when you were 26? I was a licensed attorney and about to start graduate school in philosophy at the University of Arizona. I had published two scholarly essays, one in law and one in history. Mill was already a veteran writer and one of the foremost public intellectuals of his day. Note that Mill was an advocate of public education, which he thought superior to private education. I wish he could see American public schools, especially in urban areas. Unless there is market discipline, you get an inferior product. I wonder what Mill would say if he were alive today.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 