One of the themes sharpened by Smith and Ferguson's debate over the division of labour that we have not considered in much detail so far is the role to be played by education in addressing the problems attendant on commercial progress. If highly specialized labour contracts the worker's understanding, as both philosophers agree, then some sort of recuperative or preventative education would seem to be required in order to maintain the political and martial health of the nation. In turning to this theme now, however, rather than remaining within the limits of political economy's interest in education, which as we saw was concerned with attaining and demonstrating the equivalence of a community's mental capacities to various classical models, it will be beneficial to take a somewhat wider view of the types of education germane to late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century thought. That a need was both felt and acted upon in these decades, and in all sectors of society, for a systematized and comprehensive method of education, is apparent from even a cursory glance at printed titles containing the term. Systems of education emerged specifically for daughters, for sons, for children of either sex, for young ladies, for young gentlemen, for the poor, for ‘exposed and deserted young children’, for deaf and dumb children, for religious instruction, for a life of industry, and for many other specific groups and reasons.