EDUCATIONAL.
Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the
Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council
boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical
School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science
and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue
of Latin in former times--Teachers and
examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects.
SOME INSULAR DOMINIES.
It is by no means an easy matter for a teacher to get south again once
he is installed in a remote Highland school. He accepts a distant rural
or insular post, marries the girl of his heart, gets settled in the
schoolhouse of the glen or township, and rarely moves thence all the
succeeding years of his life. He becomes identified with local affairs;
plays whist maybe with the doctor, the factor, and the banker; and is
apt to magnify the cackle of his bourg into the great Voice that echoes
round the world. The monotony of his life is varied by such happenings
as a birth or a death in his own household, a visit from the emissary of
My Lords, an epidemic of measles, a general election, and the like. I
don't say these men are unhappy, but unless they develop a hobby,
torpidity is bound to settle like a mist upon their brains. Such studies
as geology, botany, and gardening, are sovereign for driving off the
vapours of ennui. Nor are golf, angling, and the composition of verse,
specifics that the rural dominie can afford to despise.
I have in my mind at this moment the portraits of many notable gentlemen
(for true gentlemen they are, though their purses are thin) who have
given up their lives to educating the progeny of the inclement North.
Lamont, for example, whom I remember as a first-class mathematician, is
living in the marshy navel of an Outer Isle, amid wild-fowl and spirals
of peat-reek. If you want to visit him you have (1) to cross the billowy
western deep; (2) drive fifteen miles in a trap; (3) traverse a
four-mile arm of the sea in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven
miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump
three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to
a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff
quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he
will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for
he gets little enough at present.
Ramsay, too, is a dweller among these treeless bogs, and is engaged,
during his leisure, on a translation of Anacreon which will never be
finished, or, if finished, will never be published. I called on him and
immolated myself on the altar of his Anacreon in order to give him a
little pleasure. He, later on, enlarged on his school, scholars, and
daily life. The horizon of the boys and girls is extremely limited: most
of them have never seen either a pig or a policeman. Cabbages have only
been recently introduced into the district, but are already thriving
wonderfully well considering the thin soil. There are of course no
trees: for what trees could stand against the buffeting of the fierce
wintry gales of the Atlantic? Ramsay's only chum is a missionary, who is
of an antiquarian turn, and goes fumbling about for arrow-heads and
prehistoric bracelets, especially after a storm, when the hill-sides are
laid bare.
Neither Lamont nor Ramsay know a word of Gaelic, and there they are in
districts where English is a foreign language. Needless to say, the lack
of Gaelic is a terrible drawback to these two men. They should never
have been where they are, for they are aliens. The scholars, unbreeched
little rogues, have an advantage over their teacher, and in the
playground talk the tongue of the Celt invariably, and may be maligning
him for all he knows. I am afraid, too, that teacher and minister do not
always consider themselves as auxiliaries in these outer isles. The
younger generation of teachers have, as might be expected, a more
extensive knowledge of books than the old school of Presbyterian
ministers. The latter, feeling their literary inferiority, are inclined
to regard the teacher as an intruder whose work in the school-room will
cause the rising generation to look slightingly on the "essentials." I
have in my possession numerous letters from Highland teachers dealing
with this fear on the part of the clergy, that novels and secular
literature generally will pervert the minds of the people. The addition
of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's books to a library was recently likened to the
arrival of the Serpent in Eden.
EDUCATION ACT OF 1872.
In one of the best-known chapters of _Rob Roy_, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the
utilitarian Glasgow merchant, says to his cattle-reiving kinsman: "Your
boys, Rob, dinna ken the very multiplication table, which is the root o'
a useful knowledge, and it's my belief they can neither read, write, nor
cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o' ane's ain connections in a
Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put
alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of _Marmion_:
"Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and
Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations
adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the
literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could
neither read nor write.
In the year 1872, education was made the concern of the nation. It was
rightly considered to be a standing menace to the security of the realm
that ignorance, which is the parent of disorder and lawlessness, should
be the doom of a large proportion of the nation. Rather than hazard the
dangers of an illiterate population, education was undertaken by the
State, and paid for out of the national purse. The analogy between
disease and ignorance is, in truth, sufficiently close to justify both
sanitation and education coming into the wide domain of imperial duties.
Looking back on the changes that resulted in the Lowlands from the
Education Act of 1872, we see grounds for criticism. The measure, like
all earthly things, was imperfect. There was something hard and
inelastic about the system fostered by the old Code. The psychology of
Child Nature was almost totally ignored. A system of examination was
established that assumed an equal and mechanical progress on the part of
every child every year. Yet, in spite of grave defects, the Act of 1872
brought inestimable blessings with it. For one thing, the health
conditions of education were vastly improved. Many of the old schools
were absolute hovels. After 1872, large, airy, and spacious buildings,
were erected in every district of the land. It was no longer a case of
one old dominie facing singly a whole regiment of unruly youngsters:
every school was organised and disciplined into regular and seemly
order. We had the advantage in Scotland of a complete system of School
Boards, and that awakened an intense and universal interest in
educational affairs. The old parochial schools of Scotland had many
admirable features, but in 1872 they were quite unfit to cope with the
nation's needs. On the whole, the School Board system was a decided boon
to the land.
EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS.
It is only since the Act of 1872 that any education of a serious or
systematic kind has been attempted in the Celtic parts of Scotland.
Nevertheless, a word of praise is due to the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge and other civilising agencies of the Churches
(Established and Free), for their work during the educational night that
preceded the Act. These agencies were, of course, utterly inadequate to
meet the needs of the Highlands, as may be easily seen from the fact
that in 1862, over 47 per cent. of the men who married, could not sign
their own names. But, indeed, what resources, save those of the Imperial
Treasury, could ever be adequate to meet the expense of educating the
children spread over such wide and sparsely-peopled tracts? Sheriff
Nicolson, one of the most fervid Gaels that ever lived, made a report to
Government in 1865, characterising the education given in the Highland
schools as lamentably insufficient.
The effects of the Act of 1872 were slow but sure, and in the course of
fifteen years a change, analogous to that effected by General Wade in
the state of the roads, was brought about in the realm of education. Yet
the expenses involved in the working of the measure were of an unduly
burdensome kind, in spite of the generous bounty of the Education
Department. In some of the large parishes of the Long Island, the heavy
school rate was such a cause of complaint that My Lords were forced to
take very drastic measures to relieve the financial strain. In summing
up the results of the Education Act, Professor Magnus Maclean says:
"Among the good things that education has brought the Highlanders, are a
knowledge of English, wider social and political interests, a brighter
intelligence and brighter outlook, freedom from mental vacuity and
traditional superstitions."
FEEDING THE HUNGRY.
Probably, as I have hinted, one of the chief benefits of the Education
Act, was that teaching had to be carried on in conditions of space and
air. Given such conditions and an enthusiastic master, some good
progress will certainly be made.
Connected with the physical side of education we have had, of late,
signs of a new departure. There is a talk of _feeding the hungry_.
Every parent worthy of the name is proud to provide food and clothing
for his children. That's what he's there for. But it does not require
much keenness of vision to see that there are many parents unworthy of
the name, and that, by the dark and inscrutable degrees of Heaven, such
worthless individuals are often allowed to be parents of a numerous
progeny. We must (i) inject into these wastrels the feeling of
responsibility and (ii) prevent the children from dying of starvation.
The first problem requires lengthy treatment and is perhaps hopeless of
accomplishment; the second can be done at once by philanthropy, either
individual or national.
However much it may wound the pride of our gilded youth, it can hardly
be asserted that birth and rank are matters that involve the slightest
personal merit. It seems to be an affair of the purest accident into
what class of society a child is born. We have overcome the difficulties
and dangers of youth--most of us--but it might well have been otherwise.
Soften your hearts, ye political economists, and cease to regard the
poor, the weak, and the wretched as criminals. If there is no wealth
but life, our country must soon be poor indeed should the rising
generation be sickly and underfed. Bairns must not be allowed to study
on an empty stomach.
PARISH COUNCIL BOARDERS.
Let me here mention a point alluded to by more than one friend of the
Highlands. It has reference to one aspect of the new science called
Eugenics, which deals with the means for producing the maximum of vigour
in our nation. It is not well enough known that for years the
authorities have been pouring into a few of the islands and straths of
the North and West a great number of maimed, consumptive, and mentally
defective children. Some houses in the Hebrides have three or four of
these children, who, but for the action of the authorities, would be
living under the most deplorable conditions of life in the towns. The
results, as regarding improvement in health and physique, are of the
most encouraging kind.[21]
After a certain age the official subsidy ceases, and the children as a
rule go to work on the farms and crofts. It is evident that such
extensive planting out of city boys and girls is bound by and by to work
a great change in the composition of our rural districts. It is believed
that some of the islands would soon be without children but for these
incomers: it is a well-known fact that the indigenous youthful
population of certain of them is very meagre indeed. We are thus in
modern times witnessing some most instructive operations of Nature: for
generations the country has been depleted to swell the bloated
population of the towns; and now the wastage of the cities is being sent
back to the country to get a renewal of vigour at the primeval fountain
of health.
There is one further point of great moment. As a proportion, relatively
large, of these children come of morally dubious parentage, it is of
supreme interest to know their subsequent career and conduct. I have
seen reports and statistics which seem to prove that questionable
heredity can be overborne by healthy surroundings and good training; in
other words, that the offspring of criminals may, if rescued early from
a vicious environment, become respectable citizens. Such facts ought to
rejoice the hearts of all moral reformers.
[21] In that part of South Arran which lies between Dippen and
Shannochie, there is high up on the hillside, a row of cottages
and crofts collectively nicknamed "Mount Misery." The reason for
this sinister name is that in most of the houses there is some
maimed, consumptive, or imbecile child boarded out by the Parish
Council. The children are better there than selling matches at
St. Enoch's Station: they are well looked after and almost
invariably improve in health.
DWINDLING ATTENDANCES.
It is in the country school that the need for new blood is most apparent
to the eye. In schools capable of holding 120 children, you will often
find a shrunken roll of less than a dozen. A gentleman of mature years
usually does all the teaching and keeps himself from getting insane by
breeding hens and cultivating roses in his spare time. He has also, in
all likelihood, the little pickings of officialdom in the district, and
is registrar, session-clerk, and precentor. One facetious teacher, who
dwelt on a wide moor, headed his letter to me _Parish Council Chambers_,
thereby suggesting marble staircases and sumptuous furniture. It was
this same teacher who, on being asked to bring forward Standard V. for
inspection, had to admit that Standard V. was laid up with a broken leg.
For such small schools there is an increasing difficulty in finding male
teachers.[22] Widows, who in their ante-nuptial days, had been engaged
in teaching are often preferred to men, for reasons of salary. The lot
of such women, who have usually families to support out of their meagre
earnings, is hard indeed: if they keep their health, they manage
tolerably well, but when illness comes into the house, there must be a
deal of suffering and distress. The young pupils who attend the remote
schools of the uplands, also deserve much sympathy. During the heavy
snows and extreme cold of winter, these children--often ill-shod and
scantily fed--have to trudge along miles of country cross-roads or
hill-paths to their little school. Our country is a glory to the eye
when mid-summer and autumn are there, but think of the harsh winter
months with their torrents of driving rain, their whirlwinds of hail
and sleet and the icy nip of the blasts that blow down the snow-sheeted
glens.
[22] A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said to
me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the
last year, and the bridegroom was aged _three score and fifteen_.
I wonder what education is coming to: there is little or no
patriotism about Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I
could get the people to think more imperially than they do at
present."
ARNISDALE, ETC.
It will be perhaps interesting to the general reader if I strive, by
drawing on my reminiscences, to give him an idea of how education is
carried on in certain remote corners of Scotland at the present time. He
will, perhaps, be led to admire as much as I do the noble work that is
being done by teachers and inspectors for the rising generation of the
country.
Arnisdale, on the mainland facing Skye, is a very destitute district,
and has suffered much from the failure of the once-flourishing
herring-fishery of Loch Hourn. One can see by the attire of the children
that the poverty must be exceptional, even for the Highlands. The
teacher says that in winter she has to think as much how to feed the
children as to teach them. By the charity of some benevolent visitors,
she was, last winter, able to give the pupils a mid-day meal of cocoa
and biscuits. It is a sad contrast to the extraordinary beauty of this
picturesque spot that such dire misery should overtake a proportion of
the natives during the winter season.
Arnisdale is not very accessible, even in the height of the summer
traffic, and when one gets there, it is a problem how to get away. I
asked the captain of the _Glencoe_ to set me down near what is called
the _dry island_, in Loch Hourn, and thence I was rowed ashore by two
very wild-looking, unkempt boatmen. The school-house, where I lodged, is
right on the beach, and just at the base of the gigantic Ben Screel.
Twelve miles along the coast, by a road of the most awe-inspiring kind,
one comes to the interesting nook of Glenelg, with its Pictish towers
and ruined barracks.
It was a mild and hazy morning when I traversed the road between
Arnisdale and Glenelg. On coming to the summit, a great breeze arose and
drove away the heavy white mists from the Sound of Sleat, and showed the
white, sentinel-like lighthouse of Isle Ornsay and great fertile
stretches of the near portion of Skye. Reluctantly the clouds finally
curled and rolled away before the wind and the glitter of the sun, until
the Cuchullins were visible beyond the water and the green peninsula of
Sleat.
In a cosy recess near the highest part of the road, beside a bubbling
spring, a _gipsy family_ had pitched its tent. I admired the taste shown
in the selection of a place commanding such a view. The family was still
under canvas, but hanging on the branch of a tree was a worn and
mud-stained skirt. Do not ladies in hotels, in similar fashion, hang out
their dusty and travel-soiled attire at the doors of their chambers? And
perhaps the dark-skinned owner had hung up her dank and dripping weeds
in the hope that some silvan faun or Robin Goodfellow would, without a
tip, perform the dusting process, in this case so palpably necessary. We
do wrong in supposing that imagination is not the portion of these
woodland rovers.
One of the most difficult problems of the Education Department is to see
that gipsy children get a suitable amount of schooling. "Here awa',
there awa', wandering Willie," is applicable to all their tribe. How
can progressive instruction be carried on where there is no fixity of
habitation? One day the camp is pitched on an eminence overlooking Loch
Hourn; but before twelve hours have passed, the nomads may have crossed
the ferry at Kyleakin and be warming their hands round a blaze of stolen
peats in the wild moorland between Portree and Dunvegan. Only in winter,
when frost and snow drive the gipsies into the city slums, do the
children get some smattering of the three R's.
GOLSPIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL.
There are now in the Highlands a number of excellent higher class public
schools, in which the elements of secondary education are taught. The
pupils in these schools are drawn from wide areas, and, by means of
bursaries, can board away from their own homes. The Golspie Technical
School is an altogether unique higher-grade institution. At a library
lecture delivered in Golspie, the boys belonging to the school
(forty-eight in number, divided into four clans, each with a chief) were
present, accompanied by the Principal and his staff. My attention was at
once drawn to them by their fine physique, their gentlemanly bearing,
and their earnest attention. Next day, I had the pleasure of visiting
the school and seeing the working of the scheme initiated by the Duchess
of Sutherland.
The institution is really a boarding-school for poor lads of talent
belonging to the northern counties. They are under the eye of some
teacher at every hour of the day, and are kept incessantly busy, not at
books alone. They are taught to do their own washing, dusting,
scrubbing, cooking, and darning. The training is excellent: one is
impressed by its practical character and educational thoroughness. Latin
and Greek are not attempted at all, the literary instruction being
entirely based on English and the modern tongues. The science part of
the curriculum is remarkably complete, and art is by no means neglected.
Before a pupil has the good fortune to be admitted, the Principal visits
the parents. It is almost incredible (so he told me) the squalor of some
of the cots he had seen. Too often, in the Highlands, the one bedroom of
the family (frequently identical with the kitchen) has free
communication with a malodorous byre or stye. What a contrast with the
dormitory of the Technical School, where there is no lullaby of lowing
kine, but a tranquil, high-roofed hall that would do for the siesta of
the Duke of Sutherland himself!
ON THE SIDLAWS.
High up on a spur of the Sidlaw Hills in the county of Forfar, there is
a wee school that supplies education for a wide and sparsely-peopled
countryside. The teacher is Mr. Brown, who was once a dominie in the
island of Whalsay. He is a jovial and courteous man, and leads you on
very astutely to ask him how long he taught there. Such a question gives
him the opportunity of replying with a laugh: "_I was there exactly the
length of time Napoleon was in St. Helena, five years and seven
months_." When in Whalsay, Mr. Brown took the service on Sunday, if the
minister happened to be ill. In this capacity he achieved great
popularity by the meritorious device of shortening the sermon to fifteen
minutes. He was so much in love with the first sermon he wrote, that he
never wrote another, contenting himself with giving it again and again,
and merely varying the text. If he could only hit upon a suitable title,
and a suitable publisher for this sermon, Mr. Brown would get it
printed, and scattered broadcast over the Shetland Islands. I believe it
would furnish unique food for thought even to sinners on the mainland.
Mr. Brown received me with extreme kindness, and invited me inside to
see his school. I heard his senior class read, and thought the
pronunciation extremely good. About 12.55 the attention of the pupils
became visibly impaired; glances were furtively cast towards the door;
there was a feeling of expectancy all along the benches. Suddenly the
door sprang open, as if by some violent external impact, and a
middle-aged dame entered, carrying in each hand a large pail of steaming
potato-soup. Accompanying her was a young woman with dozens of small
pewter basins, and large spoons. I never saw such expeditious ladling,
such quick distribution, such speed of consumption, and such manifest
enjoyment all round. The steam of the soup obscured the wall-maps, and
the parsing exercise on the blackboard. The children could get as many
helpings as nature would permit, _for one farthing_. When the mist
cleared away, teacher and taught once more proceeded to tackle simple
proportion and analysis of sentences. I personally examined the soup,
and found it to be "nae skinking ware that jaups in luggies."
SOME SURPRISES.
Some surprises are in store for one who calls in casually at some of the
remoter schools. I have more than once found the teacher _giving
instruction in his shirt sleeves_. In one school, I saw the master with
_a large melodeon_ (the Board being too stingy to supply a piano),
giving an inharmonious accompaniment to the musical drill. I got a
dreadful surprise on meeting the schoolmaster of a district in Jura: the
unfortunate gentleman was _stone-deaf_, his auditory nerves being
completely destroyed. Yet he managed, unaided, a school of forty-seven
pupils, and got excellent reports. The case is unparalleled in my
experience, and I should not have believed it possible had I not
personally seen the man at his work. He heard with his eyes, and could
most nimbly interpret what his pupils said by watching their lips. The
scholars liked him, and did not attempt to take advantage of his defect.
In another insular school, I was introduced to a lady-teacher who had
_lost both her arms in youth_, and who, in consequence, has been forced
to bring up her pupils entirely on the principles of moral suasion. By
holding the pen with her teeth, she can write a fine running _hand_ (if
I may say so without violence to language). She is an extremely clever
lady: it was a treat to see how well she could control the children with
a word or a glance.
Some teachers in the Lowlands complain of children playing truant. That
vice is not common in the Highlands, but it exists to a slight extent.
In my presence the teacher of a school in Skye made the absentees of
the previous day, write out their reasons for non-attendance. I give
some of the typical answers:
(i.) Dear Sir,--I had to work all day at the peats.
(ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses.
(iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep.
(iv.) _I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again._
ARRAN SCHOOLS.
The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being
very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these
country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with
Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their
masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors.
At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and
Wordsworth.[23]
There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught
the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly
dying out in the island. Twenty years ago it was the language of the
playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my
request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the
assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the
neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the
venerable tongue.
In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars
of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of
Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself
in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent
and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous
Celtic manuscript, the _Fernaig MS._, a brown-leaved passbook, full of
old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be
worth £2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could
not gratify myself by offering to purchase it.
[23] A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life
is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of
the churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. The
thoughtful visitor should not fail to read the tombstones. If a
lover of books, he will be interested in learning that the
founder of the famous publishing firm of Messrs. Macmillan
belonged to the North Cock farm near Loch Ranza. The pensive
moralist will perhaps be most affected by an old stone, A.D.
1813, declaring that Elspa Macmillan left this _inhospitable
world_, aged 86. _That_ was no rash inference.
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.
Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine
literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who
encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in
Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most
delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less
than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the
daffodils beginning--
"I wandered lonely as a cloud."
Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that
flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers
should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some
poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our
best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative
touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's
catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes
of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only
look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially
recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I
cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than
the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse.
As Mendelssohn composed _songs_ without words, so may the schoolmaster
give _lessons_ of the most powerful import without a word being spoken.
A beautiful interior in a schoolroom is a silent lesson in order and
good taste. Beauty and order have a most valuable influence on the
emotions and the character. It is a pleasure to see the attention that
is now given to the cultivation of taste. Clean, bright class-rooms;
pictures of artistic merit on the walls; busts; collections of fossils,
sea-shells, and the like--these are to be found even in remote country
schools. Such spontaneous education of the eye is something that cannot
be overestimated for importance and fruitfulness.
Lord Avebury puts the case for artistic environment very well indeed.
"Our great danger in education," he says, "is the worship of
book-learning--the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the
memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the
mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling;
they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places,
which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation
to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the
opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill
their minds with dry facts."
There is one precious faculty that runs the risk of being stifled by too
much memory work. I mean the faculty of imagination. Youth is the time
when fancy is busy; it is the period when the brain can furnish
unlimited scaffolding for castles in the air. Wordsworth was so
impressed, indeed, by the opulence of the youthful fancy, that he could
only account for it by supposing recent contact with heaven.
STUDY OF SCOTT.
I sometimes think that in the training of the youthful intellect and
imagination we have not made sufficient use of the novels and romances
of Scott. Of late years a great improvement is noticeable in this
respect, and Scott is coming to be regarded as (for school purposes) our
greatest historian. In some schools, as Lord Avebury has hinted, it was
formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could
rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds
of a set of unhappy persons who masqueraded as statesmen and courtiers.
Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a
serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the
great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the
eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old
school-history was, unfortunately, too often a glum compendium of
insignificant detail, told without breadth of view or fire of
restorative imagination.
In the history of Scotland, most of what is worth knowing may be most
enjoyably learned from the pages of Sir Walter. Hardly any epoch of
Caledonian annals, hardly any county in the land has escaped the
treatment of his masterly hand. From the Borders to the rain-lashed
Shetlands (the _Pirate_ deals with gusty Thule), from Perth to Morven,
the great wizard has made his country known to all lands. In his stories
the past faithfully reproduces itself, and we are impressed, instructed,
and amused.
THE OLD CLASSICAL DOMINIE.
It is a pleasure to think that a few of the old school of Scotch
dominies, who date from before the 1872 Act, are still to the fore, and
still engaged in teaching. They have all fixity of tenure, and so enjoy
the privilege of criticising, as adversely as they like, the degeneracy
of modern educational developments. These "_old parochials_," as they
are called, are men of good scholarship, well versed in Horace and
Virgil, and generally fond of snuff and Latin quotations.
The Act of 1872 did a great deal for elementary education, but very
little indeed to encourage that type of higher instruction, which was
the glory of the old parish school. Ian Maclaren and other writers have
given pleasant sketches of country schoolmasters who were strong in the
ancient tongues, and who sent their pupils straight to the benches of
the University. I believe such men as "Domsey" were quite common in this
country. Porteous, whom I knew, was one of these. Porteous was a
philologist second to none in these realms, and was on intimate terms of
acquaintanceship with the famous Veitch, who gave such a _redding up_ to
the Greek verbs. It was very amusing to hear the complete way in which
Porteous could silence some imperial young examining professor on the
weighty subject of classical derivation. The latter would appeal to some
such authority as Curtius, whereupon Porteous would unlock the desk in
which lay the tawse, and taking therefrom a copy of the invoked Curtius,
open it at the root in question, and display the page all marked with
pencil corrections and emendations. In support of his views, would come
such a torrent of erudition from half a score of Classical, Sanscrit,
Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon rills, that the young professor would feel "like
one of sense forlorn," and be fain to put palm to forehead in dazed
amazement. A pupil learning the rudiments under such a teacher, was
dazzled rather than instructed by the ruthless surgery of words that
constantly went on. No word was too small for Porteous to operate upon:
he settled _hoti's_ business, and could so inflate Greek vocables by
supplying digammas and dropped consonants, that Plato would have
disowned them. Give him chalk, a blackboard, and a class of six, and he
would in ten minutes fill the board with hieroglyphics, curves,
arrow-headed diagonals, etc., all meant to illustrate the relationships,
divergencies, and contrarieties of the Aryan roots. His life was spent
in the company of these radicals, and he could call them forth out of
their trickiest hiding-places. In the midst of his chalky toil, he would
turn round with radiant glee as if to say, "This is a merry and exciting
trade: it is my fun and is as good as poaching or golf." But woe betide
the youth who showed levity. Soon would there be weeping and wailing and
tingling of palms. His reputation for strap-wielding made roots
respected.
Another teacher of the school of Porteous was Thomas Taylor, whose death
I saw announced a few weeks ago. Where has all _his_ Greek lore gone to,
so assiduously cultivated, so continuously added to? If Taylor's soul is
ever re-incarnated in a mortal body, it is absurd to suppose that he
must begin to learn the Greek alphabet just like a novice. His clay is
indeed mixed with the clay of common men, but I love to think of him
dwelling on the other side of the River in the meads of asphodel,
discussing with kindred shades, the topics he delighted to handle when
he was here. With tearful eye I pen these doleful decasyllabics to his
memory:--
What chums Tom Taylor and Charles Lamb had been
O'er bottled porter and the _Fairy Queen_!
In youth, one day, seeking forbidden fruit
Tom tumbled from the branches with his loot,
And broken bones compelled the lad to go
On straddling crutches, warily and slow,
Counting the pebbles on his path below.
The noisy pleasures of the open air,
The football kicked exuberant here and there.
Cricket, beloved of sinewy juvenals,
And golf with all its hazards, clubs and balls,
Were not in Taylor's province: so he turned
To calmer pastimes where the ingle burned,
And when the whole world turned to _goals_ and _tees_
He took to _Iliads_ and to _Odysseys_.
He'd croon like one possessed the magic strain
Of heroes tossed along the unvintaged main,
And, crutch aloft in air, would fondly beat
Time to the rushing of the poet's feet.
Poetry was all his solace: those bright dames
That old Dan Chaucer in his rapture names,
And those in Villon's pages that appear
As dazzling-white as snows of yester-year,
Trooped past his eye in long procession fair.
O, Sovereign Virgin, what a crowd was there!
Helen, alas! with Paris by her side,
On the high deck crossing the sunny tide,
Circé, bright-moving in her godlike bloom
Before the throbbing music of the loom.
The love-lorn heroines of Shakespeare's plays,
The red-cheeked country girls of Burns's lays,
Would to his raptured eye the tear-drop bring,
And set his crazy quill a-sonnetting.
VOGUE OF LATIN IN FORMER TIMES.
The old-world schoolmaster believed Latin was a universal specific. He
loved the language and knew all the flock of frisky little exceptions of
gender and conjugation, even as a shepherd knows his sheep. He gave his
pupils gentle doses of the _Delectus_, and watched with eager, almost
menacing, eye, for the working of the charm. It is quite possible that
no pupil ever went over that _Delectus_, with its world-weary fragments
of trite morality, without a feeling of pleasure at the _Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire_. Yet it was educative, and moreover a boy was
equipped for life with quotations suiting every juncture. Fate was
powerless against one who had mastered the _Delectus_. The faculty of
Latin quotation was to some extent also a badge of respectability.
Fancy, too, the glory of being the exclusive possessor in a mixed
company of the knowledge that Castor and Pollux came out of the one egg!
It was a sore drawback to a boy once upon a time if he were shaky on the
compounds of _fero_.
"_The pest of the present day is the prevalence of examinations_:"
these, it is alleged, have destroyed the grand old freedom of learning
which gave full scope for the individuality alike of teacher and pupil.
Oh! those were days of the gods, when five hours were spent daily
burrowing in Virgil and Horace! Arcadia was realised--a sunny clime of
Nymphs, Fauns, and Graces. The supreme luxury of abundant time--the
leisurely chewing of sweet-phrased morsels--is gone: it is gone, that
chastity of phrase and perfection of idiom, which felt a bad quantity
like a wound. The examination craze has destroyed the classical dominie,
and the intrusion of science, falsely so-called, has well-nigh
asphyxiated the Napææ of the dells. It was formerly possible for the
teacher to develop to the full his literary taste and declaim the
sonorous tit-bits of Virgil till the tears started from his eyes. Now
the instructors of youth seem to regard the works of the tuneful Mantuan
as composed for the purpose of illustrating the use of the Latin
subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of
it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical
reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set
examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There
is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of
grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who
have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we
may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion,
bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. Items which
glide effortless into the brain in desultory reading are not so easily
remembered if the examination is in store. Certain gentlemen have
recently been reading Milton with a pair of compasses in order to
discover the exact point of the cæsural pause in every line: they give
figures, strike percentages, and set questions which even the leading
character in "Paradise Lost" couldn't answer. Literary microscopy is
likely to ruin Shakespeare's reputation in school and would have done so
long ago but for Lamb's _Tales_--a darling compilation and by far the
best introduction to the poet. "_Shakespeare is a horrid man_" is the
deliberate verdict of the schoolgirl who has been teased to death by the
notes within the tawny covers of the Clarendon Press Edition. And fancy
what Chaucer's Prologue must seem like, taught by a man bent only on
philological hunts, variant readings, and a complete explanation of all
the final e's.
TEACHERS AND EXAMINATIONS.
It has always seemed to me a matter for surprise that those who had for
years studied the elements of Latin and Greek at school (and that with
no small difficulty), should entirely neglect these tongues afterwards
and read nothing composed in them. Most elaborate preparations are made
to reach the Promised Land, but the weary passenger never gets there.
Can it be that the preparations are too elaborate?[24] They are
certainly not very interesting, and are, indeed, well fitted to disgust
pupils with the classical tongues. Sir William Ramsay of Aberdeen, in a
letter to the _Herald_ some time ago, spoke strongly on this subject.
Sir William says, with justice, that a teacher should teach his subject
without any thought of examination. Every teacher would like to do that
if he could. As a matter of fact, the secondary schoolmaster is forced
to become a crammer. He codifies the catch questions of previous
university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies
and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really
teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove
that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational,
and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be
more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting
out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the
examiners in correcting the answers of the helpless and puzzled
candidates! Even though the questions set were plain and
straightforward, it would be absurd to suppose that an hour or two in an
examination hall could furnish sufficient data to pass or fail a
candidate.
It used to be the glory of our universities that an average college
class contained representatives of every grade of society in the land.
Professor Ramsay says it is not so now: the professors have become
pedagogic coaches, and the students grind rather than study. Sir William
assures us that many who would make good students are frightened away by
the preliminary examination. It would be interesting to know where these
latter go when they leave school. Do they rush off to business at once,
or do they proceed with their education in some extra-mural way? If they
can afford the time, the university is certainly the place for them. Let
the university gates be opened as wide as possible to all serious-minded
youths, and let it be remembered that it is not necessarily those who
sweat most over their books or take the highest honours that get most
good from attendance at the lectures.
It does not appear that, at present, our universities are adequately in
touch with the nation. The great commercial community of Glasgow does
not benefit nearly enough from having a famous seat of learning in its
midst. We might learn a lesson from the Sorbonne how best to nationalise
our universities. In Paris, the lecture halls are open to all, and it is
possible for either native or foreigner to listen for hours daily, if he
be so minded, to some of the finest and most erudite orators and
scholars of Europe. There are, it is true, special students' courses,
from which the general public is excluded, but the most important
lectures are open to all. Hence the Sorbonne is a national institution
in every sense of the word. I do not say that Glasgow does not benefit a
little from the corps of professors at Gilmorehill. But the benefit is
spasmodic, discontinuous, and extremely limited. Some of the professors
do at times come down into the open and speak words of wisdom. But more
is wanted than that if the universities are to be saved from
denationalisation. We hear of Dugald Stewart's class-room being, in the
old days, crowded with the keenest intellects of the Capital. But a
university was not then a kind of higher-grade secondary school.
[24] It is a notorious fact that very few graduates, when they
leave college, are able to read Latin from an author they have
not specially studied, with ease or pleasure. For this melancholy
fact there are several reasons. The range of reading is miserably
meagre. Only a few authors are read, and almost every sentence of
these is cumbered with such an amount of annotation as to render
progress and literary appreciation alike painful. Composition in
Latin absorbs far too much time: the first duty of the teacher
ought to be to turn out pupils who can read Latin with fluency.
No amount of grammatical detail or laborious composition, as at
present practised, will ever make up for the lack of wide
reading. Professor Phillimore's recent suggestion that the
less-known authors should be read more than they are, is wise and
opportune. The authors he mentions would furnish a welcome relief
from the unspeakable dreariness of over-annotated texts.
HOWLERS.
Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or
Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's
answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The
answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the
Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify
the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of
genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of
juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor
Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to
write on the subject of _dolls_. In bi-lingual districts children's
answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course,
more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which
illustrates what Latin scholars call _contaminatio_. A teacher had given
a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury,
as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place
through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the
close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of
them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply:
"Canterbury is the seat of an _archbishop through whom the first
meridian passes_." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating
their ideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we
have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of
Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but
in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts
occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat
cannot kill these curious little animals. _Hence some people prefer
spirits._" From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism.
"Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter
Scott. Burns and Sir Walter wrote beautiful lines about their native
land, and thousands of tourists came and circulated their money there.
_It would be telling us_ if writers would imitate these great patriots
in our day." Many of the young scribes on the mainland can also indulge
in a deal of brilliant irrelevancy. One of them being asked to write an
essay on "Rivers," began thus: "_In ancient times, the chief use of
rivers was for the baptizing of converts_." Another, in the course of a
short life of King Alfred, made a strong point of that monarch's
humility, adding, "In order to discover the plans of the Danes, he
demeaned himself so far as to go to their camp _disguised as a poet_."
The annual blue book of the Scotch Education Department used to include
a recreative series of howlers that had been sent up in the various
reports of the Government Inspectors. These tit-bits were well
calculated to keep up the gaiety of nations. Of late years these howlers
have been excised, but if Scotland had Home Rule they might re-appear.
The finer attenuations of speech are unknown to the soaring human boy.
I was shown an essay on Ireland the other day in which the young writer
compendiously remarked, "_The Irish are a bloodthirsty, lazy, and
resentful race_." On Wordsworth, another juvenile critic thus expressed
himself: "_Wordsworth's compositions are utter bosh_." The following
extract is from an "Essay on the '15": "_The Rising of '15 was a failure
because the Old Pretender was an unmitigated ass. Fancy an ass trying to
take charge of a Rebellion!_"
A genial gentleman, Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley, who retired from the
Inspectorate some years ago, published in 1908 a book of choice
reminiscences, containing some good specimens of schoolboy answers. Some
of his howlers have long been known in the North: but a howler (like
history) is wont to repeat itself. I saw in a Paisley boy's essay on
Lambert Simnel the following sentence: "Lambert Simnel was a claimant
for the English crown, and went about the country boasting that he was
one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower." Mr. Kynnersley's
examinee wrote thus: "Prince Charles Edward claimed to be one of the
little princes murdered in the Tower. He was found to be a deceiver, and
was put into the king's kitchen to work."
A boy once told Mr. Kynnersley that _a quorum is a question asked at a
meeting which the chairman is unable to answer_. I saw a definition of
paradox, equally absurd: "_A paradox is something which is apparently
not what it seems to be_."
It is a favourite geographical test to require a pupil to describe a
coast journey between two seaports, and mention capes, rivers, and towns
seen on the way. "Describe a trip from Greenock to the Isle of Man,"
said a teacher to his class; "I give you an hour to write it out." Very
few were past Lochryan at the hour's end. One daring youth took his
boat, which he christened "_The Comet_," right round the Mull of
Kintyre, with intent to reach Douglas by way of Cape Wrath, the North
Sea, Dover, Land's End, and St. George's Channel. When time was up, the
_Comet_, all torn and tattered by the strumpet wind, was beating round
the north end of Skye. That boy will, in all probability, turn out a
deep-sea captain.
"How many days are there in a year?" asked an inspector of a class of
Highland youngsters. No answer was given. "Tut, tut," said the inspector
testily, "this is ridiculous. Is there _no one_ who knows how many days
there are in the year?" "Oh, yes, sir," said a boy reproachfully, "_God
knows_."
"What kind of king was William III.?" inquired another examiner. "He had
an aquiline nose, sir," said a boy. "What does that mean?" said the
examiner. "_It means_," answered the boy, "_that William III.'s nose was
turned up at the point like the beak of an eagle!_" "What right had
William to the English throne?" continued the examiner, changing his
ground. "_No right under heaven_," was the forceful Jacobite rejoinder.
Here is a tale, from the eastern seaboard of Scotland.
_Inspector_, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., etc. (examining a class of ten-year
olds): "Now, boys, what is the shape of the earth?"
_Boy:_ "Roon, like an orange."
_Inspector:_ "But how do I _know_, how can I be _sure_ that the earth is
round like an orange?"
_Boy:_ "_Because I tell't ye._"
Pupils show great affection for the phrases of their text-books. Not
long ago, at a written examination, a lad wrote in reply to a historical
question which was puzzling him: "_The answer to this question is known
only to the Great Searcher of Hearts_." What could the boy mean? Was it
"cheek," ignorance, or piety? It was none of these. _It was Collier!_
About thirty years ago, Dr. Collier, a modern Euphuist, composed a
_History of England_, which deserves to be reckoned among the glories of
the reign. Carlyle may be great, but Collier is greater: Collier is a
theologian, philosopher, and _a' that_. The style of his history is a
wondrous blend of _Ossian_ and Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_;
and its special peculiarity is that the words, owing to some feature,
never really analysed, linger in the mind long after the sentences of
the Shorter Catechism have become blurred. Collier is strong in
tropes--a highly-dangerous feature. It is no doubt true, as he says,
that William the Conqueror ruled with a rod of iron, but when a boy,
after reading this metaphor, asserts that that sovereign ruled his
subjects _with a long iron pole_, you begin to question the utility of
historical study. "Joy-bells pealed and bonfires blazed," is a phrase of
the Doctor's which sets all the caverns of the mind ringing, even though
its historical setting is long forgotten. But unction is the chief
feature of the history: there is a rotund finality about the author's
spacious utterances, and a dodging of investigation by means of pious
generalisations. The book has all the effect of a benediction. When it
is really too tiresome to inquire into all the authorities on some
affair of magnitude, it is so respectable to sum up in the phrase
imitated by the youth alluded to above.
It is in the Secondary Schools of the country that the confusion of
thought is apt to be most painfully seen. Far too much is attempted, and
the pupils are overworked. A teacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, a
_laudator temporis acti_, has a manuscript collection of howlers, drawn
from elementary, secondary, and university sources, with the following
fearful lines as a preface:--
"Ye statesmen all, of high or humble station,
Collective conscience of the British nation,
Whether the frothing vat has made your name
Or tropes in carpet-bags begot your fame,
Behold the _product_ of the education
Wherewith is dosed the rising generation.
And see the modern devotee of cram
At midnight hour hard-grinding for the exam.,
A moistened towel garlanding his brow,
And coffee simmering on the hob below.
High on a three-legged stool uncushioned, he
Sits glowering through his goggles painfully,
Nagging his brain with all a grinder's might
Till _one_ sounds on the drowsy ear of night.
Like Sibyl's leaves the papers strew his floor
Wrought-out examples, 'wrinkles' by the score,
Conundrums algebraic, 'tips' on Conics
And thorny 'props' remembered by mnemonics.
Betweenwhiles as the slow time lagging goes,
He takes the spectacles from off his nose,
Removes the damper from his aching head,
Pours out the coffee, cuts a slice of bread,
Sips wistfully the liquid from his cup:
The zeal to pass the exam. has eaten _him_ up.
Thrice happy ye! born 'neath the ancient reign
When _Tityre tu_ alone possessed the brain
(Ere Tyndall's tubes made sweating students numb)
And the whole aim of life was _di, do, dum_."
COMPETING SUBJECTS.
So numerous indeed are the subjects of the school curriculum in our day
that howlers and confusion are bound to result. Formerly there was but
one scheme (containing classics, mathematics, and a little English), and
everybody took it. Now there is a kind of competition among the
departments of a school as to which is the most culturing. When a fond
mother asks the opinion of the masters as to what course of study her
boy (whom she is entitled to think a genius of the first order) ought to
pursue, she is often puzzled by the variety of answers. Mr. Test-tube,
the Science Master, invariably prescribes an extensive course of
chemistry. If a boy is to be a lawyer, he ought to know the principles
of atomic combination and the doctrine of gases; if he thinks of the
ministry, why then, having a thorough acquaintance with science, he will
be competent to close the mouths of heretics, infidels, and such vermin.
Dr. Aorist, on the other hand, believes that a sound knowledge of "_qui_
with the subjunctive" is a splendid sheet-anchor for every squall in
life's rude sea. "I wish my boy to be a civil engineer; what advice
would you give me as to his studies?" "I have no hesitation in
affirming," the Doctor replies, "that the boy will build bridges all
the better if he has his mind expanded and (so to speak) broadened by
the study of subjects outside his special trade, such, _e.g._, as the
interesting fact that in ancient times 'All Gaul was divided into three
parts.'"
The average boy has an impartial mind. As a rule, he has no prejudice in
favour of either science or letters, his maxim being never to do to-day
what he can put off till to-morrow.
His favourite books for home
Are buccaneering combats on the foam,
Or grim detective tales of Scotland Yard,
Where gleams the bull's-eye lamp and drips the poniard.
Parents may be reminded that the wide spaces of the colonies remain to
be peopled and that many a _stickit minister_ might have made a
first-class empire-builder.