Medical Men. Sandy Wood. Knox. Nairn and Sir William Gull. A
broken leg in Canna. Changes in the professoriate and students
in the Scottish Universities. A St. Andrews Professor. A
Glasgow Professor. Some Edinburgh Professors--Pillans, Blackie,
Christison, Maclagan, Playfair, Chalmers, Tait. Scottish
Schoolmasters.
Among the professions that of medicine has long held a high place
in Scotland. Its reputation at home and abroad has been maintained
for a century and a half by a brilliant succession of teachers and
practitioners. The schools of medicine in Edinburgh and Glasgow
continue to attract students from all quarters of the British Islands,
and from our colonies. Every year hundreds of medical graduates are
sent out from the Universities, and they are now to be found at work in
almost every corner of the wide globe.
[Sidenote: LANG SANDY WOOD]
At the beginning of the eighteenth century one of the noted medical
characters in Edinburgh was the surgeon eulogised by Byron in the
couplet:
Oh! for an hour of him who knew no feud,
The octogenarian chief, the kind old Sandy Wood.
He was greatly admired for his medical skill, and beloved for his
kindly nature. His popularity saved him once from instant death.
During a riot, the mob, mistaking him for the provost, were preparing
to pitch him over the North Bridge, when he shouted out to them, ‘I’m
lang Sandy Wood; tak’ me to a lamp and ye’ll see.’ He used to take a
constitutional walk to Restalrig in the evenings, and frequently met
a tailor carrying a bundle, whom he invariably saluted with, ‘Weel,
Tam, are ye gaun hame wi’ your wark?’ The tailor rather resented this
monotonous enquiry, and one day he had his revenge. Noticing the tall
figure of the well-known surgeon walking at the end of a funeral
procession, he instantly made up to him to ask, ‘Weel, doctor, are ye
gaun hame wi’ your wark?’
Rather later came the times of Burke and Hare, with the terrors of the
resurrectionists. A prominent individual in Edinburgh at that time was
Robert Knox the anatomist, to whose dissecting room the bodies of the
victims murdered in the West Port were sold. He was for many years
a successful lecturer, but afterwards got into difficulties, when he
tried to retrieve his position by announcing courses of lectures, or a
single lecture on a sensational subject. When one of the teachers in
the medical school, who had introduced the practice of illustrating his
lectures with models, was discoursing on the anatomy of the ear, Knox
posted up a notice that on a certain day he too would give a lecture on
the human ear, illustrated with the modern methods of demonstration.
When the day came, the lecture-room was crowded with students on the
outlook for amusement. The lecturer began his demonstration by holding
up an ear, which he had obtained from a human subject, and pointing
out the leading features in its structure. At a particular part of his
lecture he gave a signal, and the door behind him was opened by two men
who carried in a monstrous and grotesquely shaped model of an ear. It
was set down on the table, and in a little while Knox, holding up the
ear he had already exhibited, said, ‘This, gentlemen, is the human ear
according to God Almighty, and that (pointing to the huge model), and
that is the human ear according to Dr. ----.’
[Sidenote: EXTRA MURAL MEDICAL SCHOOLS]
There was once a good deal of rivalry between the medical staff of the
Universities and the extra-mural schools of medicine. On one occasion,
a University professor, wishing to make fun at the expense of a
distinguished member of the non-university school, told a story of a
man who consulted a famous surgeon as to constant pains in the head.
The surgeon pronounced that the complaint could be completely cured by
the removal of the brain and the excision of some diseased parts. The
man consented to the operation, and was told to come back in ten days,
when the renovated brain would be ready for him. The ten days elapsed,
however, and gradually grew into three weeks without the patient having
returned. At the end of that time the surgeon met him on the street,
and anxiously enquired why he had never re-appeared. The man answered
that, since the operation, he had obtained a government appointment,
and thought that as he was getting on very well without the brain,
he had better remain as he was. A titter of course went through the
audience, in the midst of which the extra-mural lecturer, against whom
the tale was pointed, rose and calmly said, ‘May I enquire of the
speaker whether the crown appointment in question was a University
professorship?’ The laugh was thus most effectively turned the other
way.
A medical professor having been appointed Physician to Queen Victoria,
the announcement of this honour was written up on the black-board
of his class-room just before the hour of lecture. A wag among the
students, seeing this notice, wrote in large letters underneath
it--‘God save the Queen!’
It is not unusual for medical men to have two practices, one in this
country, and one abroad. A man may attend a circle of patients during
the summer in London, at Harrogate or in the north of Scotland, and
another circle during the winter on the Riviera, in Italy or in Egypt.
One able physician, for example, had an excellent practice for half
of the year at Nairn and for the other half in Rome. He was on a
friendly footing with Sir William Gull, whose patients, worn out with
the distractions of London, were sent up to him to be looked after in
the salubrious climate of the Moray Firth. A lady resident of Nairn,
who believed herself to be far from well, and to be suffering from
some complaint which the local doctor did not understand, insisted
upon going to London and consulting Sir William Gull. That eminent
physician diagnosed her case and prescribed; ‘What you chiefly require,
madam,’ he said, ‘is to live for a time in a dry bracing climate. There
is one place which I am sure would suit you admirably, and that is
Nairn in the north of Scotland.’
[Sidenote: DOCTORING IN THE HEBRIDES]
One of the difficulties of life among the smaller islands of the
Hebrides has long been the inadequacy of medical attendance. A stranger
who first enters the region, and realises from some painful experience
what are the conditions of the people in this respect, may be forgiven
if at first he may be inclined to think that the authorities, whose
duty it should be to provide such attendance, share the opinion of
Churchill that--
The surest road to health, say what they will,
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.
Most of those evils we poor mortals know
From doctors and imagination flow.
It must be remembered, however, that many of the islands are too
small, and many of the districts too thinly inhabited to provide work
for a resident practitioner, even if the funds for his salary were
readily procurable. All that has hitherto been attempted is to place
a doctor in some central position whence, commanding as wide an area
as he can be supposed able to undertake, he may be ready to proceed
to any case where his services may be required. But the distances are
sometimes considerable, and the weather often stormy, so that for days
at a time no boat can pass from one island to another. Even under the
most favourable skies, it often happens that when a message arrives,
urgently requesting the attendance of the medical man, he is found to
be engaged with another serious case in an island some leagues distant,
from which he may not be expected to return for some days. An instance
which happened a few years ago in the little island of Canna will
illustrate this feature of social life in the Inner Hebrides.
[Sidenote: A BROKEN LEG IN CANNA]
One of the workmen engaged in building a dry-stone dyke met with a
serious accident. The materials he had to use consisted of large
rounded boulders and blocks of basalt, which required some little care
to adjust in order that the structure might remain firm. When the
wall had been raised to its full height, a portion of it gave way,
and some large masses of heavy basalt fell on the workman, smashing
one of his legs. His companions on extricating him from the ruins,
saw the serious nature of the injuries. But there was no doctor on
the island, nor anywhere nearer than at Arisaig, a distance of some
twenty-five miles across an open sea. No time was lost in getting the
poor man carried into a boat, which two of his comrades navigated to
the mainland. On arriving there, however, they found that the doctor
had gone away inland and would not be back for a day or two. As there
was no time to lose, the boatmen at once set out for Tobermory in Mull,
where the next medical man was to be obtained. They had to traverse a
tract of sea which is often rough. Even in calm weather more or less
commotion may always be looked for in the water round the Point of
Ardnamurchan--the ‘headland of great waves.’ It was some thirty-six
hours after the accident before the poor sufferer was at last placed in
medical hands. The first thing to be done was, of course, to amputate
the mangled leg. The patient stood the operation well, and in two or
three weeks was sufficiently recovered to be able to be taken back
to Canna. His two faithful comrades, who had waited on with him at
Tobermory, had him carried down to the pier, where their boat was
ready for him. When he came there he looked all round him with some
anxiety, and at last exclaimed, ‘But where’s my leg?’ ‘Your leg! in
the kirkyard, to be sure.’ ‘But I maun hae my leg.’ ‘But I tell ye, ye
canna hae your leg, its been buryit this fortnicht in the graveyard.’
‘Weel’ said the lameter, steadying his back against a wall, ‘I’ll no
stir a fit till I get my leg. D’ye think I’m to gang tramp-tramping
aboot at the Last Day lookin’ for my leg.’ Finding persuasion
useless, the unhappy boatmen had to interview the minister and the
procurator-fiscal, and obtain authority to dig up the leg. When the
lost limb came up once more to the light of day, it was in such a state
of decomposition that the men refused to have it in the boat with them.
Eventually a compromise was effected. A second boat was hired to convey
the leg, and with a length of ten yards of rope between them, was towed
at the stern of the first. In this way the procession reached Canna.
[Sidenote: PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITIES]
Throughout the Highlands the desire to be buried among one’s own
kith and kin remains wide-spread and deep-seated. And it would also
appear that a Highlander cannot bear that the parts of his body should
be interred in different places. The Canna dyke-builder only gave
expression to the general feeling.[17]
In due time the natives felt it necessary to celebrate in an
appropriate way the recovery and return of their fellow-islander, and
the re-interment of the leg in its native soil. With an ample provision
of whisky, a banquet was held, and continued till a late hour. On the
way back from this orgy, the hero of the accident stumbled across a
heap of stones, and broke the wooden leg that had replaced his own.
Partly from this fresh accident, but largely, no doubt, from the
effects of the debauch, the man could not regain his cottage, but lay
where he fell until, in the morning light, he was picked up and helped
home.
* * * * *
That gradual modification of the national characteristics which
is observable in all parts of the social scale, has not allowed
the Universities to escape. On the one hand, the professoriate is
now constantly recruited from the south side of the Tweed, by the
selection either of Englishmen or of Scotsmen who have been trained
at the English universities. On the other hand, a considerable
proportion of the students, more particularly in medicine, come from
England, Wales, Ireland, and the colonies; some of them even hail from
the Continent and from India.[18] As the non-Scottish leaven thus
introduced has no doubt tended to enlarge the culture of the teachers
and perhaps to soften the asperities of manner in the taught, the
change has been welcomed. The reproach that used to be levelled at the
nation that it was too clannish and acted too much on the principle of
its own unsavoury proverb of ‘keeping its ain fish-guts for its ain
sea-maws,’ certainly cannot justly be brought against its educational
institutions. For many years the obvious and earnest endeavour has
been to secure the best men, no matter from what part of the globe
they may come. The gradual obliteration of the peculiarly Scottish
characteristics of the Professors and students is part of the price
to be paid for the general advancement. Yet we pay it with a certain
measure of regret. There was a marked originality and individuality
among the Professors of the older type, which gave a distinctive
character to the colleges where they taught, and in some degree also to
their teaching.
[Sidenote: A ST. ANDREWS PROFESSOR]
About the middle of last century the Professor of Mathematics in the
University of St. Andrews was an able mathematician and a singularly
picturesque teacher. He spoke not only with a Scottish accent, but used
many old Scottish words, if they were effective in making his meaning
clear. If, for instance, he noticed an inattentive student, looking
anywhere but at the black-board on which he was demonstrating some
proposition, he would stop and request the lad to ‘e’e the buird’ (look
at the board). He lectured in a dress suit, and as he always wiped his
chalky fingers on his waistcoat, his appearance was somewhat brindled
by the end of the hour. One of his old students gave me the following
recollection of an incident that took place in the class-room.
A certain student named Lumsden was one day conspicuous for his
inattention. The professor at last stopped his lecture, and addressed
the delinquent thus: ‘Mr. Lums_deil_, will you come forrit here and
sit down on that bench there in front o’ me. I have three reasons for
moving you. In the first place, you’ll be nearer my een; in the second
place, you’ll be nearer my foot; and in the third place, you’ll be
nearer the door.’
Among the Glasgow professors towards the middle of the century, one
with a marked individuality was Allan Maconochie, afterwards Maconochie
Welwood. Coming of a race of lawyers, for he was the son of one
Scottish judge and the grandson of another, he took naturally to the
bar, and became Professor of Law in 1842. Being prompt and decisive
in his business habits, he soon acquired a considerable practice as
referee and arbiter in disputed cases among the mercantile community
of Glasgow, and thus saved the disputants the long delays and heavy
expenses of the Court of Session. He gave himself up with much
energy to the work of his chair, and to college business during the
session, but as soon as the winter term was over, he used to depart
at once for the Pyrenees, where he possessed a chateau, and where he
would spend most of his time until he had to resume his professional
labours in this country. During these years of residence abroad, he
acquired facility in speaking Spanish, and he would make long solitary
excursions, mingling freely among the people.
[Sidenote: A GLASGOW PROFESSOR IN SPAIN]
In the year 1854 his father, Lord Meadowbank, succeeded to the Fife
estates of Garvock and Pitliver, and then took the surname of Welwood.
About the same time the reform of the Scottish universities began to
be mooted, and as the professor looked forward with much dislike to
some of the proposed innovations in the constitution and arrangements
of these institutions, he resigned his chair and established himself
as a country gentleman at Pitliver, near Dunfermline. Having lost his
first wife, he had lately married Lady Margaret Dalrymple, daughter of
the Earl of Stair. I was a frequent guest at Pitliver, and much enjoyed
his racy reminiscences of Glasgow and of his experiences in Spain. One
of these last which he told me seems worthy of now being put on record
as an instance of the courage and boldness of a peaceable Scottish
professor.
During the ‘forties’ of last century, Spain was convulsed with
revolution. Maconochie had a strong desire to travel through some of
the disturbed districts and see the state of the country for himself.
He accordingly arranged to make a long detour and cross the frontier
to a French town, where his wife was to await his coming. Disguising
himself as a miner, he procured a bag, a pick, and a few pieces of
rough stone. His money he carried with him in gold, which he enclosed
in lumps of plaster of Paris, coloured and dirtied to look like bits
of natural rock. Thus accoutred he set out on his journey, and passed
through the districts where the insurrection was hottest. At night he
would come into a village inn, filled with insurgents, and throwing his
bag into a corner would retire to see after his horse. Coming back to
the chamber where the warriors were assembled, he sometimes found them
examining the contents of his bag and holding some of his specimens in
their hands, with an exclamation about their weight--‘Plomo, plomo’;
they were sure the stones must be bits of lead-ore. He would then join
in the talk, and so disarm all suspicion of his nationality that he had
no difficulty in gathering from them all the information he wanted,
while they on their side took him for a Castilian miner prospecting
through the country for metals.
[Sidenote: SPANISH INSURGENTS]
In this way he travelled through all the tract he wished to see, and
had come at last to the Spanish town nearest to the frontier place
where he was to meet his wife. He now discarded his disguise, and
attired himself in ordinary costume. The horse that had carried him
was a sorry nag which he had chosen to be in harmony with the general
outfit of his supposed occupation. He now made himself known to the
mayor of the town and asked his assistance to procure a good horse.
It so happened that a fine animal, which had belonged to a government
official recently deceased, was for sale, but the price asked for
it was beyond the means of those who would fain have bought it. The
professor, however, had money enough with him to acquire the horse,
and to fit himself for the rest of his journey. A guide was procured
to conduct him through the mountains, and he was advised to go armed
and to be constantly on his guard. In particular, he was warned on no
account to stop at the top of the last pass, whence the road descended
in sharp zig-zags into the plain of France. All went well until he came
to that very place, when his guide said they must halt a little. This
he refused to do, but insisted on his companion riding on in front
of him. They had not gone far down when voices from above called on
them loudly to stop. The guide turned round, put his horse across
the narrow road, and on Maconochie trying to brush past him drew out
a pistol from his belt. The professor, suspecting some action of this
kind, was on the alert, with his hand already on his own pistol, which
he at once discharged at the breast of the guide, who rolled off his
horse into the bushes below. Realising now the plot against him, and
that there were accomplices above, he put spurs to his horse, and
dashed down the road. So steep was the descent, and so shaded with
trees and bushes, that he could only be seen at the bends, at each of
which a shower of bullets whizzed past him. He succeeded in keeping
ahead of his assailants, who continued to pursue and fire at him until
they were almost within gunshot of the French sentries.
As soon as he arrived at the town, he sought the commandant and told
his story. The officer, on learning where he had got his horse, told
him that he owed his life to the animal, not merely for its speed.
It appeared that the insurgents knew the horse well, and desired to
procure it for one of their leaders. When they heard that it had been
sold, they had evidently planned to possess themselves of it, and had
arranged the ambush to which the professor of law had nearly fallen
a victim. But it was the horse they wanted, not its rider. Had mere
robbery been their object, they could easily have shot the horse, and
whether or not they put a bullet through him also, they would have
stripped him of all his possessions. But they purposely fired high for
fear of wounding or killing the animal, which they had expected to be
able to present to their leader.
[Sidenote: PROFESSOR PILLANS]
Robert Chambers used wittily to classify mankind in two
divisions--those who had been ‘under Pillans,’ and those who had not.
I am glad to be able to range myself in the first class. Pillans was
Professor of Latin (or Humanity as the subject used to be termed in
Scotland) in the University of Edinburgh. Perhaps his name was most
widely known from its having been unwarrantably pilloried by Byron in
his _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. He was a born educationist,
far in advance of his time in certain departments of teaching, more
particularly in his recognition of the place that should be assigned to
geography in the educational system of the country. When I sat in his
class-room he had reached his seventy-seventh year, and was no longer
as able as he had once been to control a large gathering of lads fresh
from school. But even then no one who was willing to learn could fail
to find much that was suggestive in his prelections. As he sat in his
chair behind his desk, his small stature was not observable. One only
saw the round bald head, the rubicund cheeks, the mild blue eyes, the
hands wielding a huge reading glass (for he would never consent to wear
spectacles) and the shoulders wrapped round in his velvet-collared
black gown. He was a scholar of the antique type, more intent on the
subject, spirit, and style of his Latin favourites, than on grammatical
niceties or various readings. How he loved his Horace, and how he took
to his heart any student in whom he could detect the rudiments of the
same affection! Having gained his friendship in this way, I saw a good
deal of him in later years. He kept up the pleasant old custom of
asking his students to breakfast with him. In later years I met some of
his early friends at that meal, among them, Leonard Horner. I remember
one morning having a talk with him about English literature, when he
said, ‘I have been all my life fond of poetry, and I find great solace
in it still. But I must go back several generations for what really
interests and pleases me. There is Tennyson, and another writer,
Browning, that I hear people raving about. I have tried to read them,
but I confess that I cannot understand much of them, and they give me
no real pleasure. When I want to enjoy English verse, I go back to the
masterpieces of Dryden and Pope.’
[Sidenote: PROFESSOR BLACKIE]
Pillans was one of the early pioneers in the organisation of
infant-schools. He energetically combated the system of teaching
by rote, and of compelling young children to burden their memories
with genealogies and dates. He once remarked to me, ‘I was in an
infant-school lately, and you won’t guess what question I heard put to
a class of little tots, not more than four or five years old--“How long
did Jeroboam reign over Israel?”’
The most perfervidly Scottish professor of my time was undoubtedly John
Stuart Blackie, who taught a multifarious range of subjects, including
some Greek, of which he was Professor. Although those of his students
who really wanted to increase their knowledge of Greek would fain
have been spared some of his disquisitions on the current politics
or problems of the day, they could not but recognise his boundless
enthusiasm, his cheery good nature, and his high ideals of life and
conduct. In my time he wore a brown wig, which was so manifestly
artificial that we used sometimes to imagine that it was coming off,
and speculated on what the professor would be like without it. But
in later years he allowed his own white hair to grow long, and with
his clean-shaven face, his broad soft felt hat, and his brown plaid
over his shoulders, he became by far the most picturesque figure in
the Edinburgh of his time. He had been so much in Germany, and was so
well versed in German life and literature, that he seemed naturally
to assume the manner of a German professor. There was, indeed, a
good deal of external resemblance between him and the late venerable
historian Mommsen. But Blackie was distinguished from his more typical
continental brethren by the boisterous exuberance of his spirits. Even
in the class-room this feature could not be wholly repressed, but it
reached its climax among friends at a dinner table, more especially
at such gatherings as those of the Royal Society Club. After eloquent
talk he would eventually be unable to remain seated, but would start
up and march round the room, gesticulating and singing a verse of some
Scottish song, or one of his own patriotic ditties.
[Sidenote: SIR DOUGLAS MACLAGAN]
Besides the genial Blackie, the Senate of Edinburgh University,
when I was a member of it, contained some other less vociferous but
extremely clubbable professors. Two of them deserve special mention
here--Christison and Maclagan. Sir Robert Christison was excellent
company, with his ample fund of reminiscence and anecdote. At the
club-dinners Sir Douglas Maclagan never failed to regale us with one
of his inimitable songs. He had a good voice, and sang with much
expression and humour. His ‘Battle of Glen Tilt’ was a source of
endless pleasure to his friends, and he entered so thoroughly into the
spirit of it that one could almost see the scene between the duke and
his gillies on the one side, and the botany professor and his students
on the other. Some of the touches in that ditty are full of sly fun,
such, for example, as the description of the botanising:
Some folk’ll tak’ a heap o’ fash
For unco little en’, man;
An’ meikle time an’ meikle cash
For nocht ava’ they’ll spen’, man.
Thae chaps had come a hunder’ mile
For what was hardly worth their while;
’Twas a’ to poo
Some gerse that grew
On Ben M‘Dhu
That ne’er a coo
Would care to pit her mouth till.
On rare occasions Christison and Maclagan sang a humorous duet in the
most dolorous tones, acting the character of two distressed seamen
begging on the street. It was comical beyond description.
Another of the luminaries in the Edinburgh University was Lyon
Playfair, professor of chemistry, who, after quitting his chair and
entering parliament, devoted himself mainly to politics, and was
finally raised to the peerage. He too was a true Scot, though most
of his life was passed in England. He enjoyed and could tell a good
story, and relished it none the less if it bore against himself. In his
later years he used to pay a yearly visit to America, and from one of
these journeys he brought back the account of an experience he had met
with among the Rocky Mountains of Canada, and which he would tell with
great vivacity. He had halted at some station on the Canadian Pacific
Railway, and in the course of a stroll had made his way to the foot
of a heap of material that had been tumbled down from the mouth of a
mine. He was poking out some of the pieces of stone with his stick,
when a voice saluted him from the top of the bank, and the following
conversation ensued:
[Sidenote: CHALMERS AND THE DENTIST]
‘Hey! what are ye daein’ there?’
‘I am looking at some of these bits of stone.’
‘But there’s nae allooance here.’
‘Is there not? I think you must be a Scotsman like me.’
‘Ay! man, and are ye frae Scotland? And what’s your name?’
‘My name is Playfair.’
‘Maybe ye’ll be Lyon.’
‘Yes, that’s my name. How do you come to know it?’
‘Od, man, your name has travelt far faurer nor thae wee legs’ll ever
carry yoursell.’
[Sidenote: CHALMERS AND THE DENTIST]
When at the time of the Disruption the theological chairs were resigned
by the professors who seceded to the Free Church, the classes of the
new College which that church established in Edinburgh were held in
a house next door to a well-known dentist. Dr. Chalmers was one of
those who had left the University, and he had an enthusiastic body
of students in the new rooms. The applause with which they greeted
the Professor’s bursts of eloquence proved, however, rather trying to
the dentist and his patients, for the house partitions were none of
the thickest. The story is told that a polite note was sent to Dr.
Chalmers, asking whether it would be possible for him to moderate the
noise made by his pupils. Next day the doctor, before beginning his
lecture, explained the circumstances to his class, and begged them
to remain quiet, ‘for,’ he added, ‘you must bear in mind that our
neighbour is very much in the mouth of the public.’
The late Professor Tait, so widely known and so affectionately
remembered, used to cite one of the answers he received in a
class-examination. The question asked was, ‘Define transparency,
translucency and opacity,’ and the following was the answer. ‘I am
sorry that I cannot give the precise definition of these terms. But
I think I understand their meaning, and I will illustrate it by an
example. The windows of this class-room were originally transparent;
they are at present translucent, but if not soon cleaned, they will
become opaque.’ The professor, in repeating this reply, laughingly said
that he had allowed the man full marks for it.
[Sidenote: OLD TYPE OF DOMINIE]
The Scottish schoolmaster of the old type is probably as extinct as
the parish school system under which he flourished. What with revised
codes, inspectors, examinations, grants in aid, Board of Education and
other machinery, the educational arrangements of Scotland have during
the last half-century been transformed to a remarkable degree. There
can be no doubt that on the whole, and especially in recent years, the
changes have been in the right direction. Nevertheless, we may regret
the disappearance of some of the characteristic features of the old
régime. The parish schools served to commingle the different classes
of the community, and there was a freedom left to the teachers which
gave them scope in their methods and range of subjects, and enabled
them to send up to the university numbers of clever and well-trained
scholars. Untrammelled by the fear of any school-board or Education
Department, the ‘dominie’ was left to develop his own individuality,
which, though it sometimes took the form of eccentricity, was in most
cases the natural outgrowth of a cultivated mind, and was a distinct
benefit to his pupils. In the delightful _Memories Grave and Gay_ of
Dr. Kerr, who has spent his active life in practically furthering the
cause of education in the country, an interesting account is given of
the process of transformation, together with many anecdotes of his
experience of country schools and country schoolmasters. To his ample
stores those interested in the subject should turn.
In the early days of examinations an inspector came to a school, and in
the course of the reading stopped to ask the class the meaning of the
word curfew in Gray’s line:
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
There was complete silence in the room. He tried to coax the boys on
to an answer, but without effect; until the teacher, losing patience
with them, exclaimed in vexation, ‘Stupit fules! d’ye no ken what’s a
_whaup_?’ whaup being _Scottice_ for _curlew_.
A clerical friend of mine was, many years ago, visiting a parish school
in Argyleshire where Gaelic was taught as well as English. He spoke to
them in Gaelic, and asked them to spell one of the words he had used.
They looked in blank amazement at him, and gave no reply. At last the
master, turning round deprecatingly to the clergyman, said, ‘Oich, sir,
there’s surely no spellin’ in Gaelic.’
A story is told in the north of Scotland of a certain school in which
a boy was reading in presence of an examiner, and on pronouncing the
word _bull_ as it is ordinarily sounded, was abruptly corrected by the
schoolmaster.
[Sidenote: A DOMINIE’S PRONUNCIATION]
‘John, I’ve told you before, that word is called _bull_’ (pronouncing
it like _skull_).
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the examiner, ‘I think you will find that the
boy has pronounced it correctly.’
‘O no, sir, we always call it _bull_ in this parish.’
‘But you must pardon me if I say that the boy’s pronunciation is the
usual one. Have you a pronouncing dictionary?’
‘Dictionary! O yes. Charlie, rin round to the house and fetch me the
big dictionary. Meantime, John, go on wi’ the reading.’ So John went
on with ‘bull,’ and Charlie brought the dictionary, which the master
turned up in triumph, ‘There, sir, is the word with the mark above the
_u_, and there are the words that it’s to be sounded like--put, push,
pull (pronouncing these all like but, brush, dull). And now, John, you
will go on wi’ _bull_.’
The questions put by the examiners are not always judicious. The
man who asked ‘If Alfred the Great were alive now, what part of our
political system would he be likely to take most interest in?’ need not
have been surprised to receive the answer, ‘Please sir, if Alfred the
Great were alive now, I think he’d be so old he wouldn’t take interest
in anything.’
The difference between the pronunciation of Latin on the two sides of
the Tweed used to give rise to curious confusion, whether we ‘gave
up Cicero to C or K.’ I remember a boy who had previously attended a
grammar school in Yorkshire and had come to the Edinburgh High School,
being called on to read the introductory lines of the first book of
Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_. He began pronouncing in the English way, ‘Ante
mare et tellus.’ ‘What, what do you say?’ interrupted Dr. Boyd, ‘Aunty
Mary,’ forsooth! ‘I suppose we shall have Uncle Robert next.’