Denunciation has always been a favourite method of the religious bigot. If the various sects of the Christian Church, could go on their way, ameliorating the world, and leaving each other in peace, the millennium would be within reasonable distance. I heard a U.F. say to a Wee Free: "Donald, you'll no' gang to Heaven, because I'm bad." The sentence is good enough for an epigram. Unfortunately, too many of our sectaries think it the prime virtue of their faith to run down their neighbours.

GROWING POPULARITY OF RUSKIN.

One of the most cheerful features in the present-day thought of Scotland, and one from which we may anticipate excellent results in every department of social and religious life, is the growing popularity of the great apostle of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin. Though dead, he continues to speak; and from close inspection of the registers that show in detail the nature of the books asked for, at the various village libraries, I have noted, with no small pleasure, that Ruskin's works are eagerly read all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland. This is something quite new, and will, I am certain, work immense good.

For Ruskin's work in the department of religion, no words can be too commendatory. His genius was in thorough accord with the spirit of the Biblical writers, and his modes of speech and illustration perpetually reminiscent of Scripture. He loses no opportunity of dwelling on the culturing influence of the Bible. There is also a fine tolerance in his religious teaching, which is alike helpful and suggestive. His is that variety of teaching which we find most effectively outside of the ranks of professional commentators, and which comes through the keen flashes of genius that accompany the insight of the literary artist. He has pointed out to us with great eloquence that, while specific doctrines take at various epochs very different degrees of importance, and aspects of rite, ceremony, and all that, appeal with changing force to different generations, the essence of religious feeling, without which dogma becomes harsh and rite insipid, hardly varies at all; seeing that in the musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct spirit in which to approach ancient as well as modern religion, believing that if a reader cannot understand a spiritual agency, or thinks that the best of ancient men were not dominated by any such, the understanding of the very alphabet of history will be endangered. It would tend greatly to salvation from arid formalism, if ministers would teach that Plato, Sophocles, Browning, Carlyle, are all apostles of religion. A living word from an intuitionist like the last-named not unfrequently vivifies with new force the dark sayings of a Hebrew seer, in much more direct fashion than half-a-score of mutilated Pentateuchs made in the delirium of the Higher Criticism.

In spite of his unsystematic procedure, Ruskin deserves to be numbered among the men who have earned the gratitude of their fellows, by translating some of the ever-vital aspects of religion into the vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases. Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are not mere symbols of definite connotation, but marvellous centres of emotional force. Happily he did not seek to elaborate any system of religion: but now here, now there, in his books, one comes upon the pure gold of religion, enshrined in exquisite jewelries of diction, which glimmer on (if I may say so) to the utmost verge of emotion, and more successfully than any formal harangue, work out their intended function. Such works as Unto this Last and Munera Pulveris, however keen the mental antagonism they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much with defiance as with guidance.



CHAPTER IV.

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 L2,000, 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, Circe, 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 Napaeae 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 caesural 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.



CHAPTER V.

A TRIP TO SHETLAND.

Aberdeen—En route—Lerwick—Past and present saints—Some notes on the islands—A Shetland poet—A visit to Bressay—From Lerwick to Sandwick—Quarff—"That holy man, Noah"—Fladibister—Cunningsburgh—"Keeping off"—The indignant elder—Torquil Halcrow—Philology—A Sandwick gentleman—Local tales—Foulah and Fair Isle—The fishing season.

ABERDEEN.

The most expeditious and comfortable way of getting to Shetland is by way of Aberdeen.

I have passed through the city of Bon Accord about six times during the last twelvemonth, and like it better the more I see of it. It is one of the stateliest towns in Britain, and its main street, spacious, airy, and symmetrical, is hard to match. The architectural taste of the new University Buildings is perfect, and will be more striking still to the casual visitor, when the unsightly buildings all round have been torn down. It would be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town.

The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that Aberdeen was a blythe place:

"Blythe Aberdeen thou beryl of all tounis, Thou lamp of beauty, bounty and blitheness."

I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the cause of poetry in others.[25] A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as

"Beaming benignant o'er the northern main."

As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house told me was made in Germany (meaning thereby that the wind was blowing from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for Lerwick, in writing a Sonnet to Mr. William Watson. In such exercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular:

Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter, And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink, Ampler than any of thy readers think, In blotting that wherein the first quick stir Of thought and genius made the language err. If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blink Of saving humour for her crambo-clink, Then never-dying fame had fallen to her. Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed On thee of what is tunefullest and best: The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode, The witching freshness of a Prince's Quest, The soft romance that dreams of years gone by, Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady.

[25] A recent publication shows that Greek verse is well written at the University. Paisley folk should know that an Aberdonian Hellenist has put some of Tannahill's verses into Greek.

EN ROUTE.

The little steamer that plies between Aberdeen and Lerwick is timed to leave the former port at 11.30 a.m., or as soon afterwards as the tide will permit. Often the boat does not leave for some hours after 11.30 a.m., the tide not being always to blame. What a capacity the boat has for empty barrels! I counted six heaped lorry-loads of them that were rolled on board, destined, later on, to be filled with herring up north among the islands.

It is extremely interesting (see Virgil III., 690) to stand in calm weather on the deck of a moving vessel and talk about the notable places on the coast with one who knows them well. Much information of a varied and piquant kind may thus be acquired. The Aberdeenshire coast is rather unpicturesque, but many historical legends linger airily on the stern old ruins that are passed from time to time. I omit mention of these, preferring to tell an anecdote of recent years that is associated with the immense rocky sea-caverns, of world-wide fame, not far from Cruden Bay. During the Boer War, some Scotch journalists, strong in the science of genealogy, undertook to prove that all the generals at the front had Scotch blood in their veins. It seems that these patriotic penmen succeeded quite easily in making their contention good with respect to all the generals save one. No Scotch lineage could be found for General Buller. The difficulty was at last surmounted by the felicitous conjecture that he was one of the famous Bullers of Buchan!

About eight miles past Cruden Bay is Peterhead, the most easterly town in Britain. Great efforts are being made at present to boom this place as a health resort. I have heard it said that "printers who die at 30 of consumption elsewhere, weigh 21 stone at over threescore in Peterhead," also that "centenarians there have been known to get up at 5.30 a.m., to chop wood, no chill or bacillus daring to make them afraid." The Home Office has long thought highly of Peterhead as a place of permanent retreat for those afflicted with ethical infirmities.

After Peterhead is left behind, the steamer soon gets entirely away from land. All night long she battles through the surges, passes about 2 a.m. the lonely Fair Isle, encompassed by the rushing roost, and two hours later Sumburgh Head is visible. The approach to Bressay, especially if the rocks and precipices are half seen through driving haze, is suggestive, to a student, of the landscape of "Beowulf," with its windy walls, shadow-helms, broad nesses, and glimmering sea-cliffs.

As seen from the sea, Lerwick looks trim and picturesque, but when the visitor lands, he is apt to lose his bearings among its tortuous lanes. I followed a porter who was tottering under the weight of trunks, and asked him, as we treaded a flag-paved vennel: "Is it far to the main street?" He grimly replied: "This is the main street, sir." The response unnerved me, shaky as I was with seventeen hours' tossing on the North Sea. Once in the hotel, my spirits rose. A most welcome and savoury breakfast—consumed near an open window commanding a view over a sun-lit sound—is well able to hearten the most downcast.

LERWICK.

The town of Lerwick is indeed one of the finest of our island capitals, and is constantly becoming finer. No visitor can fail to be impressed by its unique natural harbour, gloriously screened by the God-given shelter of the island of Bressay. Commercial Street, which runs along the water's edge, is at the foot of a hill, and is so narrow in parts that two vehicles can hardly get past each other. If I stayed in Lerwick, I should not like to have any resident enemies, for it would be difficult to keep from brushing clothes with them in the main street. Up from this main street to the newer town, on a plateau at the top, run numerous quaint wynds, sinuous, and not always well-scavenged. This new and well-built part contains the far-seen and notable Town Hall, the architecture of which would have pleased Ruskin, especially as its fine windows are all appositely illustrative of Shetlandic annals. By climbing the dusty clock-tower, one has a splendid view of all surrounding slopes and seas.

Here is a hint to prospective tourists. Take to the left when you quit the hall, get down the lane leading to the sea-crags, and walk for two miles in the direction of the rifle-range. It is a glorious and solitary walk—not altogether solitary, for the sea is invariably good company. Don't be so foolish as to keep on your hat: off with it, and let the air-borne sea-spume wet your brow. It is also a good thing to recite Byron's vigorous "Address to the Ocean,"—the odd cows you may pass will not stop their grazing for that. There is no finer air in King Edward's dominions than that which blows in this region, for the hill air meets the sea air that has come all the way from Norway, and the two coalesce to give the rapt pedestrian a mouthful of exhilarating ether. One who is really a poet and not merely a casual sonneteer, should try to get a site for his tent on this particular shore, and retire to compose an epoch-making epic. The mediaeval saints knew what they were doing when they retired to little nooks and isles along this coast to pray and meditate undisturbed: it is much easier to feel devout in a fresh atmosphere, than in the squalor of a town.

PAST AND PRESENT SAINTS.

What indeed astonishes the visitor to these northern isles is the immense number of ecclesiastical ruins. The Christian missionaries seem speedily to have translated their enthusiasm into stone and lime. What hymns were chanted and what sermons preached up there in bygone times, passes the wit of man to reckon! It is a far cry from Palestine to the Shetland creeks and voes, but the voice of the lowly Nazarene effectually reached the Celts and Norsemen of these treeless storm-lashed isles.

Many of the smaller islands have the appellation papa, which indicates, as I hinted above, that some monk or hermit, withdrawing from the world to pray and meditate, has bequeathed a whiff of sanctity to headland and skerry.

"The hermit good lives in the wood," says Coleridge, but for the Shetland papa there was no nemorum murmur:—

No sun-illumined leafage met his eye Raised from perusal of the Holy Word, No murmur of the woodland zephyr-stirred Blended with his devotions sped on high, Only the chiding of the billows nigh. The clangour of the wheeling ocean-bird, Or soul-astounding shriek of storm-fiend heard From the dun cloud-battalions hurrying by, Greeted his ear: yet piously through all His life the austere anchorite remained, On his lone island, buffeted by squall And sea, and faithful unto death obtained The promised guerdon that the Lord bestows Upon the pure in heart, and only those.

It has been asserted by those who have means of knowing, that the days of theological rigidity are past and gone in the Shetlands. Thing unheard of in the Hebrides—the shops are open on Sunday mornings for the sale of Saturday's Scotsman and Herald. In some parts of Scotland you could not hire a trap for a Sunday drive; in others, you might manage, by salving the driver's conscience with a double fare. In Shetland the tariff is the same for the first and the last days of the week. To explain the ecclesiastical differences between the islands of the North and the West would require a philosopher with all Buckle's shrewdness and ingenuity. Buckle accounted for the sombre nature of Scotch theology by dwelling on the awe-inspiring reverberations of thunder among the Highland peaks. The easy-going creed of the Shetlands might perhaps be accounted for by a reference to the happy-go-lucky way in which the sea wanders at will among the confusion of peninsulas, islets, and skerries. Any theory is better than none at all, and geopsychical explanations are fashionable at present.

The pulpit stars twinkle with great lustre in these boreal regions. A country minister, with no preparatory groans, but sharp and trippingly thus began his homily some Sundays ago: "It is now thirty-five years since the Lord sent me to labour in this part of his vineyard, if vineyard I may call it, where no grape was ever seen. On a bright summer morning thirty-five years ago, I turned the corner of the road and came among you. Young women, your mothers were in the fields, busy with the work of the crofts. Your mothers were exceedingly fair to look upon, and I am happy to say, my dear young sisters, that, by the providence of God, the beauty of your mothers has lost nothing by being transmitted to your comely selves. And now for my text, which you will find in Ezekiel, chapter x and verse y."

SOME NOTES ON THE ISLANDS.

A century ago Shetland was almost an unknown land to the Lowlanders of Scotland. When a Shetland minister was deputed to attend the General Assembly, it might take him a year to get there and back. His journey was a very circuitous one: he had to go in a trading vessel to Hamburg, take boat from Hamburg to London, and from London proceed to Leith. To return from Edinburgh, the journey was performed the reverse way. Now that there is a regular service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and between Leith and several of the Shetland ports, the journey can be performed with comfort and expedition. Tourists flock North in the summer season to admire the scenery, catch the trout, and inhale the health-giving breezes.

The natives, being mainly of Norse descent, look with a kindly eye over the water in the direction of Bergen. They do not love Scotland, and they have their reasons. When the Shetlands were handed over to the Scotch kings, numbers of needy adventurers, armed with cheaply-got charters, swooped down on the islands and dispossessed the native proprietors. This has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Mr. Russell, who lived for three years among them, says:—"They believe that the present lairds are interlopers, and that they themselves have been defrauded and despoiled. They speak of these things only among themselves, and not openly; but those who have been in the country, and have gained their confidence, know that there is a strong undercurrent of feeling against Scotland and Scotsmen.... They conceive that they have a claim even as things are, to dwell on the land, and that a proprietor has no right to remove them from his estate." I was dreadfully shocked to notice that in a volume of tales published by a Lerwick author only four years ago, the leading villain was from the mainland. "Scotland is nothing to us," said a Shetlander to an inspector of schools. "What has Scotland ever done for us except send us greedy ministers and dear meal?"

In the old days, when communication with the mainland was uncertain and fitful, the luxuries of civilised life were quite unknown. In one outlying district a box of oranges was washed ashore from a wreck: these the natives boiled, under the impression that the orange was a novel kind of potato. A cask of treacle, come by in a similar way, was used like tar to daub the bottom of a smack. By and by a cow was seen to lick the boat with evident relish, and this opened the eyes of the natives to the real nature of the substance. Nowadays the natives are well in line with modern civilisation, one of the most convincing proofs being that they buy drugs and patent medicines of every kind. One has only to scan the advertisement pages of the Shetland newspapers to note the persistent way in which quacks of all shades bring their nostrums before the notice of the islanders. Dyspepsia and rheumatism are the commonest ailments; and to combat these, myriads of pills and numberless elixirs are annually swallowed. Faith does a lot even when the drugs of a legitimate practitioner are concerned: the fact that you have swallowed something with a bitter taste is often a distinct aid to recovery. Mr. Russell, whom I referred to above, says: "To my surprise, I learned that some who were in extreme poverty, and had hardly enough food to eat, were in the habit of sending South for pills and patent medicines."

A SHETLAND POET.

Long before I ever thought of visiting Shetland, I was acquainted with the dialect spoken there, through having studied a most interesting little book of poems called Rasmie's Buedie, published in Paisley. The author of this book is Mr. Haldane Burgess, a very prolific and able writer, but unfortunately afflicted with blindness. During my short stay in Lerwick, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon him, and I was intensely delighted with my reception. When the sense of sight is lost, that of touch becomes inordinately keen: Mr. Burgess has accordingly excellent control over his type-writer, and can compose as nimbly as in the days when his eyesight was unimpaired. He spoke of his most recent novel, The Treasure of Don Andreas, and expressed himself as highly pleased at the criticism passed upon it by a reviewer in the Athenaeum. Mr. Burgess begins composition every morning at seven, and regulates his life with military precision. On all departments of Shetlandic history, folk-lore, and dialect, he discourses with great knowledge, fluency, and animation. But his interests in the general field of modern literature are extremely wide. He speaks the Norse language almost as easily as English, has studied Icelandic, and knows a good deal about the writers of modern France. Some friend had been reading Arnold's Literature and Dogma to him shortly before my visit. He was loud in praise of that book, the ironical insolence and pawky humour of which he had greatly enjoyed.

On parting from Mr. Burgess, I received from him a copy of his pleasant Shetlandic story Tang, a careful and illuminating study of island life and manners. The English style struck me as full, robust, and strongly tinged with poetical figures, and the character sketches drawn with the precision of intimate knowledge. All his prose works display great wealth of material, and much psychological insight. His most characteristic production, however, is his little book of poems mentioned above, Rasmie's Buedie. Rasmie is a Shetland crofter who is typical of the race: shrewd, kindly, thoughtful, and gifted with a touch of quaint sarcasm. He has perfectly clear views of life, this old peasant, and is quite free from cant, or superstition, or mystery. Some of his metaphors are droll: after long pondering on the scheme of creation, he comes to the conclusion that earth is the field, heaven the house, and hell the "midden." Pope, speaking of Paradise Lost, complains that—

"In quibbles angels and archangels join, And God the Father turns a school-divine."

What would the great Augustan have thought of verse in which God the Father is likened to a cosmic Crofter?

"Dis Universe is Gued's grit croft, It's His by richt, wis never koft Frae gritter laird And ne'er sall be, laek laand o Toft Wi' idder shared."

For those who have the patience to pierce through the husk of Rasmie's dialect, much amusement and delight is in store.

A VISIT TO BRESSAY.

If Charles Lamb and Herbert Spencer had been sent to Lerwick and Bressay to write a report on what they saw, I daresay the difference of their accounts would have astonished every reader. Lamb would probably have swilled porter in the Ultima Thule Refreshment Bar and written a most interesting account of Bressay without ever crossing the Sound. The ribs of a big uncouth Dutch boat, square, cumbrous, shell-fretted, and tilted up on the beach, would probably have bulked more in Lamb's narrative than the modern steam-trawlers that abound in these waters. His politico-economical reflections on the rise in price of peppermint lozenges, consequent on the annual arrival of the Dutch fishing crews would, I am sure, have furnished excellent reading. Spencer's report would have dealt, I fancy, with the rotation of crops, the cause of the different currents, the varieties of pigmentation (with percentages) among the islanders, and the evolution of fishing gear from its rudimentary forms—in sum with the definite combination of heterogeneous changes both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences. No two out of a hundred visitors see the same things, a fact which may help to prove Bishop Berkeley's theory that the universe is subjective entirely.

I went over to Bressay with a genial and erudite clergyman to visit the schoolhouse and inspect the ruins of an eighth century church. Three Shetland women rowed us over the Sound and handled the oars splendidly. The minister, a plump, jolly be-spectacled gentleman, who has not "perpetrated matrimony," declared with a sigh that he was an unprotected male, and on our arrival at the Bressay beach, he called aloud to the oarswomen to lift him out of the boat. These muscular dames shrieked with laughter and proceeded to unship their oars as if to buffet him: he, thereupon, leaped lightly enough on the strand and, turning round, would have improved the occasion by a word in season had not the tittering Nereids begun to splash him as he stood on the shingle.

Innumerable sheep pasture on the Bressay slopes, and on the sky-line of some of the hills one can discern companies of rollicking Shetland ponies. My friend, the minister, who is writing a book on Darwin, got into conversation with Mr. Manson, the Bressay pony-breeder. The latter spoke thus about his tiny steeds: "Pony-breeding is a more puzzling business than anything else in God's universe. The parents, grandparents, and great grandparents of a given pony have all been perfect in every point. Good! You naturally expect that a pony with such exceptionable ancestry will itself be without a flaw. But is it? No, often it is not. Too frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made a note of this fact within the book and volume of his brain: it may be useful in the pulpit, and I expect to see it in print when he publishes his book on Darwin.

The eighth century church was at last reached. It is about three miles from the landing-place and quite near the water. Every point was most lucidly explained by my ecclesiastical guide. To the outer eye the place consisted of some low, ruined walls enclosing various species of rank, wet grass. Such remains of olden piety are provocative of gloomy reverie, which the rushing of the inconstant tide close by only serves to deepen. Immediately after the Crucifixion and long before this church was reared by saintly hands, the little Christian communities thought the kingdom of God would shortly be established and all sin and suffering be banished from the world. But the apostles died, and so successively have

"Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte, The incense-swinging child"—

the bishop, the church-builder, and the patriot in all those generations, and the kingdom of God is not with us yet, seems, indeed, to be as far off as ever. When the world has been at peace for a while and the millennium seems imminent, all of a sudden a perverse, stiff-necked, wall-eyed generation supervenes, and evolution gives way to deterioration!

Lightly bounding down the ages, my companion turned my thoughts from unrealised dreams of religion to those of politics. Along these waters that cast their spray on the ancient ruin, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Queen Mary, fled in hot haste, with a pursuing squadron at his heels, in the year 1567. Kirkaldy of Grange entered the Sound of Bressay as Bothwell was leaving by the northern exit.

Our walk lasted about four hours, and ended up in the school-house, where the teacher's hospitable dame regaled us to a welcome and excellent cup of tea. It did us good after the strain of so many reminiscences. The teacher is a hearty and sociable gentleman, who loves his books and his fireside. On the fine Saturdays, friends ferry across from Lerwick for a round of golf with him over the Bressay links. The fine library, recently sent from Paisley, furnishes a pleasant variety of reading both for himself and his pupils. On my remarking that, as chairman at the lecture next evening, he need not speak more than thirty minutes, he replied, with visible emotion, that he would concentrate his remarks into a space of thirty seconds.

We got back to Lerwick in a lugsail that was full of passengers, potatoes, and milk-cans. There was a good deal of loud, elementary chaff during the twenty minutes' crossing. An old, wrinked, peat-smoked dame gave us much good advice and (better still) a sprig of white heather apiece. I found by subsequent experience that the trip is not always so amusing. Next evening a boatman pulled us over, and it was stiff work for him, as the Sound was lumpy and the wind contrary. Coming back, he hoisted his sail, and we careered over in rollicking style. I was a little scared at the swift-rushing currents and the switchback motion of the boat. Overhead were moon, stars, and flying clouds; the hulls of big steamers loomed like phantoms on the surface of the Sound; on the hill opposite twinkled the ever-nearing light of Lerwick.

Bressay, I may add, has a nice little hall, with all items of modern convenience, including ventilation. The building is used for every legitimate purpose, from worship to weel-timed daffin'.

FROM LERWICK TO SANDWICK.

I have a vivid recollection of a day's drive from Lerwick to Sandwick, down the long, narrow peninsula that terminates in Sumburgh head. I was accompanied by the reverend gentleman already alluded to in connection with Bressay.

It is a common saying in the isles that Shakespeare had his eye on the soil of Shetland when he pronounced the famous line:

"'Tis true, 'tis peaty, 'tis peaty 'tis, 'tis true."

On all sides in the country you see acre after acre of bog, dripping with moisture and exuding black runnels whenever the spade of the peat-cutter begins to slice its fibrous bulk. Should a wayfarer leave the road by mishap after nightfall, he would soon be plunging in the treacherous morasses. It is well for him to have a lantern swinging at his girdle when the sun has gone down.

Such are the reflections suggested by a view of the country between Lerwick and the little clachan of Quarff.

QUARFF.

Quarff is the headquarters of a minister who is said to be the only extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This gentleman spent long years in the little islets called Skerries, and, like a miniature Augustine or Columba, claims to have been the first to preach the sublime truths of Christianity on these limestone formations.

Though blind, he enjoys his pipe, and I had a smoke with him at the fireside. Between the puffs, he indulged in a furious onslaught on the Lord Chancellor and the Wee Frees. Lord Halsbury he considered a poor, benighted creature, who didn't know the difference between a Trades Union and a body of Christians. "If he ever comes to Shetland," said the minister, "he had better bring his woolsack with him, for I won't let him down soft!" After Lord Halsbury had been adequately trounced, the talk turned on notable things that had happened in the district within the last decade or two. One of the tales (which was very divertingly told) had to do with the trite subject of intemperance, but as it contains one or two novel touches, I here briefly rehearse it.

An elder of the place, who, with his trap, had come to grief one market night on the way back from Lerwick, told his session a strange tale to account for the catastrophe. "When I got to Lerwick in the forenoon, I said to the driver: 'Young man, if I mistake not, you have had no tip from me for a long time.' 'That's very true, sir,' said he. 'Well,' said I, 'there's half-a-crown; go and spend it judiciously.' During the day I transacted business with various friends, omitting none of the usual rites. About five o'clock my driver returned, and harnessed the horse for the return journey. At first I thought he had brought his brother with him, but, on rubbing my eyes, I found it was an optical delusion. As I watched him narrowly, I saw the outlines of a bottle bulging out from his buttoned coat, and distinctly heard, as he moved to and fro, the gurgling sound of liquid in agitation. He was smiling in self-approval, and when I reproved him for his slowness, he quoted Habakkuk v. 5, 'Hurry no man's cattle,' adding that his authority was the Revised Version. As we went rattling along the road, his tricks were fantastic in the extreme. At a point about two miles from Lerwick, I saw, a little in front of us, a tall individual enveloped in a long waterproof, of which the collar was turned up to cover his ears. The eyes of this person glowed like live coal as he peremptorily demanded a lift. Not waiting for permission, he, with a sudden spring, vaulted on the trap and squeezed himself between the driver and myself. The air grew hot and close. The driver became ten times friskier than before. I determined to unmask the unceremonious stranger, and, putting down my hand, grasped him by the foot. He had no boots on, and what I seized was a cloven hoof. I asked him there and then if he was Beelzebub. 'I am,' said he, 'and clever and all as you are, it will take all your talents to slip out of my clutches this night.' At this point there is a blank in my souvenirs. I only remember sparks flying and the sensation of falling down from my seat on to a steep embankment. On recovering consciousness, I found myself lying on a crofter's bed, with aching limbs. I told him the story of my escape, and he said, after hearing it: 'We live in troublous times, John, and the Arch-deceiver seems to be off the chain. Watch and pray, or you may fall further next time.'"