institution, is now before us, and we feel assured that we could not present our readers with any thing more interesting than a history of its labours. We have no intention to argue, at this time of day, the advantages of diffusing education through the whole body of the people. It is alike necessary in our crowded ma- There is nothing of which Scotland is more justly nufacturing districts, where the suffocating crowd engen- proud than the education of her peasantry. There is no ders a moral rottenness, and in our lonely valleys, where brighter gem in that crown of glory which hangs suspended the absence of human conversation petrifies or brutifies over our national church, than her anxious care for the unithe heart. By awakening the intellectual powers, it, and versal diffusion of knowledge. But there is one part of it alone, raises man superior to his mere animal propen- our land to which the benefits of this motherly solicitude sities, and gives him the mastery over them. There is not had not been able to penetrate,-those mountain and a more glaring error in the long catalogue of prejudices island districts chiefly inhabited by the Celtic race. Not to which men cling with such desperate affection, than that that the necessities of this part of our population were unwhich would persuade us, an uneducated community can known, but that all endeavours to remove them had hibe virtuous. They have, it is true, the common affec- therto been fruitless. An attempt was made by the Ge tions of humanity, and find a pleasure in their exercise; neral Assembly, shortly after the Revolution, to secure but even in this gentler mood they are pettish, wayward, the education of a number of the native Gael competent and not to be depended upon; and let self once come in to act as ministers, but seems to have failed, for we hear the way, and their humanity quickly disappears. We no more of it. In 1704, the Commission of Assembly have now examined, sometimes with our own eyes, some- was appointed, and instructed to raise a fund by parotimes in books, most countries in Europe, and although chial and other contributions, with a view to increasing we have found crime fostered and exaggerated by favour- the means of education in the Highlands. After five ing circumstances, yet, amid all the anomalies of human years of fruitless attempts, the Assembly directed such society, we have found one principle always hold-the sums as had been collected, to be transferred to the Solower a community in the scale of intelligence, the lower ciety for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, at it likewise stands in moral worth. Two very striking that time recently established by a few private individuals, instances occur to us at this moment. The one belongs and erected into a corporation by a charter from Queen to our own country. The mining district of Leadhills, Anne. The society immediately applied these sums to on the borders of Clydesdale and Dumfries-shire, was the very object contemplated by the Assembly. Since noted about the commencement of the eighteenth cen- 1725, a sum has been annually allowed by government tury for being inhabited by the most lawless and brutal for the support of missionaries and catechists in the race in the south of Scotland. A Mr Goldie (of the Highlands and Islands, and administered by a Commitsame family, we believe, into which the lady married who tee of the Assembly. In addition to these provisions, furnished Sir Walter Scott with the first hint of his Jeanie there were the regular parish schools; and at a later date, Deans) was appointed superintendent of the lead mines those instituted by the Gaelic School Society, which, there, and conceived the idea of instituting a free school. however, confined themselves to elementary instruction The effects soon showed themselves. Since that time in reading Gaelic. With all these aids, however, the proLeadhills, although situated in an almost inaccessible part visions for education in the Highlands were extremely of the country, and affording what has ever been esteemed insufficient. It appeared from the returns obtained by one of the greatest encouragements to crime, a facility of Principal Baird in 1825, "that in the six synods of Arescaping into a neighbouring jurisdiction, has given even gyle, Glenelg, Ross, Sutherland and Caithness, Orkney, less trouble to the county police than any of its neigh- and Shetland, containing 143 parishes, and a population bours. Our second instance is taken from an official re- of 377,730 persons, no less than 250 additional schools, port published in the Moniteur, concerning the adminis- and 130 catechists, were urgently called for." tration of justice in criminal matters for France in 1828. Dr Baird's attention was first directed to the state of According to this document, out of every hundred per- our Highland population while acting as convener to a sons accused of criminal acts, on an average only forty Committee of the General Assembly, nominated to revise were found to have received even the slightest degree of and transmit to the several parishes the queries issued by instruction, whilst the other three-fifths were uniformly the Commission of Parliament appointed in 1818, to enfound in a state of the most complete ignorance. A si- quire into the existing state of education throughout the milar proportion holds among those who were acquitted. United Kingdom. Struck by the picture which these Among such as could neither read nor write, the propor- returns presented of the destitute condition of our Hightion of acquittals was thirty-seven in the hundred; among land districts, he persuaded, in 1824, the Presbytery of were justly deemed to have the more immediate claims on their attention. The Committee at the same time corresponded with the heritors, from whom they solicited the accommodations required: for the convenience of the schoolmasters. These consisted of-1st. A school-house; 2d. A dwell Edinburgh to overture the ensuing Assembly on the subject. Not contented with this, he stirred up several other Presbyteries and Synods with which he corresponded, to follow the example thus set them. And finally, in order to create a popular inclination to the proposed measure, he prepared, a few weeks before the meeting of the Assembly, an abstract of the returns, so far as they illustra-ing-house, containing two apartments at least; 3d. A garted the more striking deficiencies in education and religious knowledge throughout the Highlands and Islands. This abstract was printed and circulated largely among the Members of Assembly during the first days of the Session. These industrious preparations, seconded by a host of talent in the Assembly, were successful. A committee was appointed to digest a plan for the promotion of education in such districts as should be found most to stand in need of assistance; and also, to ascertain what degree of co-operation might be expected from heritors and other inhabitants of the country on the one hand, and from government on the other. den; 4th. Fuel; 5th. Grass for the summer and winter maintenance of a cow. They were encouraged to demand so much, by the success which had attended similar applications on the part of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. It had been found, too, that the heritors, who had thus contributed in behalf of the Society's schools, were led to take a warmer interest in their welfare. And it has since appeared, that the provision of such accommodations has the effect of increasing the respect paid to the schoolmaster by the peasantry. The Committee next set itself to prepare a set of elementary school-books in the Gaelic language. These are four in number, and are sold for 1s. 2d. The set of English school-books which was afterwards added costs 2s. 4d. Thus a scholar is enabled to procure, for 3s. 6d., all the books which he requires, from the time he commences the alphabet, till he finishes his course of elementary instruction. It is not to be thought that the Committee set about these operations exactly in the order here stated, or that only one of them occupied their attention at one time. We have merely mentioned their occupations thus system The first meeting of the Committee was held in the month of June, 1824. The first step taken was to devolve the active management of the business intrusted to them on a Sub-committee, consisting of a select few of their number. This was wisely done,-for, though the many may deliberate, it is only the few who can execute. This Sub-committee has been continued upon the successive re-appointments of its constituent, and has hitherto acted as the sole executive. Those gentlemen who have deserved so well of the Highlands ought to be held in memory, and what little we can contribute to that de-atically and apart, in order to give the reader a clearer sirable end, shall not be wanting. The Sub-committee consists of the Rev. Principal Baird; Dr David Dickson, Dr Andrew Thomson, Dr John Lee; and John Tawse, Robert Paul, James M'Innes, and Robert Roy, Esquires. To these we may add the name of Mr Gordon, the indefatigable and intelligent secretary of the Committee. notion of what they effected. They were likewise busied, during that year, examining candidates for employment as teachers; framing regulations for the management of their schools; and devising a form of commission for their schoolmasters. But, above all, they were busy recommending and encouraging parochial collections in the churches and chapels of ease of the establishment, and soliciting general subscriptions from other sources. In stirring up the public mind, they were spurring a willing They were enabled to report to the General Assembly, in 1826, that a fund had been realized, amounting to £5488-chiefly derived from parochial collections —although not one-half of the parishes of Scotland had at that date found it convenient to contribute. They announced to the Assembly, at the same time, that they had, after due enquiry, selected forty stations for schools, in different districts, throughout the Highlands and Islands, where heritors had engaged to supply the requisite accommodations; and that they had already two schools in actual operation. The first of the Assembly's schools was established at Ullapool in the month of October, 1825. The Committee commenced its operations by preparing a set of queries, which were transmitted early in the summer to every clergyman in Scotland. The informa-horse. tion sought was, in what districts the provisions for the education of the community were most deficient; and also," how far heritors and other parishioners, forming the respectable and elevated classes, might be disposed to concur in supporting the proposed undertaking, upon a free charitable contribution, that should preserve it independent of any aid from government, like other institutions of a similar nature in Scotland." The returns to these queries established a fearfully low state of educational provisions in the Highlands and Islands; but at the same time, the existence of an ardent desire of knowledge on the part of the population, a liberal willingness on the part of the heritors to lend their assistance, and a In 1827, the Committee communicated to the Assemfair hope that, for the present at least, any aid from go-bly the gratifying intelligence, that L.2151 had been addvernment might be dispensed with. The Assembly, upon receiving, in 1825, the Committee's report of these circumstances, authorised them to ascertain the practicability of the plan they had recommended. The committee now corresponded extensively with the Highland clergymen respecting the most suitable stations for schools. By these gentlemen two sorts of exigencies were submitted to their notice. In the one case, owing to the want of any school whatever, the population of whole districts were unable to read or write. In the other, the common branches had been taught more generally; but the desire of the people, seconded by the recommendation of the heritors and ministers, was, that tuition in Latin, geography, and practical mathematics, should also be afforded to such as wished it. In both cases the Committee recognised the propriety of these suggestions, remembering (to use their own words)" the generous views entertained, centuries ago, by the legislature of this country, when, even at a less enlightened period, it enjoined the means of a classical education to be provided at every parish school." Those districts, however, which stood in the first case, ed to their fund during the preceding year; that thirtyfive schools had been placed under the management of well-qualified teachers; and that eighty-six stations had been selected for the purpose of planting schools, as soon as accommodations should be provided. The Committee had by this time found themselves in a situation to turn their attention to those districts which were possessed of elementary schools, but were too poor to support a teacher of the higher branches of education, although the public mind was sufficiently advanced to be aware of their importance. The plan was adopted of offering to teachers qualified in the higher branches a salary exceeding by a trifle what was offered to mere elementary teachers; and on such terms a number of well-qualified individuals was soon obtained. The receipts of the Committee in 1827-8 amounted to somewhat more than L. 1600. The number of schools in active operation at the close of this year was not fewer than seventy. The receipts from May, 1828, to May, 1829, somewhat exceeded L.2700. After all the expenses incurred during the year had been paid off, there remained |