injunction in 1709, that in every parish in Scotland the minister and elders should perambulate the parish to solicit the contributions of the people, a sum not largely exceeding £1000 was provided. The money was handed over to the Society, which now, on this modest nest-egg in name of capital, began its blessed and beneficent work. The Society was not what we would now call a scheme of the Church. Church schemes and Church committees were, in truth, the outcome of the Church's wider experience and later emergencies. But the Society was, from its origin, most intimately associated with the Church. Its members and directors were leading Churchmen; it began its work with the Church's free contributions, which were renewed from year to year for half-a-century, and at frequent intervals thereafter, down to recent times; and by its charter, its whole work, more especially its whole work in the Highlands and in Highland schools, was placed expressly under the supervision of the Church Courts, and made primarily subservient to strictly religious purposes. I need not tell you how splendidly did grow and prosper the work and the wealth of this the oldest of all our Scottish patriotic and charitable Christian Societies. In 1711 it had already "settled" a school in the lone islet of St Kilda, and it resolved to erect eleven "itinerating schools" in the places following:-Abertarff, Strathdon, Braes of Mar (2 schools), some one of several competing localities in Caithness, the same in Sutherland, the same in Skye, Glencoe, the South Isles of Orkney, the North Isles of Orkney, and in Zetland. In 1712 five of these schools were "settled;" in 1713 there were 12 schools; in 1715, 25; in 1718, 34. capital of the Society grew in equal step with the advancing number of its schools. Thus, in 1719, there were 48 schools and a capital of £8168, and by 1733 there were 111 schools, with a capital of £14,694.

The

In 1717 the Society reported to the General Assembly a fact which was eminently discreditable to the Highland landowners. In many parishes in which its schools were settled there was still no parish school, as by law provided; so that the heritors were using the charity of the Society to relieve them of a legal burden. For this reason the Society withdrew several of their schools, removing them to other localities, and the General Assembly renewed its injunctions to Presbyteries and Synods to see that every parish was provided with a parish school at the expense of the heritors, as by law required.

The Act George I. cap. 8, set aside for education in the Highlands, a capital sum of £20,000 out of the forfeited estates; but

not a shilling of that money ever reached the coffers of the Society, or was in any way applied to educational uses. It seems never to have got farther than the itching palms of parasites and Court favourites. The old minutes of the Society are justly indignant on this shameful grievance. Need we wonder if again the innocent paid for the sins of high-born evil doers. The Society withdrew every one of their schools on, or near, these forfeited estates! In 1753 the Society's capital had risen to £24,308, and its schools numbered 152. In 1755 it is reported to the General Assembly that no fewer than 175 parishes are still without the parish schools by law required of the heritors. No wonder that the Assembly does well to be angry, and peremptorily instructs the Procurator and Agent of the Church to bring the offending heritors into Court.

Of the missionary schoolmasters employed in the beneficent work of the Society, I shall name but two-Alex. Macdonald, Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, the foremost of our native Gaelic poets, and Dugald Buchanan of Rannoch, the prince of Gaelic hymnists. Than these two men, though in widely differing ways, and with widely different effects, there are few of our countrymen, in high or low estate, who ever exercised a larger influence over the Highland people. Macdonald's poems, the first original Gaelic work ever printed in Scotland, if not the inspiration of the people, have furnished an excellent model for the Gaelic poets who came after him. To him we owe the first attempt at the production of a Gaelic dictionary. To Buchanan and other pious men of like gifts and graces we owe, mainly through the funds and influence of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, almost everything that we possess in the way of Gaelic devotional literature. Nor should it be forgotten that Buchanan had also some share in the Society's greatest work--completed subsequently by the revered Stewarts of Killin and Luss, father and son-our Gaelic version of the Holy Scriptures. Thus, in various spheres of pious and patriotic labour, and through the agency of able and godly men, from generation to generation wisely chosen for its service, did the work and wealth of this venerable Society go on and prosper till, in 1872, the abstract of its scheme stood thus:-268 schools, male and female, costing annually £4162; 55 superannuated teachers and catechists, £456; 11 mission churches, £700. Its vested capital now touched £200,000.

Before leaving the purely historical aspects of my subject, I must be allowed to pay a tribute of warm admiration to the labours and research. in this connection, of your honorary secretary,.

Mr William Mackay. His unwearied zeal and fine historic instinct have turned to most fruitful account the many opportunities for such inquiry which his widespread and influential professional relations have opened up to him from time to time; and his papers in the Celtic Magazine will serve, not only as a rich granary of local historic lore, already winnowed and sifted, but they may very profitably be used as an index for yet farther research into your many sources of as yet unwritten history.

Like the statutory work of the parish schools in the Highlands, as ordered by Act of the Privy Council, the teaching in the Society schools had at first one blot and serious blemish--it ignored, and ignored of set deliberate purpose, the native tongue of the people. Gaelic was regarded as the fertile source of Highland Jacobitism and so-called Highland indolence. It was, therefore, to be rooted out at all cost. The whole work of the school was gone through in speech which, to most of the pupils, must have been less intelligible than dumb show. It is true that ere long this absurd and barbarous cure for so-called Highland barbarism was, to a great extent, abandoned or mitigated. But with the more pedantic and baser sort of Highland dominie the practice was much in vogue down to the time of my own school days. I well remember the first bit of high English which was regularly taught to new comers at my first school. It was an iron rule that, under certain stress of nature, we should thus address the supreme head of the school-"Please, Master, shall I get out?" If asked in Gaelic, come what might, no notice was taken of the agonised request. It must be spoken in English. You can fancy what happened, and happened often. The poor shy, selfconscious boy would long defer the awkward attempt to utter the sounds he could neither remember nor co-ordinate in proper sequence. But nature in such cases has a strong pull on a young fellow; and so the attempt must be made. Very slowly, and painfully embarrassed in more ways than one, wee kiltie edges his way up to the master's desk, pulls his forelock, and makes his doubly painful bow, "Pleasche, Meash-pleasch-h-h, Mheaschter-r Mo-v-v-v-MH-N. (Tableaux !) Another curse of this absurd practice, in the hands of an ignorant, pedantic teacher, was the utter hopelessness, on the part of really thoughtful boys, of the most earnest attempts at learning. I well remember one nice, bright boy, who was thus sat upon with crushing effect. He was kept for more than a year at the alphabet. All that time he was made the sport of the school. His shy attempts at English were mimicked and grossly caricatured. Hours were spent in making game of him,

for minutes given to any honest attempt to teach him.

To crown all, he was almost daily made to wear the fool's cap a huge erection of goatskin, with the hair outwards, and the tail hanging down behind. I liked the boy, and greatly pitied him. To this day my blood boils when I recall the cruel and grossly absurd teaching" of which he was the helpless victim.

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Sooner or later such sickly absurdities will work their own cure, or bring their antidote. Thus the lingering leaven of English teaching in Gaelic-speaking communities brought the cure and antidote of Gaelic schools. The origin of this valuable addition to the educative machinery of the Highlands dates from 1811. It was preceded, as long before in the case of the old Society, by a careful and far-reaching inquiry into the then existing educational destitution of the large Highland parishes. In Lochbroom parish, out of a population of 4000, "hardly 700 had the barest smattering of book-learning;" and even they could read only in English. Less than 20 "could read in Gaelic a chapter or a psalm." From Lochalsh the Rev. Mr Downie reports as follows:-There is a Society school, in which the practice is to first teach some elementary book in English, and after thus learning the sounds of the alphabet, or after making still greater progress in English, then to teach the reading of Gaelic-it is, of course, very rare to find any person who can read Gaelic without having first learned some English. This also is generally true of the whole Synod of Glenelg. Of those under 35, one in twenty on the mainland, and one in forty in the islands, can read the Gaelic Scriptures.-From North Uist, the Rev. Mr Macqueen reports a population of 4000; of them 200 could read the English Scriptures, and most of them also (the 200) the Gaelic Bible. "I never knew any who could read Gaelic alone, as the education of youth always, as far as I have seen, begins in English."

The Gaelic School Society never reached the large proportions, whether for work or for wealth, of its wealthy and much honoured predecessor. But it did good work in its day, and, school boards notwithstanding, it still finds some work to do. Its management, since 1843, has been almost exclusively in the hands of leading members of the Free Church, but it seeks diligently, if not very successfully, to gather its funds beside all waters.

The Education Scheme of the Church of Scotland will long be remembered as, perhaps, the largest and most successful of all the voluntary agencies which have been employed for the spread of knowledge and enlightenment among the Highland people. It dates no farther back than 1824, when the General Assembly

ordered a return of the existing educational necessities of the six Highland Synods. The result showed that no fewer than 258 new schools were urgently called for. The next step was to order church collections and gather subscriptions. Then was put in hand the preparation of a new series of school books, under the care of Dr Andrew Thomson of St George's. They were at once translated into Gaelic by Mr John Macdonald, the proof-reader of the Gaelic Bible of 1826, and afterwards minister of Comrie. For this series of books Dr Norman Macleod of St Columba's prepared also a Gaelic Collection, which was highly prized, and is now rarely met with. In 1826 a sum of £5488 was collected, and 40 stations for schools were fixed upon. In 1827 as many as 35 schools were already in operation; and 35 stations, subject to the erection of suitable buildings, were selected. The Convener of the Committee was the very Rev. Principal Baird, whose melting style of pulpit eloquence led to the joke among his friends, when he preached before the King, of "George Baird to George Rex, greeting." Dr Norman Macleod was also a very active member of the Committee, which thus reports (1826)-"Within the short period of two years they have collected a fund of £7639; they have carefully investigated the necessities of almost every Highland district, in respect of education and religious instruction; they have secured, by a correspondence with heritors, the provision of liberal and permanent accommodation for schools at 120 different stations; and already they have established 35 schools, and placed them under competent teachers."

It tells a

The Committee's report for 1829 is now before me. tale of widespread, earnest, fruitful work. In this, the fourth year only after its appointment, the Committee has already 85 schools with 7000 scholars. Of these some 3000 are learning to read Gaclic by the use of Gaelic schoolbooks, 6000 are learning to read English, over 3000 writing and arithmetic, 70 book-keeping, 120 Latin, 57 geography, and 76 mathematics.

There was at first a serious effort to induce aged people to attend the schools so as to learn to read the Scriptures in Gaelic; and in some districts the idea was taken up with enthusiasm. The movement was sometimes productive of unexpected results. I well remember an aged dairymaid who thus sought the instructions of the General Assembly schoolmasters. The school was fully two miles away, and the good woman had her work at home. time she visited the schoolmaster in the evening; and sometimes she came to me, then a very small boy, to help her with the arduous work of her little Gaelic school book. By and by the

For a