ESSAY ON THE PRESENT STATE OF EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND, 1819. THERE is a natural tendency in man to reason up from effects that are, to causes that are not seen; and the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," the "mere sequence," is, generally speaking, all that is considered as necessary to establish this connection. The farmer will seldom be difficulted to find out a cause for the rust in his grain; the gardener for the caterpillar, by which the fruits of his labour are so frequently destroyed; or the cornmerchant for a sudden rise or fall in market prices. This tendency to substitute guessing for science, assumption for fact, is still more prevalent, and certainly not less absurd, in instances where the causes assumed are more latent, or where the effect may be very plausibly referred to a combination of causes-in such instances, for example, as refer to the appearance of mankind, whether collectively or individually considered as explain, or, to speak more properly, profess to explain, peculiarities in national or individual character, It was but a few evenings ago, that we were very much amused by a teaparty conversation, which referred the present falling off in politeness of our modern Beaux to the introduc, tion of tea-urns; and we have heard of an Individual suspected of jacobitism, who roundly attributed the choaking up of the harbour at St Andrews to the accession of the Hanoverian Dynasty. It is not enough, that on such occasions our speculations be plausible, or, in other words, that, on a cursory view, the cause appear equal to the production of the consequences attributed to it-but we ought, in all fair and logical rea soning, to be able to prove an " alibi," of all other causes whatever, or to trace distinctly the bond of con. nection by which the two facts are united. In considering the present state of education in Scotland, in attempting to point out some of the causes to which that comparatively improved state is capable of being traced, as well as in suggested im, provements, or in implied censure, it is certainly our aim to proceed under the chastening and corrective influence of these considerations. That the great mass of the Scottish population are comparatively intelligent, and well informed, is not assu redly an unsubstantiated assumption, but an universally admitted fact. No stranger travels along our vallies, and over our mountains, without being struck with the aspect of intelligence and reflection which our peasantry in particular exhibit; and upon entering into their cottages, and examining more narrowly into their attainments; the number, and the description of the books, of which even the very poorest are, in general, possess ed, afford a pretty distinct presumption respecting the source whence this natural superiority originates. But how originates this taste for books, and this capacity of turning them to advantage? whence, in short, those intellectual and moral peculiarities which give distinctness, and freshness, and vigour to the national character? The relation which nature has established betwixt child and parent-that filial affection, upon which repose so softly and so securely the grey hairs and the wrinkled brow-those ties, which, in our own land, are found to be so sacred, and so strong; amongst our southern neighbours are far less powerfully felt. This with them, arises not from any original or constitutional deficiency in point of natural affection, but principally, we believe, out of that pernicious system of provision for the poor, which enables a child, whenever his parent is disinclined from, or incapable of working, to throw him entirely upon the churchwardens' care. Thus the desire of repaying, or of acknowledging parental kindness, on the part of the child, is greatly weakened, and the fire-side connection, the social and quiet hour of home-intercourse betwixt years and youth, betwixt the past and the immediately succeeding generation, is, in many instances, unknown. Poorhouses, and other charitable establishments for the reception of the aged and the indigent, come down, like extinguishers, upon the better feelings of the heart, debarring the grandchild, and the niece, and the nephew, from sharing the company, taking advantage of the experience, or clinging in childish fondness around the knees of age. In Scotland matters are happily, very differently managed. Here, it is no unusual thing to see a labourer struggling under a numerous family, and with no other sources of support than his own daily exertions, dividing his coarse and scanty fare among more mouths than can well be filled, and at the same time, reserving for his aged parent the "arm chair," and "the nourishing meal," the all of comfort in point of dress, or of personal ease, which his utmost efforts can procure. Nay, so strongly operative is this principle of filial affection in our yet comparatively unadulterated land, that many a poor widow woman, without any assistance from the parish, not only contrives by her own exertions singly, to rear and educate her fatherless children, but preserves at the same time a roof over, and a pillow under the head of a helpless parent. Nor are these proofs of affection, and of an independent spirit, limited even to the termination of life, for there is a provision of linen in the corner of almost every cottage chest, which has long been appropriated to the decent habiliment of the body, when the blood may no longer circulate, when the winter fire may not warm, nor the summer sun cherish it. So great is the disgrace which still (notwithstanding the impolitic measures which have been adopted in reference to the poor in the counties contiguous to England) very generally attaches to the idea of parish support-and so high is the spirit of independence even amongst those apparently the most necessitous, that it is no uncommon thing to see many contributing their mite at the plate on Sabbath, who have much more occasion to solicit aid, than to confer it, but who are anxious, under this outward seeming, to conceal from the eye of the neighbourhood their actual state of indigence. Now where can we find a more befitting cradle for our infancy, or school for our earlier years, than the roof we have endeavoured to describe, than the more stationary inmates of that home in which we are destined to live so long? The fact undoubtedly is, that in all countries "the every day companions of a child," are really schoolmasters and professors. It is from the lips, as it is on the knee of a Mother, that childhood is nursed, and instructed. It is amongst brothers and sisters that habits and propensities are liable, in boyhood, to be acquired. But it is more immediately under the eye of age-under the tuition of the Patriarch, or Matron, of the Aunt, or Grandsire, that, in Scotland in particular, a decided, and over-ruling bent is given to the character of children. When the father is employed in the field, and the mother is occupied with household arrangements when play, in all its variety of pursuit, has ceased to possess interest for our childhood; it is then that the "hoary-headed inmate" of our Scottish cottage becomes a load-stone to attract, a Chronicle to amuse, and a Philosopher to instruct and to discipline our inexperience. There are two ways in which the consequences of this arrangement, considered in reference to what we have termed "Education," are felt. --First, in contributing to the formation of the character, in giving a colour and tendency to the mind by oral addresses: Secondly, in putting boyhood, at a very early stage, in possession of what in England is often ⚫ never, and seldom thus attained-the -key of learning, the power of putting letters into syllables, and these again into words and sentences. Now let us attend to these two particulars in suċcession. The great majority of the inhabitants of Scotland are either Presbyterians, or they are termed Seceders-sects who, either on some comparatively trifling adjustment of form, or upon some of the more anciently contested doctrines of the church, have considered it as matter of conscience, to leave her. All these sects, however, concur with the mother-church in considering themselves as placed upon the basis of reformed religion, and recognize in their own, the doctrines of the early reformers. All these sects, likewise, unite with the Presbyterian church in considering the persecution to which, not merely on religious, but still more directly on civil grounds, their forefathers were subjected, as having been, in the highest degree oppressive. There is scarcely a family in Scotland (we speak of course of the lower orders, in particular,) where there is not yet some venerated Chronicle, who, under the appellation of aunt, or of grandfather, of uncle, or of grandmother, does not take great delight in recollecting and in communicating these stories of the "bloody times," the details of these years of persecution, when the most conscientious, and, under a limited government, the most truly loyal, were chased from their homes, and companioned with the foxes in their lives, and with the wicked in their death. We may assert, without risk of exaggeration, that more than two-thirds of those who have already arrived at the years of manhood in Scotland, have had their childhood seasoned in the way, and by the means we have mentioned, and are now experiencing the effects of this seasoning, in their sentiments and character. If it be desirable, therefore, in a national point of view, that a spirit of revulsion should be felt against all manner of > Twenty-eight years persecution, from the accession 1660, to the revolution 1688. despotism, if it be desirable that, along with this, there should be associated a kindly feeling for the Family which has been made the instrument of securing to us, and continuing us in the possession of those privileges for which our fathers paid so dearly, if it be a thing to be wished, that a notion of individual consequence should be instinctive in the bosom of every true Scotsman, and that a veneration for a national church should be associated most closely to a love of country, these objects are in a great measure insured by our Scottish Sires and Matrons. And whilst "national monuments": are erecting to those who have nobly defended the rights, or preserved the very existence of our country, it were not inconsistent with ancient, however incongruous it might appear to modern wisdom, to mark with some public testimony of respect, the services of those unobtrusive sages who have nursed and perpetuated our national character. But the happy effects of these religious prepossessions are not confined to civil considerations alone. We are allowed by strangers to be a religious and devotional people; and how much of this character is to be traced to the "home-education" of our boyhood, we leave to those who have compre hended the statement already made, to determine. A Scotsman, or rather a Scotch Peasant, is attached to his Bible, not only because it is the word of God, and the only sure ground of faith-not only because it was written by certain inspired men, and propagated originally at much expense of labour and of blood; but he is attached to it perhaps still more immediately and closely as the depository, or, more properly speaking, the defence of those doctrines which Calvin printed, Knox defended, and Boston latterly illustrated. The language of religion is literally his mother-tongue; and having imbibed reverence for her institutions with the first draughts of life, nothing short of the degrading influence of southern licentiousness, or the contagion of a manufacturing city, can ever overcome it. It is to him of inferior consequence, what catechism is authorised, or by whom it is taught, in the school, as the part of his education which preceded his class performances, has fixed in a great measure his creed, and determined the light under which Bible truth will afterwards appear to him. Scotland has been, at no very remote period, a pastoral country, a land of shepherds and shepherdesses-an Arcadian scene of loves and affections, fostered on the mountain, and expressed by the stream of the valley. She is, accordingly, not only possessed to this hour of a national, and most powerful and tender music, but has united, in many cases, melody, to words of the truest feeling-to words which have thrown an air of enchantment over cottage life, and have associated almost every "burn and glen, and knowe and brae," with some tender tale of courtship, or some sad catas. trophe of love. Although the names of those whose sense of tune seems to have been so exquisite, and whose simple, but eminently impassioned strains, have given body and immor, tality to our 66 national song," have, in many instances, perished amidst the darkness of the unrecorded past-although the shepherd poet, whose mo desty prevented him from transmit, ting, by means of his immortal verse, his own name to posterity, has, in the "lapse of ages, perished from the way" "quia caret vate sacro;" yet powerfully does he still continue to speak in the "ballet" and " tender ditty" of her who, to sooth and to gratify our childish desire, of entertainment * Vide Proposals for Erecting a "National Monument" in Edinburgh, 1819. and of "story," hangs us upon her lips, and models, though imperceptibly to herself and us, our early taste. How often have we listened with an interest, of which we now retain little more than the recollection, to the "Flowers of the Forest," "The Braes' Yarrow," "The Fair Helen of Kirkconnel," or to the still more eventful his tory of " Young Tam Lean," as they fell upon our ears in all the soft and penetrating cadence of an aged and tremulous voice; as they escaped from the lips of her whose tottering steps we were wont to watch at every hour of repose from play, in order to obtain the thousandth repetition of the same soul-touching ditty? Can England! but England has no national musicnor is she at present, nor has she for ages past, been possessed of the means, of transmitting from the age that is past, to that which is to come, any deep or sacred feeling connected with national song. In England, the peasant child acquires its habits, and receives its prepossessions, directly from its parents. In Scotland, the past generation, the venerable and the experienced, and the legendary Veterans of a former day, cast a mantle of inspiration, and a hue of poetry, over their grand-children. Our national character, our national prejudices if you will, die thus more slowly away; and the taste, and the views, and the prepos sessions of earlier times, are thus transmitted, warm and unqualified, through many successive ages. The natural tendency of our ballet, song, and tale, thus transmitted, is, to inspire a spirit of patriotism. Whether that feeling connect itself with the history of Scotland's "brave defenders," with the Bruce and the Wallace that fought, with the "Flowers of the Forest" that fell-or whether it be caught more immediately from those local allusions by which the naturally-romantic scenery of our land is rendered peculiarly interesting to all its inhabitants, a classical hue is thus imparted to our mountains; and the streams of "Ilyssus, Scamander, and Pineus," do not flow with more effect through the halls of Oxford, than do those of Tweed, Devon, and Galla, through the cottages of our peasant population. Who that, in early life, has stood by, whilst the " Swain of the Cowdenknows" skipt the burn and flew to his Sweetheart,-who, that has made one in the marriage.party of "Pattie and his Peggy," or that has wandered on "The Braes of Balquhiddar," is, or can be, so dull, as not to give a local habitation to the names he hears, to the scenes he fancies; as not to discover"The Bonny Broom of Cowden," the retired cottage of "Glaud," or the peculiar features of "Balquhiddar Braes," in the glen and the cottage and the brae of his immediate neighbourhood? The natural consequence of all this is an attachment to country, to his native land, which exhibits itself in a determination to defend, an unwillingness to leave it; and which, wherever a true Scotsman is placed, not even in the hour of approaching death,-on an eve of Waterloo, deserts him. "Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos." This idea is finely expressed by Mr Hogg, in his "Prayer of a Dying Soldier on the Field of Waterloo :" "But, oh! while I have tongue to say |