.

Poor as they were, the social condition of this Scottish family was
superior to the social condition of most English families in the same
walk of rustic life; this superiority resulting from certain virtues
inherent in the national character,--the virtues of simple appetites and
frugal habits, of patience and courage in adversity, and best of all, in
affectionate hearts, reverential minds, and a thirst for knowledge which
only books could supply. William Burness inherited respect for education
from his father, who in his young manhood was instrumental in building a
schoolhouse on his farm at Clockenhill. Accordingly, when his son Robert
was in his sixth year he sent him to a little school at Alloway Mill,
about a mile from his cottage; and not long after he took the lead in
hiring a young teacher named Murdoch to instruct him and his younger
brother Gilbert at some place near at hand. Their school-books consisted
of the Shorter Catechism, the Bible, the spelling-book, and Fisher's
'English Grammar.' Robert was a better scholar than Gilbert, especially
in grammar, in which he acquired some proficiency. The only book which
he is known to have read outside of his primitive curriculum was a 'Life
of Hannibal,' which was loaned him by his teacher. When he was seven the
family removed to a small upland farm called Mount Oliphant, about two
miles from Alloway, to and from which the boys plodded daily in
pursuit of learning. At the end of two years the teacher obtained a
better situation in Carrick; the school was broken up, and from that
time onward William Burness took upon himself the education of his lads
and lassies, whom he treated as if they were men and women, conversing
with them on serious topics as they accompanied him in his labors on the
farm, and borrowing for their edification, from a Book Society in Ayr,
solid works like Derham's 'Physico- and Astro-Theology' and Ray's
'Wisdom of God in the Creation.' This course of heavy reading was
lightened by the 'History of Sir William Wallace,' which was loaned to
Robert by a blacksmith named Kilpatrick, and which forced a hot flood of
Scottish feeling through his boyish veins. His next literary benefactor
was a brother of his mother, who while living for a time with the family
had learned some arithmetic by their winter evening's candle. He went
one day into a bookseller's shop in Ayr to purchase a Ready Reckoner and
a Complete Letter-Writer, but procured by mistake in