ography the poet remarks: 'My father picked
up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which I am
indebted for most of my pretensions to wisdom. I have met with few men
who understood men, their manners and their ways, equal to him; but
stubborn, ungainly integrity and headlong, ungovernable irascibility are
disqualifying circumstances; consequently I was born a very poor man's
son.... It was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to
keep his children under his own eye till they could discern between good
and evil; so with the assistance of his generous master, he ventured on
a small farm in that gentleman's estate.'

This estimate of William Burness is endorsed and amplified by Mr.
Murdoch, who had been engaged by him to teach his children, and knew him
intimately.

'I myself,' he says, 'have always considered William Burness as by far
the best of the human race that ever I had the pleasure of being
acquainted with. He was an excellent husband; a tender and affectionate
father. He had the art of gaining the esteem and goodwill of those that
were labourers under him. He carefully practised every known duty, and
avoided everything that was criminal; or, in the apostle's words,
_Herein did he exercise himself in living a life void of offence towards
God and man_.'

Even in his manner of speech he was different from men in his own walk
in life. 'He spoke the English language with more propriety (both with
respect to diction and pronunciation) than any man I ever knew with no
greater advantages.'

Truly was Burns blessed in his parents, especially in his father.
Naturally such a father wished his children to have the best education
his means could afford. It may be that he saw even in the infancy of his
firstborn the promise of intellectual greatness. Certain it is he
laboured, as few fathers even in Scotland have done, to have his
children grow up intelligent, thoughtful, and virtuous men and women.

Robert Burns's first school was at Alloway Mill, about a mile from home,
whither he was sent when in his sixth year. He had not been long there,
however, when the father combined with a few of his neighbours to
establish a teacher in their own neighbourhood. That teacher was Mr.
Murdoch, a young man at that time in his nineteenth year.

This is an important period in the poet's life, although he himself in
his autobiography only briefly touches on his schooling under Murdoch.
He has more t