d disciplined into regular and seemly
order. We had the advantage in Scotland of a complete system of School
Boards, and that awakened an intense and universal interest in
educational affairs. The old parochial schools of Scotland had many
admirable features, but in 1872 they were quite unfit to cope with the
nation's needs. On the whole, the School Board system was a decided boon
to the land.

EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS.

It is only since the Act of 1872 that any education of a serious or
systematic kind has been attempted in the Celtic parts of Scotland.
Nevertheless, a word of praise is due to the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge and other civilising agencies of the Churches
(Established and Free), for their work during the educational night that
preceded the Act. These agencies were, of course, utterly inadequate to
meet the needs of the Highlands, as may be easily seen from the fact
that in 1862, over 47 per cent. of the men who married, could not sign
their own names. But, indeed, what resources, save those of the Imperial
Treasury, could ever be adequate to meet the expense of educating the
children spread over such wide and sparsely-peopled tracts? Sheriff
Nicolson, one of the most fervid Gaels that ever lived, made a report to
Government in 1865, characterising the education given in the Highland
schools as lamentably insufficient.

The effects of the Act of 1872 were slow but sure, and in the course of
fifteen years a change, analogous to that effected by General Wade in
the state of the roads, was brought about in the realm of education. Yet
the expenses involved in the working of the measure were of an unduly
burdensome kind, in spite of the generous bounty of the Education
Department. In some of the large parishes of the Long Island, the heavy
school rate was such a cause of complaint that My Lords were forced to
take very drastic measures to relieve the financial strain. In summing
up the results of the Education Act, Professor Magnus Maclean says:
"Among the good things that education has brought the Highlanders, are a
knowledge of English, wider social and political interests, a brighter
intelligence and brighter outlook, freedom from mental vacuity and
traditional superstitions."

FEEDING THE HUNGRY.

Probably, as I have hinted, one of the chief benefits of the Education
Act, was that teaching had to be carried on in conditions of space and
air. Given such conditions and an enthusiast