s also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous
Celtic manuscript, the _Fernaig MS._, a brown-leaved passbook, full of
old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be
worth L2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could
not gratify myself by offering to purchase it.

[23] A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life
is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of
the churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. The
thoughtful visitor should not fail to read the tombstones. If a
lover of books, he will be interested in learning that the
founder of the famous publishing firm of Messrs. Macmillan
belonged to the North Cock farm near Loch Ranza. The pensive
moralist will perhaps be most affected by an old stone, A.D.
1813, declaring that Elspa Macmillan left this _inhospitable
world_, aged 86. _That_ was no rash inference.

SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine
literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who
encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in
Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most
delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less
than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the
daffodils beginning--

"I wandered lonely as a cloud."

Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that
flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers
should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some
poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our
best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative
touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's
catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes
of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only
look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially
recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I
cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than
the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse.

As Mendelssohn composed _songs_ without words, so may the schoolmaster
give _lessons_ of the most powerful import without a word being spoken.
A