e schools
every quarter, and examine what proficiency the pupils have
attained.[214]

[Sidenote: Value of Learning.]

To these suggestions regarding primary and secondary schools succeeds a
very detailed statement of the changes desired in the universities to
adapt them to the new order of things. And then they conclude as
follows: "All other things touching the books to be read in ilk classe,
and all such like particular affaires, we referre to the discretion of
the masters, principals, and regents, with their well-advised counsel;
not doubting but if God shall grant quietnesse, and give your wisedomes
grace to set forward letters in the sort prescribed, ye shall leave
wisdome and learning to your posterity--a treasure more to be esteemed
than any earthly treasure ye are able to amasse for them, which without
wisdome are more able to be their ruin and confusion than their help and
comfort. And as this is most true, so we leave it with the rest of the
commodities to be weighed by your honours' wisedome, and set forwards
by your authority to the most high advancement of this commonwealth
committed to your charge."[215]

These touching appeals were not made altogether in vain. Though neither
quietness nor a large measure of grace was granted to the rough barons
so earnestly and tenderly addressed, yet the goodly fabric of our church
and commonwealth was reared up in those troublous times. The full and
liberal adoption of the plan of national education sketched by our
reformer and his associates still remains in part to be desiderated, and
is worthy to be striven for by the churches which claim to represent
them. The partial carrying out of their views, more than any other
influence that can be named, has conduced to elevate our people and
raise Scotland to the rank it now holds among the nations; and we can
hardly doubt that the more complete realisation of them in the careful
Christian training of the young and the adult members of the church, and
the extension of the blessings of education and religion to the masses
so long left to grow up in ignorance and vice, would tend greatly to
bring back the disaffected to the paths of peace and life, to raise the
members of the church in the scale of intelligence and virtue, to make
the nobles more than ever heretofore the _decus et tutamen patriae_, and
to bind all, both classes and masses, closely together in the bonds of
mutual Christian affection and true patriotism.