as compared with those which are in
a better condition.

'3_d_, The institution, on the part of Government, of an inquiry
into the destitution confessedly existing in large towns,
populous neighbourhoods, and remote districts, with a view of
marking out places where elementary schools are particularly
needed; and the holding out of special encouragement to whatever
parties may come forward as willing to plant such schools.

'That the preceding suggestions, if adopted, would go far to
render the present Government plan unobjectionable in principle,
and also to fit it in practice for ascertaining the educational
wants of the country; but that a much more liberal expenditure of
the public money would seem to be indispensable, as well as a
less stringent application, upon adequate cause shown, of the
rules by which the expenditure is regulated.'

In bringing the motion forward in the following meeting of
Presbytery, the clause recommending the 'entire omission in all
cases of the certificate regarding religious instruction' was
suffered to drop.

{9} Such are the proportions laid down in the official document
for Scotland of the Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council on
Education. We understand, however, that the Government inspectors
possess certain modifying powers, through which the Government
grant is occasionally extended to deserving teachers whose salary
and fees united fall considerably short of the specified sum of
forty-five pounds.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

Unskilled Labourers remunerated at a higher rate than many of
our Free Church Teachers--The Teaching must be inferior if the
Remuneration be low--Effect of inferior Teaching on the parties
taught--Statutory Security; where are the parties to contend for
it?--Necessity of a Government Inquiry--'O for an hour of
Knox!'

That higher order of farm-servants which are known technically in
Mid-Lothian as 'sowers and stackers,' receive, as their yearly wages,
in the immediate neighbourhood of the house of the writer, eighteen
pounds in money, four bolls oatmeal, two cart-loads of potatoes, and
about from twenty to thirty shillings worth of milk. The money value
of the whole amounts, at the present time, to something between
twenty-three and twenty-four pounds sterling. We are informed by a
Fifeshire proprietor, that in his pa