327

THE TWO MR. CLARKS, 337

PULPIT DUTIES NOT SECONDARY, 358

DUGALD STEWART, 369

OUR TOWN COUNCILS, 378

SUTHERLAND AS IT WAS AND IS; OR, HOW A COUNTRY MAY BE
RUINED, 388

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
TO
THOUGHTS ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION.

The following chapters on the Educational Question first appeared as a
series of articles in the _Witness_ newspaper. They present, in
consequence, a certain amount of digression, and occasional
re-statement and explanation, which, had they been published
simultaneously, as parts of a whole, they would not have exhibited.
The controversy was vital and active at every stage of their
appearance. Statements made and principles laid down in the earlier
articles had, from the circumstance that their truth had been
questioned or their soundness challenged, to be re-asserted and
maintained in those which followed; and hence some little derangement
in the management of the question, for which, however, the interest
which must always attach to a real conflict may be found to
compensate. That portion of the controversy, however, which arose out
of one of the articles of the series, and which some have deemed
personal, has been struck out of the published edition of the
pamphlet, and retained in but an inconsiderable number of copies,
placed in the hands of a few friends. In omitting it where it has been
omitted, the writer has acted on the advice of a gentleman for whose
judgment he entertains the most thorough respect, and from a desire
that the general argument should not be prejudiced by a matter
naturally, but not necessarily, connected with it. And in retaining it
where it has been retained, he has done so in the full expectation of
a time not very distant, when it will be decided that he has neither
outraged the ordinary courtesies of controversy, nor taken up a false
line of inference or statement; and when the importance of the subject
discussed will be regarded as quite considerable enough to make any
one earnest, without the necessity of supposing that he had been
previously angry.

It is all-important, that on the general question of National
Education, the Free Church should take up her position wisely.
Majorities in her courts, however overwhelmin