have a right
to determine that it be not misapplied or misdirected, we would, with
certain limitations, extend to the ratepayers as a body the
privileges, in this educational department, now exclusively exercised
by the heritors. In that educational franchise which we would fain see
extended to the Scottish people, we recognise two great elements, and
but two only,--the natural, or that of the parent; and the political,
or that of the ratepayer. These form the two opposite sides of the
pyramid; and, though diverse in their nature, let the reader mark how
nicely for all practical purposes they converge into the point,
_householder_. The householders of Scotland include all the ratepayers
of Scotland. The householders of Scotland include also all the parents
of Scotland. We would therefore fix on the householders of a parish as
the class in whom the right of nominating the parish schoolmaster
should be vested. But on the same principle of high expediency on
which we exclude householders of a certain standing from exercising
the political franchise in the election of a member of Parliament,
would we exclude certain other householders, of, however, a much lower
standing, from voting in the election of a parish schoolmaster. We are
not prepared to be Chartists in either department,--the educational or
the political; and this simply on the ground that Chartism in either
would be prejudicial to the general good. On this part of the subject,
however, we shall enter at full length in our next.

Meanwhile we again urge our readers carefully to examine for
themselves all our statements and propositions,--to take nothing on
trust,--to set no store by any man's _ipse dixit_, be he editor or
elder, minister or layman. In this question, as in a thousand others,
'truth lies at the bottom of the well;' and if she be not now found
and consulted, to the exclusion of every prejudice, and the disregard
of every petty little interest and sinister motive, it will be ill ten
years hence with the Free Church of Scotland in her character as an
educator. Her safety rests, in the present crisis, in the just and the
true, and in the just and the true only.

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{6} _What ought the General Assembly to do at the present
Crisis?_ (1833.)

CHAPTER THIRD.

Parties to whom the Educational Franchise might be safely
extended--House Proprietors, House Tenants of a certain
standing, Farmers, Crofters--Scheme of an Educational