AMON BURNS OF THE By Frederick W. Lehmann Scottish Day, August 15, 1904 MONG the many structures which have been reared upon these grounds to illustrate the achievements, during a hundred years, of a free people in a free land, none has more rightful place than that which so faithfully represents the "auld clay biggin" in which Robert Burns was born. Called untimely from this life ere yet the language in which he wrote was heard here, though he himself had never set foot beyond the borders of his own country, the rich fruitage of his genius is none the less a part of the heritage of our people. Throughout the poetry of Burns breathes the spirit of our institutions, the Declaration of Independence, the Proclamation of Emancipation, and here we have endeavored to realize, as nearly as human effort may, the great truth that. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp The artificial verse of modern pessimism has given us a description of the "man with the hoe," which Burns. would not have accepted as a portrait. When he wrote his "Cotter's Saturday Night," he drew his inspiration not from a foreign canvas, but from his own experience. The cotter he describes was his own father, and of the children who knelt at the ingleside to join in the worship of God, Robert was one. The cotter of Burns' inspiring and uplifting poem toiled as hard as ever did Markham's man with the hoe, but he was not a dull soulless clod; the light of intelligence was in his eye and the fervor of ambition was in his breast. He had been little at school, but he was an educated man. His books were few, but he read and re-read them until he made their learning and wisdom his own. He had strong convictions concerning his position in the order of the universe, and his sense of nearness to God prevented his abasement in the sight of his fellowmen. As his life darkened to its close, the hope that he had for himself he retained for his children, and to the utmost of his ability he strove to fit them for whatever place they might be called to by duty or opportunity. At five years of age Robert was sent to school at Alloway Mill, and later the father joined with four of his neighbors to hire a teacher for their children. These early years were well employed. Every moment that could be spared from work was spent in study. He read, not only his school books, but Shakespeare, the Spectator, Pope, Ramsay, and above all, a collection of old Scottish songs. "I pored over them," said he, "driving my cart, or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender or sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as it is." His mother was learned in the legends and ballads of her country, and she brightened the evenings of her humble home by recounting them to her children. There was little variety in this life. It was strenuous in its labor and its study, and simple in its recreations. Its burdens were hard to be borne. This showed itself in the early stoop of the poet's shoulders, in his frequent sickness and moods of melancholy. But it was not always dark. He found a charm in the books he pored over so greedily, and a profound pleasure in the companionships which the work and the play of the countryside brought him. Much has been written concerning his habits during the years of his early manhood, but the testimony of those who had the best opportunities for observation is that he was not a dissipated man. Indeed, his time must in the main have been well spent. His letters and his conversation showed him to be a man of culture, as surely as his poems showed him to be a man of genius. At the age of |