APPENDIX.

No. I.

Note A. See p. 3.

THE importance of the national establishment of parish schools in Scotland will justify a short account of the legislative provisions respecting it, especially as the subject has escaped the notice of all the historians.

By an act of the king (James VI.) and privy council of the 10th of December, 1616, it was recommended to the bishops to deale and travel with the heritors (landed proprietors) and inhabitants of the several parishes in their respective dioceses, towards the fixing upon 66 some certain solid and sure course," for settling and entertaining a schoo in each parish. This was ratified by a statute of Char. I. (the act 1633, chap. 5), which empowered the bishop, with the consent of the heritors of a parish, or of a majority of the inhabitants, if the heritors refused to attend the meeting, to assess every plough of land (that is, every farm in proportion to the number of ploughs upon it) with a certain sum for establishing a school. This was an ineffectual provision, as depending on the consent and pleasure of the heritors and inhabitants. Therefore a new order of things was introduced by Stat. 1646, chap. 17, which obliges the heritors and minister of each parish to meet and assess the several heritors with the requisite sum for building a schoolhouse, and to elect a school-master, and modify a

salary for him in all time to come. The salary is ordered not to be under one hundred, nor above two hundred merks, that is, in our present sterling money, not under 51. 11s. 1.5d. nor above 111. 2s. 3d.; and the assessment is to be laid on the land in the same proportion as it is rated for the support of the clergy, and as it regulates the payment of the land-tax. But in case the heritors of any parish, or the majority of them, should fail to discharge this duty, then the persons forming what is called the Committee of Supply of the county (consisting of the principal landholders), or any five of them, are authorized by the statute to impose the assessment instead of them, on the representation of the presbytery in which the parish is situated. To secure the choice of a proper teacher, the right of election of the heritors, by a statute passed in 1693, chap. 22, is made subject to the review and controul of the presbytery of the district, who have the examination of the person proposed committed to them, both as to his qualifications as a teacher, and as to his proper deportment in the office, when settled in it. The election of the heritors is therefore only a presentment of a person for the approbation of the presbytery, who, if they find him unfit, may declare his incapacity, and thus oblige them to elect anew. So far is stated on unquestionable authority".

The legal salary of the school-master was not inconsiderable at the time it was fixed, but by the decrease in the value of money, it is now certainly inadequate to its object; and it is painful to observe that the landholders of Scotland resisted the humble application of the school-masters to the legislature for its increase, a few years ago. The number of parishes in Scotland is 877; and if we allow the salary of a school-master in each to be, on an average, seven pounds sterling, the amount of the legal provision will be 61391. sterling. If we

*The authority of A. Frazer Tytler, and Da vid Hume, Esqrs.

suppose the wages paid by the scholars to amount to twice this sum, which is probably beyond the truth, the total of the expenses among 1,526,492 persons (the whole population of Scotland), of this most important establishment, will be 18,4171. But on this, as well as on other subjects respecting Scotland, accurate information may soon be expected from Sir John Sinclair's Analysis of his Statistics, which will complete the immortal monument he has reared to his patriotism.

The benefit arising in Scotland from the instruction of the poor was soon felt, and by an act of the British parliament, 4 Geo. I. chap. 6, it is enacted," that of the monies arising from the sale of the Scottish estates forfeited in the rebellion of 1715, 20001. sterling shall be converted into a capital stock, the interest of which shall be laid out in erecting and maintaining schools in the Highlands. The Society for propagating Christian Knowledge, incorporated in 1709, have applied a large part of their fund for the same purpose. By their report, 1st May, 1795, the annual sum employed by them in supporting their schools in the Highlands and Islands, was 39131. 19s. 10d. in which are taught the English language, reading and writing, and the principles of religion. The schools of the society are additional to the legal schools, which, from the great extent of many of the Highland parishes, were found insufficient. Besides these established schools, the lower classes of people in Scotland, where the parishes are large, often combine together and establish private schools of their own, at one of which it was, that Burns received the principal part of his education. So convinced, indeed, are the poor people of Scotland, by experience, of the benefit of instruction to their children, that though they may often find it difficult to feed and clothe them, some kind of school instruction they almost always procure them.

The influence of the school-establishment of Scotland, on the peasantry of that country, seems to have decided by experience a question of legis

lation, of the utmost importance-whether a system of national instruction for the poor be favourable to morals and good government. In the year 1698, Fletcher of Saltoun declared as follows: "There are at this day in Scotland, two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. And though the number of them be perhaps double to what it was formerly, by reason of this present great distress (a famine then prevailed), yet in all times there have been about one hundred thousand of those vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or subjection either to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature; fathers incestuously accompanying with their own daughters, the son with the mother, and the brother with the sister." He goes on to say, that no magistrate ever could discover that they had ever been baptized, or in what way one in a hundred went out of the world. He accuses them as frequently guilty of robbery, and sometimes of murder. "In years of plenty," says he, " many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days, and at country weddings, mar kets, burials, and other public occasions, they are to be seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together*." This high-minded statesman, of whom it is said by a contemporary, " that he would lose his life readily to save his country, and would not do a base thing to serve it," thought the evil so great, that he proposed as a remedy, the revival of domestie slavery, according to the practice of his adored republics in the classic ages! A better remedy has been found, which in the silent lapse of a century has proved effectual. The statute of 1696, the noble legacy of the Scottish parliament to their country, began soon after this to operate; and happily, as the minds of the poor received instruction, the union opened new channels of industry, and new fields of action to their view.

Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, octavo, London, 1737, p. 144.

At the present day, there is perhaps no country in Europe, in which, in proportion to its population, so small a number of crimes fall under the chastisement of the criminal law, as Scotland. We have the best authority for asserting, that on an average of thirty years preceding the year 1797, the executions in that division of the island, did not amount to six annually; and one quarter ses sions for the town of Manchester only, has sent, according to Mr. Hume, more felons to the plantations, than all the judges of Scotland usually do in the space of a year*. It might appear invidious to attempt a calculation of the many thousand individuals in Manchester and its vicinity, who can neither read nor write. A majority of those who suffer the punishment of death for their crimes, in every part of England, are, it is believed, in this miserable state of ignorance!

There is now a legal provision for parochial schools, or rather for a school in each of the dif ferent townships into which the country is divided, in several of the northern states of North Ameriea. They are however of recent origin there, excepting in New England, where they were established in the last century, probably about the same time as in Scotland, and by the same religious sect. In the protestant cantons of Switzerland, the peasantry have the advantage of similar schools, though established and endowed in a different manner. This is also the case in certain districts in England, particularly in the northern parts of Yorkshire and of Lancashire, and in the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland.

A law providing for the instruction of the poor, was passed by the parliament of Ireland; but the fund was diverted from its purpose, and the measure was entirely frustrated. Proh pudor!

The similarity of character between the Swiss and the Scotch, and between the Scotch and the

Hume's Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, Introd. p. 50.