TEACHERS AND THE VERNACULAR.

Perhaps the most gratifying thing about these proceedings is that the Federation has been led by its President to push what it now appears was an open door. Without the spontaneous co-operation of the Education Department and the teachers, there would be no hope of progress. But the educational profession in Scotland is solidly Scottish in sentiment. The practical idealism of its members is one of Scotland's biggest assets. Many of them are keen students of vernacular literature, and nearly all of them thoroughly appreciate its cultural value. An indispensable link in the instructional process is supplied by the special classes of Professor Rait in Glasgow University. The present movement, indeed, is the fruition of that which led to the establishment of the Chair of Scottish History and Literature in Glasgow and to the fortunate appointment of its present distinguished occupant.

Another important link in the chain is at present being forged. Professor Craigie, lately of Oxford and now of Chicago, is engaged on a Middle Scots Lexicon covering the period down to the seventeenth century. When this is published the way will be open for the preparation of a new and up-to-date Modern Scots Dictionary, containing vernacular words in literary and popular use since 1700. The spadework has been undertaken by the Dialects Committee of the Scottish Branch of the English Association. In the final stage of this movement the active co-operation of the Burns Federation will be essential. In the meantime valuable assistance can be rendered by the Vernacular Circles which are being formed in connection with groups of affiliated Burns Clubs. These Vernacular Circles, indeed, could be made, and we trust they may become, the vital centres of the whole vernacular movement, linking up its various branches by means of lecture courses, discussions, concerts, and other appropriate activities. The original

object of the Burns movement would not be lost sight of. It would become more clearly defined. The whole poetical literature of Scotland culminates in Burns. But his real supremacy cannot be appreciated without a fairly wide knowledge of his predecessors and successors. A Burns Club that studies only Burns is like a mountaineering club that confines itself to the highest peak of a mountain range. Greatness of any kind is cumulative and relative. The majesty of Mont Blanc and Everest derives from their relation to the Alps and the Himalayas.

OBJECTS OF THE MOVEMENT.

The objects of the Scottish vernacular movement have been clearly stated by our President on more than one occasion. There is to be no attempt to oust standard English and make the vernacular the ordinary and everyday speech of the nation. That is both impossible and undesirable. But the familiar use of the authentic vernacular is not to be discouraged; it is to be strongly encouraged, because the Scottish vernacular is not alien to English, but is an integral and valuable constituent of it, and because its spontaneous and effective use tends to the enrichment and the vitality of English speech. The stilted and colourless style of Scottish prose-writers in the eighteenth century was due to their nervous exclusion of anything that savoured of "Scotchness." Scott, whose genius, with that of Burns, won Scotland a foremost place in world literature, made free use of the Doric, and so did Galt and Miss Ferrier. Standard

English, being a composite language, poor in inflexions, has some irritating gaps in vocabulary and idiom. Many, if not most, of these can be effectively filled by the Scottish vernacular, which is pre-eminent both in picturesque forcefulness and in subtle shades of meaning. Both the high notes and the quarter-tones of Scots were studiously employed by Stevenson, whose intimate knowledge of the Scottish vernacular forms the real secret

English,

of the subtle precision of his English style. which has swallowed the crude argot of cowboys and whole chunks of French idiom and Indian vocabulary, can surely assimilate, and to better advantage, some choice morsels of a cognate and literary vernacular.

The main and immediate purpose of the vernacular movement is one that is urgently necessary. It is to ensure that every Scottish child shall be placed in possession of a key to the national treasure-house of vernacular literature. In this there can be no real difficulty. Teachers who themselves have been instructed in the vernacular can instruct the children in it through the medium of vernacular reading-books and anthologies, which will take their place alongside English books of the same kind; and in due course this instruction can be allowed for in examination papers. There will be no cramming; the children will receive just as much vernacular instruction as will enable them to understand most of an average poem of Burns, Fergusson, or Ramsay. The rest must be left to their own inclinations.

A NATIONAL LITERARY REVIVAL.

The educational movement with which the Burns Federation has become associated is not an artificial one. It is part of a spontaneous national movement which began with the vernacular poems of Stevenson, Logie Robertson, and Charles Murray, and which has been stronger than ever since the war. Scottish writers, both of prose and verse, have realised for themselves that they could find their clearest self-expression in native themes and native inspiration. That is the real meaning of the Scottish literary revival. The main body of the literature it is producing is in English. But the central inspiration is vernacular. The Doric is not dead. It is more alive to-day than at any time since the death. of Burns. Its vitality is evidenced by anthologies like Northern Numbers and the publications of the Porpoise

It

It

Press. Recent or living poets like Walter Wingate, Charles Murray, Hamish Hendry, Alexander Gray, Violet Jacob, Hugh M'Diarmid, Edwin Muir, and Pittendrigh MacGillivray have written better vernacular verse than was produced in the whole period between the death of Scott and the advent of Stevenson. The question of the function of the vernacular in Scottish life and literature has been settled by the poets themselves. is not an artificial medium. It is the very reverse. is the language of the innermost heart. It is the expression of the Scottish soul. The selective process in its use is emotional more than intellectual. Its choicest words and phrases, drenched with the concentrated passion or gaiety of four centuries, are reserved for those moments in which the soul is nearest to Scottish earth or to the centre of created being. The Doric Muse is like Wordsworth's skylark—

Type of the wise, who soar but never roam,

True to the kindred points of heaven and home." The Provençal of the Trobadors perished because of the narrowness of its range and its remoteness from the life of the people. But the Scottish vernacular expresses the extremes of grim tragedy and lyric joy, of homely fun and awed solemnity, of robustious realism and wistful romance. It is the articulation of essential poetry.

The soul of Scotland, her principle of life, lies in her vernacular literature. Without it she is less than an English county or an American state. Much of her social trouble to-day is due to alienation from Nature and national tradition. Jazz and American films and League results and the latest London scandal are ineffectual palliatives. Only in the native springs, whose waters have begun to stir, is there any power of healing. We who have bathed in the living stream of Scottish literature, and blended our souls with the soul of our country, are under the obligation of extending a like privilege to every Scottish boy and girl.

W. P.

SPEECHES BY THE PRESIDENT.

I.

Sir Robert Bruce, LL.D., President of the Burns Federation, in proposing "The Immortal Memory at the festival dinner of Greenock Burns Club, on Friday, 23rd January, 1925, made reference to the Scottish vernacular question, and read letters from the Earl of Rosebery, Honorary President of the Federation; Principal Sir Donald MacAlister, of Glasgow University; Professor Robert S. Rait, Historiographer Royal for Scotland; and Professor William A. Craigie, lately of Oxford.

He said that, as President of the Burns Federation, he should like to be permitted to say a few words about a matter that had been engaging the attention of the Federation, and had been, since the Conference at Dumfries, in September last, the subject of much discussion in the public press. He referred to the movement for the encouragement of the study of the Scottish vernacular in our elementary and secondary schools. Much had been done under the auspices of the Federation by the promotion of school competitions. In many cases the knowledge displayed of Burns's songs had been most gratifying. But the subject-matter was more comprehensive than Burns's works-it comprised the entire field of our vernacular literature. The position at present, stated in general terms, was this. In many of our elementary and secondary schools the pupils finished their studies without even having had their attention directed to the riches in the vernacular which their fathers valued, and if this state of things was not changed they would soon be confronted by a generation of young Scots who had no understanding whatever-an unthinkable thing-of some of the finest literature possessed by any nation. So widespread was the neglect