CHAPTER V. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS, CHURCHES AND PARSONS, UNIVERSITIES AND PROFESSORS. I SHOULD be ashamed to let a word escape which could imply anything like disrespect for our plan of parochial teaching, and I cheerfully acknowledge the obligations that we owe to our parish schools; but I can't help thinking that had fitter instruments been oftentimes selected, the wise system on which they were established was capable of producing still larger beneficial results.. By law, one half of the schoolmaster's salary is payable by the tenantry of each parish. That salary is very small, the maximum being 347. odd, and in many cases it alternates between this and the minimum of 177.; but the enforced nature of the contributions has had the most salutary effect. Of all people in the world our countrymen are the loathest to give away their money without some reasonable quid pro quo; and our tenants would consider themselves idiotic if, having contributed towards the teacher's income, they did not send to school as many olive-branches as possible to represent the impost thus laid upon them. It is true that for each child separate fees have to be paid-very moderate in amount-but that is entirely another question. The tax has somehow or another to be resented, and the parents select the wise plan of sending their children to school. Although the schoolmaster owes his appointment to the owners of land of a certain valued rent and upwards, and to the clergyman of the parish, no man so selected can enter upon the duties of his office until he has been examined and certified as duly qualified by the "presbytery of the bounds." I am forced to say that this certificate of fitness has too frequently been given when it ought to have been withheld; and a great miscarriage of justice has followed, to the detriment of those who would otherwise have had the advantage of efficient teaching. The clergy, who had the remedy in their own hands, refused to apply it, lest they should bring themselves into uncomfortable collision with the lay patrons. When the Act was passed it might have been reasonable, as well as wise, to invest the clergyman and larger proprietors only with the right of appointment; but according to the spirit of the times in which we live, when we are popularizing our institutions, it seems inconsistent that the choice should rest with so limited a body. The country now contains menneither lairds nor parsons-representing important and vested interests in every parish whose education and intelligence amply qualify them; and an increased constituency is less likely to be swayed in its selection by a regard to mere personal favour irrespective of personal fitness. It is to be regretted that parish schoolmasters have not more generally regarded teaching as a separate and distinct profession, to which they should permanently attach themselves. By far too many of them view it as only a temporary occupation, preparatory to their obtaining preferment in the Kirk. There are men no doubt occasionally to be found who are able to devote all the energies of their mind to whatever work they are for the moment engaged in, but this capacity is of the rarest occurrence; and therefore it is thought that those who look forward at the earliest possible period in their power to being liberated from what they feel to be the drudgery of teaching, are not the men whom we should place in the superintendence of our parish schools. To be successful in any employment, a man's heart must be fully engaged, and that engagement ought to be contracted early in life. It is often the case that a teacher does not reach the goal of his ambition before middle life, and the chances of his becoming an efficient parish priest are proved to be decidedly against him. Thus both the school and the Kirk are badly served. It has become so entirely the custom to praise our parochial system, that I doubt if our southern neighbours are aware how scantily it has been provided for. I have already named the rate of pecuniary remuneration; but until 1803 no house accommodation was supplied by law to cover the teacher's head. Mr. Charles Hope, the Lord-Advo cate, and better known afterwards as our LordPresident, carried a bill through parliament which made it compulsory on landowners to build a schoolhouse containing two rooms, including a kitchen! and when rallied on the sumptuousness of his measure, he used to say that he had the utmost difficulty in carrying it, as our Scotch senators indignantly exclaimed that they had no idea of providing "palaces for dominies." Up to the time I write that Act has received no enlargement, and the teacher is wholly dependent on the caprice of the heritors of his parish. There are many indications that the office of parish schoolmaster will by-and-by be better worth the ambition of educated men. Several persons who have perceived what benefits the system is capable of CHAPTER V. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS, CHURCHES AND PARSONS, UNIVERSITIES AND PROFESSORS. I SHOULD be ashamed to let a word escape which could imply anything like disrespect for our plan of parochial teaching, and I cheerfully acknowledge the obligations that we owe to our parish schools; but I can't help thinking that had fitter instruments been oftentimes selected, the wise system on which they were established was capable of producing still larger beneficial results.. By law, one half of the schoolmaster's salary is payable by the tenantry of each parish. That salary is very small, the maximum being 347. odd, and in many cases it alternates between this and the minimum of 177.; but the enforced nature of the contributions has had the most salutary effect. Of all people in the world our countrymen are the loathest to give away their money without some reasonable quid pro quo; and our |