roof is said to have swarmed with rats. In many parts the schoolrooms were used at night as lodging houses for tramps. The salaries of the schoolmasters were poor. In many cases the Kirk Sessions did all they could to increase them, and strange shifts were sometimes resorted to. But how the Kirk Sessions, who had charge of the schools, and were doubtless all composed of God-fearing men, could reconcile one method, which seems to have been very generally adopted in the parochial schools, for eking out the incomes of the schoolmasters, with their religion, it is difficult for us in the present century to understand. We refer to the yearly cock-fight. In his 'History of Fettercairn,' a village in which there has been an unbroken succession of schoolmasters since 1564, Dr. Cameron gives the following account of it : 'To the annual cock-fight, held on Handsel Monday or Shrove Tuesday, in the schoolroom, the older boys brought each his bird and paid dues to the "maister." These dues were stated, in one parish (Applecross, Rossshire), "to be equal to a quarter's payment of the scholars." The animals were set two and two to fight till the floor was stained with their blood. With them it was the survival of the fittest, and the death of the weaker ones, which were handed over as a perquisite to the schoolmaster. The boy who owned the victorious cock was rewarded, "dubbed king of the school," and allowed for a time to do very much as he pleased. This barbarous custom was kept up in Fettercairn till the early years of the present century, and till a much later period in some other parishes. It continued at least till 1826, "the year of the short corn," at the school of Clattering Brig, which, for the children of the crofters and lime-burners, was taught by an enterprising individual, "Dominie Young," who in one end of his biggin' had the school, and in the other end a public house.' P. 219. In town schools the principal amusement was the performance of a piece composed by Alexander Horne, schoolmaster of Dunbar during the reign of James VI., called Bellum Grammaticale,' or some other piece more or less dull, to the cost of which the Town Councils not infrequently contributed. In the towns, indeed, whether royal burghs or burghs of barony, the schools were watched over with great solicitude. The Town Councils seem to have been thoroughly alive to the advantages of education, and in most cases did all they could to promote it. The proofs of this are to be found in the Records of the Town 6 Councils which have been published, as also in Mr. Grant's laborious History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland. They were at great pains to secure good teachers. They paid great attention to the curricula, and, along with the ministers, were in use to visit the schools and to see that the work was being done in an efficient way. The education the children received was not equal to what they are expected to receive now, but, as we have already said, in respect to the schools in rural districts, it was sound and useful. Boys were taught, besides the ordinary reading, writing, and arithmetic, Latin and Mathematics, and sometimes Greek. Before being admitted to the Grammar School at Aberdeen pupils were required to read English perfectly, to write well, to know somewhat of arithmetic and musick,' and they were not to be admitted before they were nine years of age, unless they be of a large capacity and engyne.' Also in order to a further progress of the youth, and for giving them vivacity in the Latin tongue with some boldness and confidence,' the Town Council in 1711 appointed a publick theatre to be erected in some publick place of the toune, as the Council shall think fit, upon the touns expensses once every three years, and ther some publick action be acted by the schollars of the said school.' In December, 1694, the Town Council of Stirling resolved to appoint a schoolmistress, and from the terms of that resolution it would appear that schoolmistresses were not altogether rare. Twenty-four years later, Mrs. Adison, who was then schoolmistress, was in the habit of baking seed and plumb cakes to funeralls and other occasions,' and having thus infringed upon the rights of the Baxter Craft, the Council threatened her with the loss of her salary in the event of her disregarding their order to cease baking. As accomplishments, young ladies were taught dancing and a little music.' For the rest, in addition to the ordinary subjects, they were taught sewing and cooking. 'What the young women of those times,' Mr. Ramsay writes, 'wanted in polish, was fully compensated in essentials-the utmost care being taken to improve their tender minds with high notions of piety and purity.'* In educational matters, as in 6 others where the making of money was concerned, the spirit of monopoly prevailed. As far back as 1494, David Dune was prohibited from holding a private school in Glasgow.* In 1693, all the doors of private schools in Edinburgh were closed by order of the Town Council. In 1698, and in 1727, the Council of Stirling forbade any child above six years of age to be taught in any other than the Grammar School. The real reason was that the teachers of the public schools claimed the right to do all the teaching, and to receive all fees that might be earned thereby ; but at Longforgan, where in 1697 a woman had set up a school, the following resolution was passed by the Kirk Session: The Beddalls appointed to discharge this town a woman who had taken up a school contrair to all former practice and order, and all such attempts either in this town or up and down the parish are prohibited, that so the public be not wronged.'t From the number of prohibitions, it would seem indeed that there was no lack of individuals desiring to gain a livelihood by teaching, and that the offer of their services to the public was not without success. The magisterial prohibitions extended also to private teachers of music. The chapters which Mr. Graham has written on the Religion of the period are among the most important, and indeed the best in his volumes. They shew a remarkable acquaintance with the religious literature of the period. We can scarcely agree with him, however, in the assertion that the spirit of Calvinism has now disappeared from the country. But upon this, as upon several other inviting topics, we cannot enter. Perhaps the least satisfactory chapters are those on Trade and Town Life. Mr. Graham describes, and describes fully, the town life of Edinburgh and Glasgow; but these were not the only towns in the country, and one would liked to have seen a description of the social life in the smaller burghs. Of the guilds and crafts, and the influence they had on the trade and social life of the country-and it was undoubtedly great-Mr. Graham, if we remember rightly, says nothing. On * Charters and Documents, II., 89. the other hand the great changes which came over the country during the second half of the century in consequence of the construction of better roads and of freer intercourse with England and the Continent, are described with great skill. On the whole, indeed, the work is without an equal in its own peculiar line, and furnishes a picture of Scotland during the eighteenth century which, though wanting in certain details, is as entertaining as it is instructive, and of great merit. ART. IV. THE SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS. HE present writer has no intention of attempting a full, still less an authoritative, discussion of the present situation in South Africa; he merely wishes to mention some features of it as they suggest themselves to one who has lived for some time in the Western Province of Cape Colony, and has heard the question turned over by residents and colonists of all shades of opinion. The present state of affairs may justly be called a crisis— the crisis of a disease which has long been latent. Proud as we Britons are of our love of fair-play, we should endeavour to remember, even in the excitement of the present moment, that there is much to be said on the other side. The actual outbreak of war may be due to the machinations of some and the precipitancy of others, but one thing no fair-minded man will deny, that the great bulk of our opponents sincerely and passionately believe that theirs is the just cause. Nor can he deny that the Empire is now reaping the whirlwind which she has been sowing in South Africa ever since the Peace of Paris. Had her rulers known how to be a little strong at some times, they would not have needed to put forth their whole strength now. Remember what the Boer is. On the one side he is the descendant of the men who stood by William of Orange, and overcame the might of Spain by the sheer power of endurance, of the men who steered their ships to India, to the Spice Islands, even to China and Japan. On the other side, he traces his descent to those of the Huguenots who, driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to seek a refuge in Holland, were cautiously sent out to recruit the infant settlement at the Cape, and in the course of a few years became so blended with the Dutch that only a few place and family names preserve the memory of their descent. The spirit of independence and unwillingness to brook even reasonable interference with their affairs which their forefathers transmitted to them was not weakened by their experience at the Cape. The colonists might not unjustly have declared that they owed much to themselves and little to any government. In the seventeenth century they were not much better than serfs of the Dutch East India Company. When England first took over the Cape in 1795, she found parts of it, in rebellion against the Dutch authorities, and had to resort to some degree of force before it could be quieted. As time went on, the colonists again and again evinced their distaste to the firm control of their new rulers, which while it gave greater liberty with one hand, with the other put considerable restraint on their tenure of land and their dealings with the natives. As in Ireland, so in South Africa what to the outsider is a fair though stern measure of justice, is still harped on by a section of the population as the deed of a brutal oppressor. A few months ago in a pamphlet largely circulated among the Dutch Colonists, Ben Viljoen called on them to aid the Transvaal in its resistance, adjuring them by the memory, among other wrongs, of Slagters Nek. But what is the story of Slagters Nek? In 1815, a man Frederik Bezuidenhout resisted arrest, and taking arms, fled to the bush where he was tracked and shot down. His brother John and others rose in open rebellion, and even tried to induce a neighbouring Kaffir chief to aid them. They were defeated, and five of the ringleaders were hanged. The Black Circuit of 1812, where many cases of alleged cruelty to natives came up for hearing is also a bitter memory among some sections of the Dutch. |