ARRAN SCHOOLS.

(i.) Dear Sir,—I had to work all day at the peats.(ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses.(iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep.(iv.)I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again.

(i.) Dear Sir,—I had to work all day at the peats.

(ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses.

(iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep.

(iv.)I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again.

The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors. At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and Wordsworth.[23]

There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly dying out in theisland. Twenty years ago it was the language of the playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the venerable tongue.

In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous Celtic manuscript, theFernaig MS., a brown-leaved passbook, full of old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be worth £2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could not gratify myself by offering to purchase it.

Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the daffodils beginning—

"I wandered lonely as a cloud."

Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse.

As Mendelssohn composedsongswithout words, so may the schoolmaster givelessonsof the most powerful import without a word being spoken. A beautiful interior in a schoolroom is a silent lesson in order and good taste. Beauty and order have a most valuable influence on the emotions and the character. It is a pleasure to see the attention that is now given to the cultivation of taste. Clean, bright class-rooms; pictures of artistic merit on the walls; busts; collections of fossils, sea-shells, and the like—these are to be found even in remote country schools. Such spontaneous education of the eye is something that cannot be overestimated for importance and fruitfulness.

Lord Avebury puts the case for artistic environment very well indeed. "Our great danger in education,"he says, "is the worship of book-learning—the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill their minds with dry facts."

There is one precious faculty that runs the risk of being stifled by too much memory work. I mean the faculty of imagination. Youth is the time when fancy is busy; it is the period when the brain can furnish unlimited scaffolding for castles in the air. Wordsworth was so impressed, indeed, by the opulence of the youthful fancy, that he could only account for it by supposing recent contact with heaven.

I sometimes think that in the training of the youthful intellect and imagination we have not made sufficient use of the novels and romances of Scott. Of late years a great improvement is noticeable in this respect, and Scott is coming to be regarded as (for school purposes) our greatest historian. In some schools, as Lord Avebury has hinted, it was formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds of a set of unhappy persons who masqueradedas statesmen and courtiers. Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old school-history was, unfortunately, too often a glum compendium of insignificant detail, told without breadth of view or fire of restorative imagination.

In the history of Scotland, most of what is worth knowing may be most enjoyably learned from the pages of Sir Walter. Hardly any epoch of Caledonian annals, hardly any county in the land has escaped the treatment of his masterly hand. From the Borders to the rain-lashed Shetlands (thePiratedeals with gusty Thule), from Perth to Morven, the great wizard has made his country known to all lands. In his stories the past faithfully reproduces itself, and we are impressed, instructed, and amused.

It is a pleasure to think that a few of the old school of Scotch dominies, who date from before the 1872 Act, are still to the fore, and still engaged in teaching. They have all fixity of tenure, and so enjoy the privilege of criticising, as adversely as they like, the degeneracy of modern educational developments. These "old parochials," as they are called, are men of good scholarship, well versed in Horace and Virgil, and generally fond of snuff and Latin quotations.

The Act of 1872 did a great deal for elementary education, but very little indeed to encourage that type of higher instruction, which was the glory of the old parish school. Ian Maclaren and other writers have given pleasant sketches of country schoolmasters who were strong in the ancient tongues, and who sent their pupils straight to the benches of the University. I believe such men as "Domsey" were quite common in this country. Porteous, whom I knew, was one of these. Porteous was a philologist second to none in these realms, and was on intimate terms of acquaintanceship with the famous Veitch, who gave such aredding upto the Greek verbs. It was very amusing to hear the complete way in which Porteous could silence some imperial young examining professor on the weighty subject of classical derivation. The latter would appeal to some such authority as Curtius, whereupon Porteous would unlock the desk in which lay the tawse, and taking therefrom a copy of the invoked Curtius, open it at the root in question, and display the page all marked with pencil corrections and emendations. In support of his views, would come such a torrent of erudition from half a score of Classical, Sanscrit, Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon rills, that the young professor would feel "like one of sense forlorn," and be fain to put palm to forehead in dazed amazement. A pupil learning the rudiments under such a teacher, was dazzled rather than instructed by the ruthless surgery of words that constantly went on. No word was too small for Porteous to operate upon: he settledhoti'sbusiness, and could so inflate Greek vocables by supplyingdigammas and dropped consonants, that Plato would have disowned them. Give him chalk, a blackboard, and a class of six, and he would in ten minutes fill the board with hieroglyphics, curves, arrow-headed diagonals, etc., all meant to illustrate the relationships, divergencies, and contrarieties of the Aryan roots. His life was spent in the company of these radicals, and he could call them forth out of their trickiest hiding-places. In the midst of his chalky toil, he would turn round with radiant glee as if to say, "This is a merry and exciting trade: it is my fun and is as good as poaching or golf." But woe betide the youth who showed levity. Soon would there be weeping and wailing and tingling of palms. His reputation for strap-wielding made roots respected.

Another teacher of the school of Porteous was Thomas Taylor, whose death I saw announced a few weeks ago. Where has allhisGreek lore gone to, so assiduously cultivated, so continuously added to? If Taylor's soul is ever re-incarnated in a mortal body, it is absurd to suppose that he must begin to learn the Greek alphabet just like a novice. His clay is indeed mixed with the clay of common men, but I love to think of him dwelling on the other side of the River in the meads of asphodel, discussing with kindred shades, the topics he delighted to handle when he was here. With tearful eye I pen these doleful decasyllabics to his memory:—

What chums Tom Taylor and Charles Lamb had beenO'er bottled porter and theFairy Queen!In youth, one day, seeking forbidden fruitTom tumbled from the branches with his loot,And broken bones compelled the lad to goOn straddling crutches, warily and slow,Counting the pebbles on his path below.The noisy pleasures of the open air,The football kicked exuberant here and there.Cricket, beloved of sinewy juvenals,And golf with all its hazards, clubs and balls,Were not in Taylor's province: so he turnedTo calmer pastimes where the ingle burned,And when the whole world turned togoalsandteesHe took toIliadsand toOdysseys.He'd croon like one possessed the magic strainOf heroes tossed along the unvintaged main,And, crutch aloft in air, would fondly beatTime to the rushing of the poet's feet.Poetry was all his solace: those bright damesThat old Dan Chaucer in his rapture names,And those in Villon's pages that appearAs dazzling-white as snows of yester-year,Trooped past his eye in long procession fair.O, Sovereign Virgin, what a crowd was there!Helen, alas! with Paris by her side,On the high deck crossing the sunny tide,Circé, bright-moving in her godlike bloomBefore the throbbing music of the loom.The love-lorn heroines of Shakespeare's plays,The red-cheeked country girls of Burns's lays,Would to his raptured eye the tear-drop bring,And set his crazy quill a-sonnetting.

The old-world schoolmaster believed Latin was a universal specific. He loved the language and knew all the flock of frisky little exceptions of gender and conjugation, even as a shepherd knows his sheep. He gave his pupils gentle doses of theDelectus, and watched with eager, almost menacing, eye, for the working of the charm. It is quite possible that no pupil ever went over thatDelectus, with its world-weary fragments of trite morality, without a feeling of pleasure at theDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Yet it was educative, and moreover a boy was equipped for life with quotations suiting every juncture. Fate was powerless against one who had mastered theDelectus. The faculty of Latin quotation was to some extent also a badge of respectability. Fancy, too, the glory of being the exclusive possessor in a mixed company of the knowledge that Castor and Pollux came out of the one egg! It was a sore drawback to a boy once upon a time if he were shaky on the compounds offero.

"The pest of the present day is the prevalence of examinations:" these, it is alleged, have destroyed the grand old freedom of learning which gave full scope for the individuality alike of teacher and pupil. Oh! those were days of the gods, when five hours were spent daily burrowing in Virgil and Horace! Arcadia was realised—a sunny clime of Nymphs, Fauns, and Graces. The supreme luxury of abundant time—the leisurely chewing of sweet-phrased morsels—is gone: it is gone, that chastity of phrase and perfection of idiom, which felt abad quantity like a wound. The examination craze has destroyed the classical dominie, and the intrusion of science, falsely so-called, has well-nigh asphyxiated the Napææ of the dells. It was formerly possible for the teacher to develop to the full his literary taste and declaim the sonorous tit-bits of Virgil till the tears started from his eyes. Now the instructors of youth seem to regard the works of the tuneful Mantuan as composed for the purpose of illustrating the use of the Latin subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion, bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. Items which glide effortless into the brain in desultory reading are not so easily remembered if the examination is in store. Certain gentlemen have recently been reading Milton with a pair of compasses in order to discover the exact point of the cæsural pause in every line: they give figures, strike percentages, and set questions which even the leading character in "Paradise Lost" couldn't answer. Literary microscopy is likely to ruin Shakespeare's reputation in school and would have done so long ago but for Lamb'sTales—a darling compilation and byfar the best introduction to the poet. "Shakespeare is a horrid man" is the deliberate verdict of the schoolgirl who has been teased to death by the notes within the tawny covers of the Clarendon Press Edition. And fancy what Chaucer's Prologue must seem like, taught by a man bent only on philological hunts, variant readings, and a complete explanation of all the final e's.

It has always seemed to me a matter for surprise that those who had for years studied the elements of Latin and Greek at school (and that with no small difficulty), should entirely neglect these tongues afterwards and read nothing composed in them. Most elaborate preparations are made to reach the Promised Land, but the weary passenger never gets there. Can it be that the preparations are too elaborate?[24]They are certainly not very interesting, and are, indeed, well fittedto disgust pupils with the classical tongues. Sir William Ramsay of Aberdeen, in a letter to theHeraldsome time ago, spoke strongly on this subject.

Sir William says, with justice, that a teacher should teach his subject without any thought of examination. Every teacher would like to do that if he could. As a matter of fact, the secondary schoolmaster is forced to become a crammer. He codifies the catch questions of previous university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational, and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the examiners in correcting the answers of the helpless and puzzled candidates! Even though the questions set were plain and straightforward, it would be absurd to suppose that an hour or two in an examination hall could furnish sufficient data to pass or fail a candidate.

It used to be the glory of our universities that an average college class contained representatives of every grade of society in the land. Professor Ramsay says it is not so now: the professors have become pedagogic coaches, and the students grind rather than study. Sir William assures us that many who would make good students are frightened away by the preliminary examination. It would be interesting to know where these latter go when they leave school. Do they rushoff to business at once, or do they proceed with their education in some extra-mural way? If they can afford the time, the university is certainly the place for them. Let the university gates be opened as wide as possible to all serious-minded youths, and let it be remembered that it is not necessarily those who sweat most over their books or take the highest honours that get most good from attendance at the lectures.

It does not appear that, at present, our universities are adequately in touch with the nation. The great commercial community of Glasgow does not benefit nearly enough from having a famous seat of learning in its midst. We might learn a lesson from the Sorbonne how best to nationalise our universities. In Paris, the lecture halls are open to all, and it is possible for either native or foreigner to listen for hours daily, if he be so minded, to some of the finest and most erudite orators and scholars of Europe. There are, it is true, special students' courses, from which the general public is excluded, but the most important lectures are open to all. Hence the Sorbonne is a national institution in every sense of the word. I do not say that Glasgow does not benefit a little from the corps of professors at Gilmorehill. But the benefit is spasmodic, discontinuous, and extremely limited. Some of the professors do at times come down into the open and speak words of wisdom. But more is wanted than that if the universities are to be saved from denationalisation. We hear of Dugald Stewart's class-room being, in the old days, crowdedwith the keenest intellects of the Capital. But a university was not then a kind of higher-grade secondary school.

Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to write on the subject ofdolls. In bi-lingual districts children's answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course, more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which illustrates what Latin scholars callcontaminatio. A teacher had given a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury, as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply: "Canterbury is the seat of anarchbishop through whom the first meridian passes." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating theirideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat cannot kill these curious little animals.Hence some people prefer spirits." From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism. "Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter Scott. Burns and Sir Walter wrote beautiful lines about their native land, and thousands of tourists came and circulated their money there.It would be telling usif writers would imitate these great patriots in our day." Many of the young scribes on the mainland can also indulge in a deal of brilliant irrelevancy. One of them being asked to write an essay on "Rivers," began thus: "In ancient times, the chief use of rivers was for the baptizing of converts." Another, in the course of a short life of King Alfred, made a strong point of that monarch's humility, adding, "In order to discover the plans of the Danes, he demeaned himself so far as to go to their campdisguised as a poet." The annual blue book of the Scotch Education Department used to include a recreative series of howlers that had been sent up in the various reports of the Government Inspectors. These tit-bits were well calculated to keep up the gaiety of nations. Of late years these howlers have been excised, but if Scotland had Home Rule they might re-appear.

The finer attenuations of speech are unknown to thesoaring human boy. I was shown an essay on Ireland the other day in which the young writer compendiously remarked, "The Irish are a bloodthirsty, lazy, and resentful race." On Wordsworth, another juvenile critic thus expressed himself: "Wordsworth's compositions are utter bosh." The following extract is from an "Essay on the '15": "The Rising of '15 was a failure because the Old Pretender was an unmitigated ass. Fancy an ass trying to take charge of a Rebellion!"

A genial gentleman, Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley, who retired from the Inspectorate some years ago, published in 1908 a book of choice reminiscences, containing some good specimens of schoolboy answers. Some of his howlers have long been known in the North: but a howler (like history) is wont to repeat itself. I saw in a Paisley boy's essay on Lambert Simnel the following sentence: "Lambert Simnel was a claimant for the English crown, and went about the country boasting that he was one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower." Mr. Kynnersley's examinee wrote thus: "Prince Charles Edward claimed to be one of the little princes murdered in the Tower. He was found to be a deceiver, and was put into the king's kitchen to work."

A boy once told Mr. Kynnersley thata quorum is a question asked at a meeting which the chairman is unable to answer. I saw a definition of paradox, equally absurd: "A paradox is something which is apparently not what it seems to be."

It is a favourite geographical test to require a pupil to describe a coast journey between two seaports, and mention capes, rivers, and towns seen on the way."Describe a trip from Greenock to the Isle of Man," said a teacher to his class; "I give you an hour to write it out." Very few were past Lochryan at the hour's end. One daring youth took his boat, which he christened "The Comet," right round the Mull of Kintyre, with intent to reach Douglas by way of Cape Wrath, the North Sea, Dover, Land's End, and St. George's Channel. When time was up, theComet, all torn and tattered by the strumpet wind, was beating round the north end of Skye. That boy will, in all probability, turn out a deep-sea captain.

"How many days are there in a year?" asked an inspector of a class of Highland youngsters. No answer was given. "Tut, tut," said the inspector testily, "this is ridiculous. Is thereno onewho knows how many days there are in the year?" "Oh, yes, sir," said a boy reproachfully, "God knows."

"What kind of king was William III.?" inquired another examiner. "He had an aquiline nose, sir," said a boy. "What does that mean?" said the examiner. "It means," answered the boy, "that William III.'s nose was turned up at the point like the beak of an eagle!" "What right had William to the English throne?" continued the examiner, changing his ground. "No right under heaven," was the forceful Jacobite rejoinder.

Here is a tale, from the eastern seaboard of Scotland.

Inspector, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., etc. (examining a class of ten-year olds): "Now, boys, what is the shape of the earth?"

Boy:"Roon, like an orange."

Inspector:"But how do Iknow, how can I besurethat the earth is round like an orange?"

Boy:"Because I tell't ye."

Pupils show great affection for the phrases of their text-books. Not long ago, at a written examination, a lad wrote in reply to a historical question which was puzzling him: "The answer to this question is known only to the Great Searcher of Hearts." What could the boy mean? Was it "cheek," ignorance, or piety? It was none of these.It was Collier!About thirty years ago, Dr. Collier, a modern Euphuist, composed aHistory of England, which deserves to be reckoned among the glories of the reign. Carlyle may be great, but Collier is greater: Collier is a theologian, philosopher, anda' that. The style of his history is a wondrous blend ofOssianand Hervey'sMeditations among the Tombs; and its special peculiarity is that the words, owing to some feature, never really analysed, linger in the mind long after the sentences of the Shorter Catechism have become blurred. Collier is strong in tropes—a highly-dangerous feature. It is no doubt true, as he says, that William the Conqueror ruled with a rod of iron, but when a boy, after reading this metaphor, asserts that that sovereign ruled his subjectswith a long iron pole, you begin to question the utility of historical study. "Joy-bells pealed and bonfires blazed," is a phrase of the Doctor's which sets all the caverns of the mind ringing, even though its historical setting is long forgotten. But unction is the chief feature of the history: there is a rotund finality about the author's spacious utterances, and a dodging of investigation by means ofpious generalisations. The book has all the effect of a benediction. When it is really too tiresome to inquire into all the authorities on some affair of magnitude, it is so respectable to sum up in the phrase imitated by the youth alluded to above.

It is in the Secondary Schools of the country that the confusion of thought is apt to be most painfully seen. Far too much is attempted, and the pupils are overworked. A teacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, alaudator temporis acti, has a manuscript collection of howlers, drawn from elementary, secondary, and university sources, with the following fearful lines as a preface:—

"Ye statesmen all, of high or humble station,Collective conscience of the British nation,Whether the frothing vat has made your nameOr tropes in carpet-bags begot your fame,Behold theproductof the educationWherewith is dosed the rising generation.And see the modern devotee of cramAt midnight hour hard-grinding for the exam.,A moistened towel garlanding his brow,And coffee simmering on the hob below.High on a three-legged stool uncushioned, heSits glowering through his goggles painfully,Nagging his brain with all a grinder's mightTillonesounds on the drowsy ear of night.Like Sibyl's leaves the papers strew his floorWrought-out examples, 'wrinkles' by the score,Conundrums algebraic, 'tips' on ConicsAnd thorny 'props' remembered by mnemonics.Betweenwhiles as the slow time lagging goes,He takes the spectacles from off his nose,Removes the damper from his aching head,Pours out the coffee, cuts a slice of bread,Sips wistfully the liquid from his cup:The zeal to pass the exam. has eatenhimup.Thrice happy ye! born 'neath the ancient reignWhenTityre tualone possessed the brain(Ere Tyndall's tubes made sweating students numb)And the whole aim of life wasdi, do, dum."

So numerous indeed are the subjects of the school curriculum in our day that howlers and confusion are bound to result. Formerly there was but one scheme (containing classics, mathematics, and a little English), and everybody took it. Now there is a kind of competition among the departments of a school as to which is the most culturing. When a fond mother asks the opinion of the masters as to what course of study her boy (whom she is entitled to think a genius of the first order) ought to pursue, she is often puzzled by the variety of answers. Mr. Test-tube, the Science Master, invariably prescribes an extensive course of chemistry. If a boy is to be a lawyer, he ought to know the principles of atomic combination and the doctrine of gases; if he thinks of the ministry, why then, having a thorough acquaintance with science, he will be competent to close the mouths of heretics, infidels, and such vermin. Dr. Aorist, on the other hand, believes that a sound knowledge of "quiwith the subjunctive" is a splendid sheet-anchor for every squall in life's rude sea. "I wish my boy to be a civil engineer; what advice would you give me as to his studies?" "I have no hesitation in affirming," the Doctor replies,"that the boy will build bridges all the better if he has his mind expanded and (so to speak) broadened by the study of subjects outside his special trade, such,e.g., as the interesting fact that in ancient times 'All Gaul was divided into three parts.'"

The average boy has an impartial mind. As a rule, he has no prejudice in favour of either science or letters, his maxim being never to do to-day what he can put off till to-morrow.

His favourite books for homeAre buccaneering combats on the foam,Or grim detective tales of Scotland Yard,Where gleams the bull's-eye lamp and drips the poniard.

Parents may be reminded that the wide spaces of the colonies remain to be peopled and that many astickit ministermight have made a first-class empire-builder.

Aberdeen—En route—Lerwick—Past and present saints—Some notes on the islands—A Shetland poet—A visit to Bressay—From Lerwick to Sandwick—Quarff—"That holy man, Noah"—Fladibister—Cunningsburgh—"Keeping off"—The indignant elder—Torquil Halcrow—Philology—A Sandwick gentleman—Local tales—Foulah and Fair Isle—The fishing season.

The most expeditious and comfortable way of getting to Shetland is by way of Aberdeen.

I have passed through the city ofBon Accordabout six times during the last twelvemonth, and like it better the more I see of it. It is one of the stateliest towns in Britain, and its main street, spacious, airy, and symmetrical, is hard to match. The architectural taste of the new University Buildings is perfect, and will be more striking still to the casual visitor, when the unsightly buildings all round have been torn down. It would be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town.

The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that Aberdeen was ablytheplace:

"BlytheAberdeen thou beryl of all tounis,Thou lamp of beauty, bounty andblitheness."

I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the cause of poetry in others.[25]A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as

"Beaming benignant o'er the northern main."

As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house told me wasmade in Germany(meaning thereby that the wind was blowing from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for Lerwick, in writing aSonnet to Mr. William Watson. In suchexercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular:

Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter,And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink,Ampler than any of thy readers think,In blotting that wherein the first quick stirOf thought and genius made the language err.If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blinkOf saving humour for her crambo-clink,Then never-dying fame had fallen to her.Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowedOn thee of what is tunefullest and best:The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode,The witching freshness of aPrince's Quest,The soft romance that dreams of years gone by,Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady.

The little steamer that plies between Aberdeen and Lerwick is timed to leave the former port at 11.30 a.m.,or as soon afterwards as the tide will permit. Often the boat does not leave for some hours after 11.30 a.m., the tide not being always to blame. What a capacity the boat has for empty barrels! I counted six heaped lorry-loads of them that were rolled on board, destined, later on, to be filled with herring up north among the islands.

It is extremely interesting (see Virgil III., 690) to stand in calm weather on the deck of a moving vessel and talk about the notable places on the coast with one who knows them well. Much information of a variedand piquant kind may thus be acquired. The Aberdeenshire coast is rather unpicturesque, but many historical legends linger airily on the stern old ruins that are passed from time to time. I omit mention of these, preferring to tell an anecdote of recent years that is associated with the immense rocky sea-caverns, of world-wide fame, not far from Cruden Bay. During the Boer War, some Scotch journalists, strong in the science of genealogy, undertook to prove that all the generals at the front had Scotch blood in their veins. It seems that these patriotic penmen succeeded quite easily in making their contention good with respect to all the generalssave one. No Scotch lineage could be found for General Buller. The difficulty was at last surmounted by the felicitous conjecture that he was one of the famousBullers of Buchan!

About eight miles past Cruden Bay is Peterhead, the most easterly town in Britain. Great efforts are being made at present to boom this place as a health resort. I have heard it said that "printers who die at 30 of consumption elsewhere, weigh 21 stone at over threescore in Peterhead," also that "centenarians there have been known to get up at 5.30 a.m., to chop wood, no chill or bacillus daring to make them afraid." The Home Office has long thought highly of Peterhead as a place of permanent retreat for those afflicted with ethical infirmities.

After Peterhead is left behind, the steamer soon gets entirely away from land. All night long she battles through the surges, passes about 2 a.m. the lonely Fair Isle, encompassed by the rushing roost, and twohours later Sumburgh Head is visible. The approach to Bressay, especially if the rocks and precipices are half seen through driving haze, is suggestive, to a student, of the landscape of "Beowulf," with itswindy walls,shadow-helms,broad nesses, andglimmering sea-cliffs.

As seen from the sea, Lerwick looks trim and picturesque, but when the visitor lands, he is apt to lose his bearings among its tortuous lanes. I followed a porter who was tottering under the weight of trunks, and asked him, as we treaded a flag-paved vennel: "Is it far to the main street?" He grimly replied: "Thisisthe main street, sir." The response unnerved me, shaky as I was with seventeen hours' tossing on the North Sea. Once in the hotel, my spirits rose. A most welcome and savoury breakfast—consumed near an open window commanding a view over a sun-lit sound—is well able to hearten the most downcast.

The town of Lerwick is indeed one of the finest of our island capitals, and is constantly becoming finer. No visitor can fail to be impressed by its unique natural harbour, gloriously screened by the God-given shelter of the island of Bressay. Commercial Street, which runs along the water's edge, is at the foot of a hill, and is so narrow in parts that two vehicles can hardly get past each other. If I stayed in Lerwick, I should not like to have any resident enemies, for it would be difficult to keep from brushing clothes with them in the main street. Up from this main street to the newertown, on a plateau at the top, run numerous quaint wynds, sinuous, and not always well-scavenged. This new and well-built part contains the far-seen and notable Town Hall, the architecture of which would have pleased Ruskin, especially as its fine windows are all appositely illustrative of Shetlandic annals. By climbing the dusty clock-tower, one has a splendid view of all surrounding slopes and seas.

Here is a hint to prospective tourists. Take to the left when you quit the hall, get down the lane leading to the sea-crags, and walk for two miles in the direction of the rifle-range. It is a glorious and solitary walk—not altogether solitary, for the sea is invariably good company. Don't be so foolish as to keep on your hat: off with it, and let the air-borne sea-spume wet your brow. It is also a good thing to recite Byron's vigorous "Address to the Ocean,"—the odd cows you may pass will not stop their grazing for that. There is no finer air in King Edward's dominions than that which blows in this region, for the hill air meets the sea air that has come all the way from Norway, and the two coalesce to give the rapt pedestrian a mouthful of exhilarating ether. One who is really a poet and not merely a casual sonneteer, should try to get a site for his tent on this particular shore, and retire to compose an epoch-making epic. The mediæval saints knew what they were doing when they retired to little nooks and isles along this coast to pray and meditate undisturbed: it is much easier to feel devout in a fresh atmosphere, than in the squalor of a town.

What indeed astonishes the visitor to these northern isles is the immense number of ecclesiastical ruins. The Christian missionaries seem speedily to have translated their enthusiasm into stone and lime. What hymns were chanted and what sermons preached up there in bygone times, passes the wit of man to reckon! It is a far cry from Palestine to the Shetland creeks and voes, but the voice of the lowly Nazarene effectually reached the Celts and Norsemen of these treeless storm-lashed isles.

Many of the smaller islands have the appellationpapa, which indicates, as I hinted above, that some monk or hermit, withdrawing from the world to pray and meditate, has bequeathed a whiff of sanctity to headland and skerry.

"The hermit good lives in the wood," says Coleridge, but for the Shetlandpapathere was nonemorum murmur:—

No sun-illumined leafage met his eyeRaised from perusal of the Holy Word,No murmur of the woodland zephyr-stirredBlended with his devotions sped on high,Only the chiding of the billows nigh.The clangour of the wheeling ocean-bird,Or soul-astounding shriek of storm-fiend heardFrom the dun cloud-battalions hurrying by,Greeted his ear: yet piously through allHis life the austere anchorite remained,On his lone island, buffeted by squallAnd sea, and faithful unto death obtainedThe promised guerdon that the Lord bestowsUpon the pure in heart, and only those.

It has been asserted by those who have means of knowing, that the days of theological rigidity are past and gone in the Shetlands. Thing unheard of in the Hebrides—the shops are open on Sunday mornings for the sale of Saturday'sScotsmanandHerald. In some parts of Scotland you could not hire a trap for a Sunday drive; in others, youmightmanage, by salving the driver's conscience with a double fare. In Shetland the tariff is the same for the first and the last days of the week. To explain the ecclesiastical differences between the islands of the North and the West would require a philosopher with all Buckle's shrewdness and ingenuity. Buckle accounted for the sombre nature of Scotch theology by dwelling on the awe-inspiring reverberations of thunder among the Highland peaks. The easy-going creed of the Shetlands might perhaps be accounted for by a reference to the happy-go-lucky way in which the sea wanders at will among the confusion of peninsulas, islets, and skerries. Any theory is better than none at all, and geopsychical explanations are fashionable at present.

The pulpit stars twinkle with great lustre in these boreal regions. A country minister, with no preparatory groans, but sharp and trippingly thus began his homily some Sundays ago: "It is now thirty-five years since the Lord sent me to labour in this part of hisvineyard, if vineyard I may call it, where no grape was ever seen. On a bright summer morning thirty-five years ago, I turned the corner of the road and came among you. Young women, your mothers were in the fields, busy with the work of the crofts. Your mothers were exceedingly fair to look upon, and I am happy to say, my dear young sisters, that, by the providence of God, the beauty of your mothers has lost nothing by being transmitted to your comely selves. And now for my text, which you will find in Ezekiel, chapterxand versey."

A century ago Shetland was almost an unknown land to the Lowlanders of Scotland. When a Shetland minister was deputed to attend the General Assembly, it might take him a year to get there and back. His journey was a very circuitous one: he had to go in a trading vessel to Hamburg, take boat from Hamburg to London, and from London proceed to Leith. To return from Edinburgh, the journey was performed the reverse way. Now that there is a regular service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and between Leith and several of the Shetland ports, the journey can be performed with comfort and expedition. Tourists flock North in the summer season to admire the scenery, catch the trout, and inhale the health-giving breezes.

The natives, being mainly of Norse descent, look with a kindly eye over the water in the direction of Bergen. They do not love Scotland, and they have their reasons. When the Shetlands were handed overto the Scotch kings, numbers of needy adventurers, armed with cheaply-got charters, swooped down on the islands and dispossessed the native proprietors. This has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Mr. Russell, who lived for three years among them, says:—"They believe that the present lairds are interlopers, and that they themselves have been defrauded and despoiled. They speak of these things only among themselves, and not openly; but those who have been in the country, and have gained their confidence, know that there is a strong undercurrent of feeling against Scotland and Scotsmen.... They conceive that they have a claim even as things are, to dwell on the land, and that a proprietor has no right to remove them from his estate." I was dreadfully shocked to notice that in a volume of tales published by a Lerwick author only four years ago, the leading villain was from the mainland. "Scotland is nothing to us," said a Shetlander to an inspector of schools. "What has Scotland ever done for us except send usgreedy ministers and dear meal?"

In the old days, when communication with the mainland was uncertain and fitful, the luxuries of civilised life were quite unknown. In one outlying district a box of oranges was washed ashore from a wreck: these the natives boiled, under the impression that the orange was a novel kind of potato. A cask of treacle, come by in a similar way, was used like tar to daub the bottom of a smack. By and by a cow was seen to lick the boat with evident relish, and this opened the eyes of the natives to the real nature of the substance. Nowadays the natives are well in line with modern civilisation, one of the most convincing proofs being that they buy drugs and patent medicines of every kind. One has only to scan the advertisement pages of the Shetland newspapers to note the persistent way in which quacks of all shades bring their nostrums before the notice of the islanders. Dyspepsia and rheumatism are the commonest ailments; and to combat these, myriads of pills and numberless elixirs are annually swallowed. Faith does a lot even when the drugs of a legitimate practitioner are concerned: the fact that you have swallowed something with a bitter taste is often a distinct aid to recovery. Mr. Russell, whom I referred to above, says: "To my surprise, I learned that some who were in extreme poverty, and had hardly enough food to eat, were in the habit of sending South for pills and patent medicines."

Long before I ever thought of visiting Shetland, I was acquainted with the dialect spoken there, through having studied a most interesting little book of poems calledRasmie's Büdie, published in Paisley. The author of this book is Mr. Haldane Burgess, a very prolific and able writer, but unfortunately afflicted with blindness. During my short stay in Lerwick, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon him, and I was intensely delighted with my reception. When the sense of sight is lost, that of touch becomes inordinately keen: Mr. Burgess has accordingly excellent control over his type-writer, and can compose as nimbly as in the dayswhen his eyesight was unimpaired. He spoke of his most recent novel,The Treasure of Don Andreas, and expressed himself as highly pleased at the criticism passed upon it by a reviewer in theAthenæum. Mr. Burgess begins composition every morning at seven, and regulates his life with military precision. On all departments of Shetlandic history, folk-lore, and dialect, he discourses with great knowledge, fluency, and animation. But his interests in the general field of modern literature are extremely wide. He speaks the Norse language almost as easily as English, has studied Icelandic, and knows a good deal about the writers of modern France. Some friend had been reading Arnold'sLiterature and Dogmato him shortly before my visit. He was loud in praise of that book, the ironical insolence and pawky humour of which he had greatly enjoyed.

On parting from Mr. Burgess, I received from him a copy of his pleasant Shetlandic storyTang, a careful and illuminating study of island life and manners. The English style struck me as full, robust, and strongly tinged with poetical figures, and the character sketches drawn with the precision of intimate knowledge. All his prose works display great wealth of material, and much psychological insight. His most characteristic production, however, is his little book of poems mentioned above,Rasmie's Büdie. Rasmie is a Shetland crofter who is typical of the race: shrewd, kindly, thoughtful, and gifted with a touch of quaint sarcasm. He has perfectly clear views of life, this old peasant, and is quite free from cant, or superstition, or mystery. Some of his metaphors are droll: after long ponderingon the scheme of creation, he comes to the conclusion that earth is the field, heaven the house, and hell the "midden." Pope, speaking ofParadise Lost, complains that—

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