1881.] on the Literature of the Scottish IHyhlands. 557 



feeble, (lejcctod, and dispirited, slaves to the urgent necessities of tlio 

 hour, arc more anxious to catcli greedily at any bait wliicli tlie i)urfie- 

 proud Saxon may iling before them tlian to retain tlio honourable 

 heritage of manhood and self-reliance wliicli tliey received from their 

 sires. With the great mass of Highlanders, I fear, patriotic sentiment 

 does not go mueli beyond a sentiment; men in their depressed condition, 

 in fact, cannot alford to feed on the savour of old traditions, however 

 ennobling ; they stand face to face with tlio hard facts of a world that 

 knows nothing about Duncan Ban, and to whom the spirit-stirring 

 strains of the national pipe can bo looked on only as an ill-timed 

 interruption to the whirling of their gigantic wheels, and the whirring 

 of their multitudinous power-looms. A special blow of discourage- 

 ment has recently been given to the maintenance of a genuine Celtic 

 spirit in the Highlands by the recent Education Act. In the codo 

 of the Metropolitan Board, neither Gaelic poetry, nor Gaelic music, 

 nor anything with a distinctively Highland hue and Celtic flavour, 

 makes its appearance. The Socratic 2>i*iuciple of educating by draw- 

 ing out what is in peoide, rather than by injecting them with what is 

 foreign, seems utterly unknown to those who in London arc entrusted 

 with the important function of teaching the young mind how to shoot 

 in the world benorth of the Grampians. But red tape and central- 

 ization, however, naturally narrow and unsymi^athetic, are not in this 

 case altogether to blame. It is the indifference of the people them- 

 selves that lies at the root of this neglect of the best popular culture 

 for a Celtic people in a Celtic country, and the wholesale adoption 

 of what is strange and artificial. Much of tho best soul and the 

 stoutest brawn of the country has, we have already said, been driven 

 by partial laws, and commercial selfishness, and inconsiderate pleasure- 

 hunting, into a voluntary expatriation ; while the few that remain, 

 often the feeblest and most S2)iritlcss, must be content to look up to 

 their Saxon masters to feed them and to clothe them, rather than to 

 their Celtic ancestors to inspire them ; and, so far as this is the case, 

 there is small hope for them. Where the Celtic soul, by an unfortunate 

 conspiracy of external circumstances and selfish agencies, has been 

 pumped out of them, it cannot be the business of the School Boards to 

 pump it in again. Where sparks of the grand old fire still remain, their 

 only resource seems to be that they should form voluntary districtual 

 associations for the preservation of patriotic culture and sentiment and 

 music, after the example of what has recently been done in Rogart, 

 Sutherland, by that most intelligent and manly Celt, John Mackay, 

 Swansea. No small people, under the daily influence of strong currents 

 of denationalising electricity from a people on a higher social plat- 

 form, can hope to rescue its individuality without a manly determi- 

 nation to do so. Here self-help is the only help ; and union under 

 courageous leaders the only form that efficient help can assume. 



[J. S. B.] 



Vol. IX. (No. 73.) 2 q 



