MISCELLANTIES. 
EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND. 
( From Appendiz to the Memoir of 
the Life of Mr. Park.) 
There is no part of Europe, in 
which education has been a sub- 
ject of more general attention or 
produced more important effects 
than in Scotland. During little 
more than a century, a system of 
public instruction established in 
that country, has not only had the 
most beneficial influence upon in- 
dustry and private morals, but 
has been the principal cause of one 
of the most remarkable changes 
of national character which has 
ever yet taken place during so 
short a period. Ata time when 
the public attention in this coun- 
try is so laudably directed towards 
providing means of instruction 
for the poor, a few remarks on the 
effects of a system of general edu- 
cation in Scotland, may not be 
thought unseasonable. The fol- 
lowing facts and observations re- 
lative to this important subject 
are principally extracted from the 
interesting Life of Burns, the 
poet, written by the late amiable 
and excellent Doctor Currie. 
The system of education in 
Scotland, though clasely connect- 
ed with its ecclesiastical establish- 
ment, owes its first legal existence 
to a statute passed in the year 
1646 by the Parliament of that 
Kingdom for establishing schools 
in every parish, at the expense of 
the landholders for the express 
purpose of teaching the poor. On 
the Restoration in 1660 this ex- 
cellent statute was repealed ; and 
nothing further was done or at- 
tempted for the instruction of the 
573 
people during the reigns of Charles 
and James, which were chiefly oc- 
cupied in religious persecution.— 
But in the year 1696, some years 
after the Revolution, the statute 
of 1646 was re-enacted nearly in 
the same terms, and continues to 
be the law of Scotland at the pre- 
sent time. Connected with this 
legislative provision are many acts 
passed by the General Assemblies 
of the church of Scotland, which 
are binding as to matters of ec- 
clesiastical jurisdiction ; and the 
whole together forms a code of 
regulations, which is eminently 
distinguished for the reasonable- 
ness and practical good sense of 
its particular provisions, and which 
experience has shewn to be per= 
fectly effectual for the important 
purpose intended. So much con- 
vinced indeed arethe lower classes 
in Scotland of the benefits attend. 
ing this system, that when the 
parishes are large, they often form 
subscriptions and establish private 
schools of their own, in addition 
tu the parochial seminaries. 
in the year 1698, about the 
time when this system was estab- 
lished, Fletcher of Saltoun, in one 
of his Discourses concerning the 
Affairs of Scotland, describes. the 
lower classes of that kingdom as 
being ina state of the most abject 
poverty, and savage ignorance; 
and subsisting partly by mere beg 
gary, but chiefly by violence and 
rapine, “ without any regard or 
subjection either to the laws of | 
the land, or to those of God and 
nature.” Some of the instances 
given by this writer of the disor- 
der and violence of that period 
may remind us of the effects pro- 
duced by a similar state of things 
during our own times, upon the 
