THE UNLETTERED HERD- BOY. 13 



High School of Edinburgh, not thirty years before. These 

 encounters were often fierce and dangerous, the one side 

 trying to chase the other across the Carron, which flowed 

 between the schools, as a kind of Rubicon or challenge 

 stream, and to drive them back to their barracks on either 

 side. Into these educational quarrels every youth in the 

 town entered, and these John Duncan, peace-loving though 

 he was by nature, frequently witnessed and took part in, 

 which would by no means be a poor one for a boy of such 

 active, mettlesome spirit. 



These scholastic experiences were all that the boy ever 

 had of school life. He never was within the walls of either 

 seminary as a scholar. As in George Stephenson's case, 

 the school did nothing for John Duncan. School going was 

 then sadly uncommon, to an extent we can scarcely credit 

 now, and a large proportion of our poorer classes entered 

 active life utterly unlettered. Bad as it was with boys, it 

 was worse with girls, few of whom in the humbler ranks 

 could even read at all, and fewer still could write. John's 

 mother would seem to have been able to do neither, for if 

 she had been, such a kind mother would not have allowed 

 her favourite son to grow to manhood without knowing a 

 single letter. But so it was. 



In addition to the bad custom of the time, extreme 

 poverty was the main cause of this neglect in John's case. 

 With all her industry in plying her wires daily, and in 

 wielding the sickle when the corn grew yellow, the good 

 woman was barely able to win enough for her boy and 

 herself. In questioning John about his want of schooling, 

 he generously and fairly never once breathed a whisper 

 against his mother, mentioning its prevalent neglect, which 



