142 Notes and Sketches. 



light of an elegant accomplishment, hardly as a thing 

 practically useful for the female sex, and some who 

 looked at the matter in the light of principle excused 

 themselves from bestowing it on their daughters under 

 the plea that " niony ane's deen ill wi' vreet." As it 

 concerned the male sex, the school population, in the 

 shape of sturdy well-grown boys, were simply expected 

 to tramp up leisurely day by day during the winter 

 months, each with his peat under his arm, to keep the 

 school fire going, and without anything further in the 

 way of prepared tasks than a question in the Shorter 

 Catechism. The ordinary curriculum was not com- 

 plicated with other branches, as English Grammar 

 and Geography; as, indeed, the attainments of the 

 dominie himself did not always admit of his handling 

 these in any formal or exact manner. Up to at least the 

 end of last century, the only reading books in use in the 

 parish schools were the Bible and Shorter Catechism. 

 The pupils read in succession the Catechism, and the 

 Proverbs ; then the rest of the Bible, and it was reck- 

 oned a great feat to read fluently those parts which were 

 full of proper names that were difficult to pronounce. 

 The schoolmaster rarely if ever thought of question- 

 ing his pupils on the subject matter of their lessons, or 

 of explaining to them the meaning of what they read. 

 Under this moderate intellectual discipline, a youth 

 got leisure to grow to his full stature, or at any rate to 

 reach the age of eighteen or nineteen before any heavier 

 task was imposed upon him than that of herding the 

 cattle of his father, or, if a cottar's son, those of some 

 neighbouring farmer. Of course the total absence of 

 enclosures made the occupation of cattle herd an essen- 

 tial and generally diffused one. We find the statement 

 made in 1750, that the herds in the Synod of Aberdeen 

 at that date were at least "five thousand in number." 



Then when young men had got past the school and 

 herd-boy period, the labour imposed was not very con- 

 tinuous or systematic. In summer, with no green crops, 





