CHAP. III. 



WORKSHOP, AND COLLEGE. 



123 



then a seminary of considerable celebrity. Mr. Gibson, 

 the mathematical master, was an excellent teacher, full 

 of love and enthusiasm for his profession ; and it was 

 principally for the benefit of his discipline and instruc- 

 tion that young Rennie was placed under his charge. 

 The youth, on entering this school, possessed the advan- 

 tage of being fully impressed with a sense of the practical 

 value of intellectual culture. His two years' service in 

 Meikle's workshop, while it trained his physical powers 

 had also sharpened his appetite for knowledge, and 

 he entered upon his second course of instruction at 

 Diuibar with the disciplined powers almost of a grown 

 man. He had also this advantage, that he prosecuted 

 his studies there with a definite aim and purpose, and 

 with a determinate desire to master certain special 

 branches of education required for the successful pur- 

 suit of his intended business. Accordingly, we are not 

 surprised to find that in the course of a few months he 

 outstripped all his schoolfellows and took the first place 

 in the school. A curious record of his proficiency as a 

 scholar is to be found in a work by one Mr. David Loch, 

 Inspector-General of Fisheries, published in 1779. It 

 was his duty to hold a court of the herring skippers of 

 Dunbar, then the principal fishing-station on the east 

 coast ; and it appears that at one of his visits to the 

 town he attended an examination of the burgh schools, 

 and was so much pleased with the proficiency of the 

 pupils that he makes special mention of it in his book. 1 



1 After speaking of the teachers of 

 Latin, English, and arithmetic, he 

 goes on to say : " But Mr. Gibson, 

 teacher of mathematics, afforded a 

 more conspicuous proof of his abili- 

 ties, by the precision and clearness of 

 his manner in stating the questions 

 which he put to the scholars; and 

 their correct and spirited answers to 

 his propositions, and their clear de- 

 monstrations of his problems, afforded 

 the highest satisfaction to a numerous 

 audience. And here I must notice 



in a particular manner the singular 

 proficiency of a young man of the 

 name of Kennie : he was intended for 

 a millwright, and was breeding to 

 that busine'ss under the famous Mr. 

 Meikle, at Linton, East Lothian ; he 

 had not then attended Mr. Gibson for 

 the mathematics, &c., much more 

 than six months, but on his examina- 

 tion he discovered such amazing 

 power of genius, that one would have 

 imagined him a second Newton. No 

 problem was too hard for him to de- 



