530 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



nineteenth century, immeasurably behind the rest of Scot- 

 land. Evidence of the lack of education among the 

 Hebridean chiefs of the sixteenth century has been given 

 in these pages ; and by that evidence, the ignorance of the 

 lower orders may well be gauged. But there were, even in 

 the Long Island, notable exceptions to the general illiteracy, 

 one of the most striking being that of Malcolm Macleod, 

 who, as we have seen, drew up, in 1598, a bond with the 

 precision of a skilled lawyer. The Fife Adventurers 

 brought a schoolmaster to Lewis, whose services, like those 

 of the minister, were to be confined to pupils within the 

 "Pale." In 1633, the system of parochial schools in Scot- 

 land, first projected in 1616, received legislative sanction. 

 In 1696, a school was appointed to be settled in every 

 parish in Scotland, and in 1704 and 1707, Education Acts 

 were passed, having special reference to the Highlands. 

 In 1700, there was only one school in the Outer Hebrides, 

 situated at Stornoway, where, Martin informs us, " Latin 

 and English " were taught. During the first half of the 

 eighteenth century, the Society for Propagating Christian 

 Knowledge, founded in 1704, performed excellent educa- 

 tional service in the Long Island, as elsewhere. By 1/65, 

 the Society had established two schools in the parish of 

 Stornoway, one in Harris, and one in North Uist. Besides 

 these schools, there was in the town of Stornoway, a school 

 established by the Committee for managing the Royal 

 Bounty,* to teach " English, Latin, writing, and arithmetic." 

 A school for spinning linen yarn was opened in 1763, 

 and was still in existence in 1813. A parochial school 

 was, in 1764, opened in the parish of Lochs, but there were 

 no schools in the parishes of Uig and Barvas. There was 

 a parochial school in Harris, and a Royal Bounty school 

 in North Uist. The Roman Catholic Islands of South 

 Uist and Barra were destitute of schools of any kind. It 

 is interesting to observe, that in the time of Charles I., 



* The Royal Bounty was an annual grant of ^"1,000 by the King, to provide 

 the Highlands and Isles with missionaries and schoolmasters. The ministers 

 had sometimes to be sharply watched, to prevent them from appropriating 

 to the Church, sums allocated for education. 



