532 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



nine were Gaelic ; and in Harris, nine schools, no fewer 

 than seven of which were connected with the Society. 

 About 1825, the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 

 land moved in the same direction, and planted schools in 

 the most necessitous parts. When the Disruption took 

 place in 1843, the F ree Church vied with the parent Church 

 in educational efforts. A great fillip was thus given to the 

 establishment of schools in the Outer Hebrides, which, in 

 Lewis, was facilitated by the hearty co-operation of Sir 

 James Matheson. When Sheriff Nicolson published, in 

 1866, his report on the state of education in the Hebrides, 

 there were the following schools in the Long Island, viz., 

 Lewis, 48 ; Harris, 18 ;* the parish of North Uist, 15 ; Ben- 

 becula, 5 ; South Uist (including Eriskay), 9 ; and Barra, 5. 

 And yet with all this scholastic machinery, the illiteracy 

 was astonishing. In Lewis, 26*5 per cent, were unable to 

 read even in Gaelic, and 86 per cent, were unable to write ; 

 and the same state of matters prevailed in the rest of the 

 islands, South Uist and Barra being the most backward of 

 the group. In the town of Stornoway, as many can now 

 testify, the schools of that period were turning out pupils, 

 whose educational equipment has enabled them to hold 

 their own in all parts of the world, and in some instances, 

 to make brilliant reputations, more particularly in the 

 ministerial profession. In earlier generations, they turned 

 out such distinguished men as Colonel Colin Mackenzie, 

 Surveyor-General of India, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the 

 discoverer of that great river which bears his name, and 

 Kenneth Morison, the founder of the Railway Clearing 

 House. But in the country schools, education was more 

 partial, less assimilable, and too readily shed like a super- 

 fluous coat, to make any real impression upon the great 

 mass of the people. Probably, too, the adjustment of the 

 bi-lingual difficulty, a difficulty which still exists, was 

 defective. The schools were primarily the handmaidens 



* The School of the S.P.C.K., in Bernera, Harris, was the oldest house on 

 the Long Island. It was the birthplace of Sir Roderick Macleod of Talisker 

 and Sir Norman Macleod of Bernera, who fought at the battle of Worcester. 



