EDUCATION. 533 



of the Church, and clerical domination was, from an educa- 

 tional standpoint, not altogether an unmixed blessing. 

 The advent of the School Boards worked a revolution, 

 both in the methods and the scope of education in the 

 Long Island. There may be some difference of opinion, 

 as to whether or not the moral qualities of the pupils have 

 deteriorated under the present system ; but there can be 

 none at all as to the immeasurable superiority of its 

 educational machinery. The system of the Catechism and 

 the Cane may conceivably have turned out more complete 

 men, but the system of Grind and Grants is certainly turn- 

 ing out more finished scholars. At the present day, the 

 equipment of the schools in the Outer Hebrides will bear 

 favourable comparison with that of any in the Highlands. 

 It would be difficult to find a Board School anywhere of 

 greater efficiency than the Nicolson Institute inStornoway; 

 a school which owes its inception, and its principal en- 

 dowments, to the patriotic generosity of the family of 

 Lewismen whose name it bears. 



When we turn to the early trade and commerce of the 

 Long Island, we grope in the dark. In truth, there was 

 little of either to find. The lack of a Royal burgh militated 

 severely against the development of industries. But there 

 is evidence to show that barter with the mainland was not 

 of infrequent occurrence. In 1597, some Lewismen were 

 on their way to Logic Market, when they met and killed 

 two of the Baynes of Tulloch, who were fleeing from the 

 fair, pursued by a party of Mackenzies. An isolated 

 instance like this affords a hint of the trading inter- 

 communication between the Outer Hebrides and the 

 mainland in the sixteenth century. The Dutchmen who 

 were invited to Lewis by Colin, Earl of Seaforth, in the 

 seventeenth century, exported, during their short stay in 

 the island, not only fish, but black cattle, hides, tallow, 

 plaidings, and other unnamed commodities, thus indicating 

 the commercial possibilities of the island under a system 

 of free export. In 1630, Captain Dymes reported that 

 the " commodities " of Lewis, other than fish, consisted of 



