[ci] 
APPENDIX. No. 1. 
Page viii. 
There is no part of Europe, in which education has been a subject of more 
general attention or produced more important effects than in Scotland. Daring 
little more than a century, a system of public instruction established in that 
country, Ivis not only had the most beneficial influence upon industry and 
private morals, but has been the principal cause of one of the most remarkable 
changes of national character that has ever yet taken place during so short a 
period. At a time when the public attention in this country is so laudably 
directed towards prayiding means of instruction for the poor, a few remarks 
on the eflfects of a system of general education in Scotland may not be thought 
unseasonable. The following facts and observations relative to this important 
subject are principally extracted from the interesting Life of Burns, the poet, 
written by the late amiable and excellent Doctor Currie. 
The system of education in Scotland, though closely connected with its 
ecclesiastical establishment, owes its first legal existence to a statute passed in 
the year 1646 by the Parliament of that Kingdom for establishing schools in 
every parish, at the expense of the landholders, for the express purpose of 
teaching the poor. On the Restoration in 16QO this excellent statute was 
repealed ; and nothing farther was done or attempted for the instruction of 
the people during the reigns of Charles and James, which were chiefly oc- 
cupied in religious persecution. But in the year l6g6, some years after the 
Revolution, the statute of 1646 was re-enacted nearly in the same terms, and 
continues to be the law of Scotland at the present time. Connected with 
this legislative provision are many acts passed by the General Assemblies of 
the church of Scotland, which are binding as to matters of ecclesiastical juris- 
diction ; and the whole together forms a code of regulations, which is emi- 
nently distinguished for the reasonableness and practical good sense of its 
particular provisions, and which experience has shewn to be perfectly 
efiectual for the important purposeintended. So much convinced indeed are the 
