AP PENDIX. No. I. 
lower classes in Scotland of the benefits attending this system, that, where the 
parishes are large, they often form subscriptions and estabhsh private schools 
of their own, in addition to the parochial seminaries. 
In the year I698, about the time when this system was established, Fletcher 
of Saltoun, in one of his Discourses concerning the affairs of Scotland, describes 
the loAver classes of that kingdom as being in a state of the most abject poverty 
and savage ignorance ; and subsisting partly by mere beggary, but chiefly by 
violence and rapine, " without any regard or subjection either to the laws of 
" the land or to those of God and nature." Some of the instances given by 
this writer of the disorder and violence of that period may remind us of the 
effects produced by a similar stale of things during our own times, upon the 
Irish peasantry in the disturbed parts of that unhappy country. " In years of 
plenly," says Fletcher, " many thousands of them meet together " in the moun- 
*' tains, where they feast and riot for many days, and at country weddings, 
markets, burials, and other public occasions, they are to be seen, both nieo 
and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting toge- 
" ther."* Such was the state of Scotland at the time when the present 
sj'stem of education was established. 
It isjustly stated by Dr. Currie that, at the present day, there is perhaps no 
country in Europe, in which, in proportion to its population, so small a number 
of crimes fall under the chastisement of the criminal law, as in Scotland ; and 
he adds, upon undoubted authority, that on an average of thirty years preceding 
the year, 1797, the executions in that division of the Island did not amount 
to six annually, and that more felons have been convicted and sentenced to 
transportation at one quarter sessions for the town of Manchester only, than 
the average number of persons sentenced to a similar punishment during a 
whole year by all the Judges of Scotland.t 
But the influence of education in Scotland has not been merely negative 
or confined to the diminution of criminal offences; it has produced in a very 
eminenldegree those habits of industry and frugality, upon which all civilization 
and improvement ultimately depend. In no age or country have these excellent 
qualities, the cardinal virtues of the lower orders of society, been more 
prevalent than among the peasantry and common people of Scotland during 
modern times : in none have the instances been more frequent of individuals 
who, by a course of meritorious exertions, have raised themselves from an 
* Political Works of Andrew Fletcher, 8vo. London 1737, p. 144. 
t Works of Robert Burns, Liverpool 1800. vol. 1. p. 363, 8vo. 
