206 Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
honour and duty, and sent them forth to the business of life well 
educated and thoroughly imbued with upright and virtuous prin- 
ciples. From an early period Gteorge showed that his bent was 
towards the pictorial art ; and his boyish efforts in that direction 
proved that he had the natural gifts which, under due cultiva- 
tion, promised to lead to eminence. In order to obtain this 
necessary culture he came in 1823 to Edinburgh, where he studied 
at the drawing school connected with the Institution. His first 
pictures were exhibited in 1826, and attracted much attention. 
In his earlier efforts he seems to have had Wilkie before him as 
his model; at any rate, his subjects were selected from scenes of 
humble Scottish life, such as Wilkie delighted to delineate. These 
Harvey reproduced with scrupulous truthfulness, and his pictures 
show a keener sense of the more humorous side of his subject 
even than those of Wilkie. The scenes he preferred to delineate 
were such as he had himself witnessed, and the features of which 
remained vividly impressed on his memory. One of his earliest 
pictures represented a village school during school hours, — the 
respectable master engaged in hearing a lesson from a class of boys 
and girls, and the rest of the pupils employed either in working 
at their slates or conning their lessons, or in weary vacuity waiting 
for the season of dismissal, or, as their bent inclined, playing tricks 
and working mischief out of the master’s sight. This picture 
attracted the attention of an eminent patron of art, who desired 
to purchase it ; but Harvey, having promised it to a friend, would 
not consent to sell it, even though his friend urged him not to 
lose the advantage, so important to a beginner, of getting his pic- 
ture placed in the gallery of a celebrated collector. To the village 
school Harvey resorted oftener than once, even in the more ad- 
vanced stages of his career, for the subject of a picture, as his well- 
known pictures of “ The Examination ” and “ The Skule Skailin’ ” 
show. Other scenes of ordinary Scottish life were depicted by him 
at this time, such as “ The Leisure Hour,” “ Disputing the Billet,” 
“ The Small-Debt Court,” and in later years his u Curlers,” his 
“ Highland Funeral,” his “ Penny Bank,” show the undying in- 
terest which the habits, pursuits, and manners of his countrymen 
had for him. As a religious man, the religious history of his 
country could not fail powerfully to engage his regards, and in 
