ed, and drilled by proctors. Nor is this to be
regarded merely as a stage of education; it is a piece of privilege
besides, and a step that separates him further from the bulk of his
compatriots. At an earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly
different experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a
bell hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the
public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he has
been wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of restraint, and
nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no quiet clique of the
exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts. All
classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish young gentleman
in gloves must measure his scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie
from the parish school. They separate, at the session's end, one to
smoke cigars about a watering-place, the other to resume the labours of
the field beside his peasant family. The first muster of a college class
in Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads,
fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish embarrassment,
ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the
sound of their own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I think,
that Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, putting these
uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with ready human geniality.
Thus, at least, we have a healthy democratic atmosphere to breathe in
while at work; even when there is no cordiality there is always a
juxtaposition of the different classes, and in the competition of study
the intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our
tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen into the humming,
lamplit city. At five o'clock you may see the last of us hiving from the
college gates, in the glare of the shop-windows, under the green glimmer
of the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies in
wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the masters of
the world; and some portion of our lives is always Saturday, _la treve
de Dieu_.

Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his
country's history gradually growing in the child's mind from story and
from observation. A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying
iron skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery
mountains,