, that novels and secular
literature generally will pervert the minds of the people. The addition
of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's books to a library was recently likened to the
arrival of the Serpent in Eden.

EDUCATION ACT OF 1872.

In one of the best-known chapters of _Rob Roy_, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the
utilitarian Glasgow merchant, says to his cattle-reiving kinsman: "Your
boys, Rob, dinna ken the very multiplication table, which is the root o'
a useful knowledge, and it's my belief they can neither read, write, nor
cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o' ane's ain connections in a
Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put
alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of _Marmion_:
"Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and
Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations
adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the
literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could
neither read nor write.

In the year 1872, education was made the concern of the nation. It was
rightly considered to be a standing menace to the security of the realm
that ignorance, which is the parent of disorder and lawlessness, should
be the doom of a large proportion of the nation. Rather than hazard the
dangers of an illiterate population, education was undertaken by the
State, and paid for out of the national purse. The analogy between
disease and ignorance is, in truth, sufficiently close to justify both
sanitation and education coming into the wide domain of imperial duties.

Looking back on the changes that resulted in the Lowlands from the
Education Act of 1872, we see grounds for criticism. The measure, like
all earthly things, was imperfect. There was something hard and
inelastic about the system fostered by the old Code. The psychology of
Child Nature was almost totally ignored. A system of examination was
established that assumed an equal and mechanical progress on the part of
every child every year. Yet, in spite of grave defects, the Act of 1872
brought inestimable blessings with it. For one thing, the health
conditions of education were vastly improved. Many of the old schools
were absolute hovels. After 1872, large, airy, and spacious buildings,
were erected in every district of the land. It was no longer a case of
one old dominie facing singly a whole regiment of unruly youngsters:
every school was organised an