schools are particularly needed,' etc. Would it not be
more satisfactory to move instead, the desirableness of a Government
Commission of Inquiry, 1_st_, into the educational condition of all the
youth of Scotland between the years of six and fifteen, on the scheme
of that inquiry recently conducted by a Free Church Educational
Association in the Tron parish of Glasgow; 2_d_, into the condition,
character, and teaching of all the various schools of the country,
whether parochial, Free Church, or adventure schools, with the actual
amount of pupils in attendance at each; and 3_d_, into the general
standing, acquirements, and _emoluments_ of all the teachers? Not only
would the report of such a Commission be of much solid value in
itself, from the amount of fact which it would furnish for the
direction of educational exertion on the part of both the people and
the State; but it might also have the effect of preventing good men from
taking up, in the coming contest, untenable and suspicious ground. It
would lay open the true state of our parish schools, and not only
show how utterly useless these institutions have become, from at
least the shores of the Beauly to those of the Pentland Frith, and
throughout the Highlands generally, but also expose the gross
exaggeration of the estimate furnished by Mr. Macrae, and adopted by
Dr. Muir.{12} Further, it would have the effect of preventing any
member of either the Free Church or the Establishment from resorting
to the detestable policy of those Dissenters of England, who, in
order to secure certain petty advantages to their own miserable
sects, set themselves to represent their poor country--perishing at
the time for lack of knowledge--as comparatively little in need of
educational assistance. But we trust this at least is an enormity, at
once criminal and mean, of which no Scotchman, whatever his Church,
_could_ possibly be guilty; and so we shall not do our country the
injustice of holding that, though it produced its 'fause Sir Johns' in
the past, it contains in the present one such traitor, until we at
least see the man. Further, a State Report of the kind would lay open
to us, in the severe statistical form, the actual emoluments of our
own Free Church teachers. We trust, then, that this scheme of a
searching Government inquiry may be regarded as a first great step
towards the important work of educating the Scottish people, in which
all ought to agree, however thoroughly a