ith the lowland broad, soft accent, and ignorant of
foreign literature, it is very certain that he then found support in
the lessons instilled at his mother's knee. He had been fed on Wallace
and Bruce, and when things looked darkest, even in very early years, his
national hero, Wallace, came to mind, and his struggles against fearful
odds, not for selfish ends, but for his country's independence. Did
Wallace give up the fight, or ever think of giving up? Never! It was
death or victory. Bruce and the spider! Did Bruce falter? Never! Neither
would he. "Scots wa hae," "Let us do or die," implanted before his
teens, has pulled many a Scottish boy through the crises of life when
all was dark, as it will pull others yet to come. Altho Burns and Scott
had yet to appear, to crystallise Scotland's characteristics and plant
the talismanic words into the hearts of young Scots, Watt had a copious
supply of the national sentiment, to give him the "stout heart for the
stye brae," when manhood arrived. His mother had planted deep in him,
and nurtured, precious seed from her Celtic garden, which was sure to
grow and bear good fruit.

We are often met with the question, "What is the best possible safeguard
for a young man, who goes forth from a pure home, to meet the
temptations that beset his path?" Various answers are given, but,
speaking that as a Scot, reared as Watt was, the writer believes all the
suggested safeguards combined scarcely weigh as much as preventives
against disgracing himself as the thought that it would not be only
himself he would disgrace, but that he would also bring disgrace upon
his family, and would cause father, mother, sister and brother to hang
their heads among their neighbors in secluded village, on far-away moor
or in lonely glen. The Scotch have strong traces of the Chinese and
Japanese religious devotion to "the family," and the filial instinct is
intensely strong. The fall of one member is the disgrace of all. Even
although Watt's mother had passed, there remained the venerated father
in Greenock, and the letters regularly written to him, some of which
have fortunately been preserved, abundantly prove that, tho far from
home, yet in home and family ties and family duties the young man had
his strong tower of defence, keeping him from "all sense of sin or
shame." Watt never gave his father reason for one anxious thought that
he would in any respect discredit the good name of his forbears.

Many Lond