ever, for each parish was obviously far less inadequate formerly than now ;-when the population is doubled;-when the number and size of villages and towns have greatly increased, and when there has been a general rise of society. The consequence of adhering to the original establishment, while the community has been moving forward, has been, that even when the people happen to be educated, their education is not nearly so much under the protection of the public authorities as it ought to be, and that there are much larger portions of them than were ever anticipated, for whose instruction there is no legal provision at all. In evidence of this fact, three views may be referred to.

1. According to the population-returns of 1811, there were 1,805,688 people in Scotland. Yet, according to the Parliamentary digest of 1818, out of all this number, there were then only 54,161 children attending the parochial schools;-or considerably less than a third of those who would be there, if these schools really educated the people. Accordingly, it is stated in the same digest, that there were at that time no fewer than 106,627 children who were receiving their education at ordinary unendowed dayschools; and this after making ample allowance for Sundayschools, Dame-schools, schools for the education of the rich, and all similar institutions. So that, taking into view merely that description of persons for whose instruction our parochial schools were originally intended, and for whose instruction it is the culiar business of the state to provide, there are apparently about twice as many persons taught at private schools as at the public establishments; and joining both together, there are fifty thousand who ought to be educated, who can find room neither at the one nor the other. No other result, indeed, could well be expected; for it appears that there were then only about 942 parish schools in all Scotland; so that although every one of them had been at all times choke-full, they could not possibly have supplied one-half of the demand for teaching. Accordingly, these 942 parish schools were so plainly inadequate, that no fewer than 2222 private ones were in operation in 1818.

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2. This is the general state of the kingdom, taking it all into view together; but the condition of the great towns is still worse. It is there that education is the most necessary and the most easy to be got; and yet these are the very places which are most excluded from the benefit of the parochial system. This, indeed, is the necessary result of the growth of the people in places for which there is, by law, only one teacher appointed. Whenever we look either at the digest of 1818, or at the recent returns, for a view of the state of education in great

towns, we almost invariably find a blank at the place where the parish schools ought to be mentioned. There are none: or rather, the solitary one provided by law forms such an atom, as scarcely to be visible, or worth mentioning. In the whole county of Mid Lothian, including Edinburgh, it appears that there are only 25 parish schools, which were attended, in 1818, by 1704 children; whereas there were 97 unendowed schools, educating 4312 children. In the county of Lanark, including Glasgow, there were 56 parochial schools, with 3437 children; while, on the other side, the number of unendowed schools was 307, whose pupils amounted to 18,270. The parish schools of Renfrewshire were 21, and their scholars 1630-the unendowed schools, 137, and their scholars 8690. In Perthshire, the numbers were, 66 schools, and 4096 pupils, on the one side, and 186 schools, and 8953 scholars, on the other. Wherever a district containing a large town is examined, it will be found that there is something of the same excessive disproportion between those who are taught at the public establishments, and those who are left to get their education as they may, from persons, of whose fitness there are no better judges than poor parents thinking only of cheapness,-and whose appearance and disappearance in the place is altogether casual.

Dr Chalmers, therefore, whose admirable Considerations" were published in 1819, and, of course, have increased force now, is perfectly correct in stating, that "It is little known among "us, how much the people of our City parishes have fallen be"hind the full influence and benefit of such a system. With "the exception of schools for Latin, there are almost no ves"tiges of any such endowment. Instead of any public and pa"rochial edifice for scholarship, held forth to the view of the 66 people, and constantly reminding them, as it were, of their "duty, through the avenue of the senses, the only education for "their children which is accessible to them, is dealt out from "the privacy of obscure garrets, or, at most, from the single hi"red apartment of a house, in no ways signalised by its official "distinction, and deeply retired from observation, amid the "closeness and frequency of the poorest dwelling-places. These "stations, too, whither children repair for their education, are "constantly shifting; and the teachers being often unconnected "by any ties of residence or local vicinity with the parents, "there is positively, in spite of the sacredness of their mutual "trust, as little of the feeling of any moral relationship between "them, as there is between an ordinary shopkeeper and his custom"ers. The very circumstance, too, of drawing his scholars from "the widely scattered families of a town, instead of drawing them

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“ from the contiguous families of one of its parishes, slackens, among these parishes, the operation of that principle which operates so powerfully among the immediate neighbours of a “ small country village, and where, in virtue of each doing as "he sees others do, we behold so sure and so unfailing a currency towards the established schoolmaster, on the part of all "the population."-" The shadow," he elsewhere states, "of "the good old habit, may be still perpetuated amongst us "for one or two generations, and perhaps may be preserved by "the annual importations of this habit from the country, from "ever passing into utter dissipation. But though the shadow ، of it should remain, the substance of it will soon be dissipated. “ In so much, that if vice and ignorance stand together in near"ly perpetual association,-if an uneducated people be more "formidable in their discontent, and more loathsome in their profligacy, and more improvident in their economical habits, " and more hardened in all the ways of wickedness and impious “ profanation, than a people possessed of the Bible, and capable "of using it, then we cannot look on the progress of that "undoubted decay in scholarship, which is every day becoming more conspicuous in our towns, without inferring a commen"surate progress in those various elements of mischief, which go to feed and to augment all our moral and all our political ،، disorders."

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3. The condition of the Highland parishes is still more deplorable and alarming. There is a Society at Inverness, which was instituted four or five years ago, for the express purpose of "educating the poor in the Highlands." The first thing which such an institution had to do, was to find out the exact state of the fact, with respect to the knowledge or the ignorance of the people; and certainly no men ever set about a formidable task with more sense and resolution, or concluded it more triumphantly, than these most meritorious persons have done. The mode in which they proceeded, and the results of their investigation, are recorded in the " Moral Statistics." They wished to ascertain various facts, of which one was, the number of persons above eight years old, who were unable to read; and another, the distance of each family from the nearest school. "To accomplish "all this, a schedule was prepared, of a form fit for containing a "description of the state of each family. Twelve hundred books "of these schedules being printed, containing each from eight "to twelve pages in quarto, a sufficient number, proportioned "to the population, was transmitted to the ministers of every ، parish. Brief instructions were prefixed to the schedules, explaining the necessity of accuracy, and pointing out easy me

"thods for filling up the answers to the queries, either by ci"phers or initial letters. Circular letters were addressed to the "clergy, describing the importance of the object, and soliciting "them to subdivide their parishes into districts, and to procure "the assistance of fit persons to undertake the labour of inves"tigation." The space they had to investigate, consisted of ten of the largest and wildest counties in Scotland, comprehending 171 parishes, and a population of 416,000 persons. They obtained returns from 89 parishes, which, they state, " are filled "up with the utmost care and accuracy, and there can be no "question of their meriting the greatest confidence. When the "immense toil required personally to investigate the situation "of every family in a wide district, is considered, the exertions "of the clergy, in aid of this inquiry, must be pronounced as "meriting the highest encomiums. On the plan of this inves"tigation, troublesome as it was to themselves, they bestowed "the warmest approbation, and they entered on the execution "of it with the most cordial zeal and alacrity. In instances "where the population of parishes amounted to 5000, widely disper"sed, the ministers performed alone the whole duty of personal inquiry, and entered the names of every family with their own hands "in the schedules." In order to ascertain the truth with respect to the parishes from which no actual returns were got, very minute examinations were made, upon computations founded on other grounds; and it is stated, that "the whole of these computed "results may, therefore, be received, as presenting a very close "approximation to the actual state of the people."

After all this admirable care and preparation, the Society states, that "the following great facts may be held as established by this "investigation." "Half of all the population are unable to read; "or, in detail, taking all ages above eight years, those who cannot "read are nearly in the following proportions. In the Hebrides, "and other western parts of Inverness and Ross, 70 in the 100 "cannot read. In the remaining parts of Inverness and Ross, "in Nairne, the highlands of Moray, Cromarty, and Sutherland, “and the inland parts of Caithness, 40 in the 100. In Argyle "and the highlands of Perth, 30 in the 100. In Orkney and "Zetland, 12 in the 100. Above one-third of the whole popula "tion are more than two miles, and many thousands more than five "miles, distant from the nearest schools."

Many persons will be surprised at these results; but the Society explains them in a moment, by a very simple comparison of means with ends. The highland population which they examined, amounts to 416,000; and consequently, by the ordinary

calculation of one in eight for a full attendance at school, there should be schools for 52,200. But the fact is, that there are only 171 parish schools, which are attended at an average by about 50 scholars each, being only 8550 scholars in all. There are four societies who maintain schools in the same districts, particularly the great "Society for propagating Christian Know"ledge," without which the Highlands would long before now have been in utter darkness. These institutions maintain about 324 schools more; but still, the whole put together amount only to 495 schools, which, at the rate of 50 each, gives only 24,750 -being less than one half of the number ready to be educated. "This "is exclusive of about 100,000 of uneducated adults, of whom "numbers in the Highlands press eagerly to schools. The "schools, too, have only existed at their present number for "a very few years. Some assistance is, no doubt, given by pri"vate schools; but throughout most of the Gaelic districts, ow"ing to the poverty of the people, this is extremely nugatory. "About a century ago, when the population was not more than "300,000, the parish schools, and those of the Society for pro"pagating Christian Knowledge, amounted in number to 250; 66 now, when it has increased one-third, our schools, with all the "recent efforts of our societies, are no more than doubled : "therefore, we are not much better furnished with the means "of education than our predecessors in the last century; and "the results of their tuition have only proved its deplorable in"adequacy."

In this situation, the practical question is, What is to be done?-To legislate for the case, in all its parts, fully and with due prospection, would require a far more minute and exact investigation of facts than has even yet been made. But no further inquiry is necessary to show, that in whatever way it may be accomplished, the adoption of two measures is absolutely indispensable:-1st, Schools must be multiplied; 2dly, Their character must be raised.

The Inverness Society observe, that "our ancestors, at the "Reformation, seem to have considered a population of a thou"sand, even when concentrated, an ample field for the labours "of one minister, one catechist, and one schoolmaster." The accuracy of this statement is proved by the simple operation of dividing the computed population of those days by the proposed number of ministers, catechists, or schoolmasters, at the time. The population had increased at the Revolution; but the circumstances of the age rendered it not only impossible to augment the number of teachers, but made it a very vigorous measure to go the length of positively enjoining that there should