JURY TO A BISHOP IN POSSE"-APPOINTED INSPECTOR- AFTER graduating at Cambridge I remained in residence for a short time coaching, when I was offered and accepted a classical mastership in the grammar-school of Bury St Edmunds, where Dr Donaldson, of 'New Cratylus' fame, was once headmaster. There I spent a most pleasant year, joining the boys like the veriest boy among them in all their games-hockey, fives, football, boxing, &c. In this connection one event stands out in strong relief. Dick Shaw, a tall fellow, one of the oldest boys, probably eighteen years of age, on returning to school after the Easter vacation, had said that during the holidays he had walked a mile in eleven minutes. This was not believed by some of his schoolfellows. Dick, to make good his statement, made a small wager that he would walk six miles in seventy minutes. I happened to hear of this, and observed that he was the object of a good deal of chaff because, with a total disregard of training, he was taking pudding and other sweets at dinner as freely as if he had no gymnastic contest to face within the next three weeks. I liked Dick, and believed his statement about a mile in eleven minutes, but I doubted his covering six miles in seventy minutes unless he trained. I told him so, and persuaded him to come out with me every second morning before school, when I would put him through his paces. The first morning we did a mile in eleven minutes, but he could not face a second mile. He saw his pudding must go, and it did. By the end of the first week I felt satisfied that he would win his wager. The other boys, hearing that I was training Dick, asked me how he was getting on, but I refused to reveal stable secrets. The momentous day arrived. level mile was chosen, and Dick and I started amid a crowd of witnesses. We covered the first three miles in 34 minutes, and, in sporting phrase, Dick had not turned a hair. He then said to those who had wagered against him, "You offered three to one that I could not do it. I'll lay three to one that I shall." No takers. An objection was made to my walking APPOINTED INSPECTOR. 7 side by side with him and thereby keeping him up to the pace. I gave in to the objection, and proposed that I should fall ten or twelve yards behind him, to which they agreed. We finished the six miles in 6634 minutes, and Dick won his bet. It was rumoured that he betook himself straightway to the confectioner's, and fully indemnified himself for his three weeks' abstinence from all things saccharine. I had on the Yet another incident recurs. gloves one day for a friendly bout with another of the older pupils, Chinnery - Haldane, then a well-grown lad of eighteen years, and now the Right Rev. Bishop of Argyle. In the course of our bout I countered him more heavily than I intended on his prominent feature, which bled freely. No angry passions rose. In proof of this, when meeting him lately I reminded him of the occurrence, he laughed genially, and asked me to visit him at Ballachulish. He is the only prelate to whom I ever did bodily injury. I had been about a year in Bury St Edmunds when I received my appointment as Inspector of Schools, on the strength of my testimonials generally, and of an especially hearty one from the Rev. Dr Montagu Butler, afterwards Head master of Harrow, and now Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was exceedingly kind to me as an undergraduate, and his valued friendship I am glad to say I still retain. Mr (now Professor) Jack of Glasgow, one of my oldest and closest friends as fellow-student in Glasgow and Cambridge, was gazetted Inspector at the same time-he as junior colleague to Mr Gordon in the west, I to Mr Middleton in the north of Scotland. Mr Jack and I entered Glasgow University together, graduated in the same year, entered Cambridge together, and there graduated in the same year, and were appointed Inspectors in the same Gazette. An old minister who knew us both remarked to me that there was a great parallelism between Mr Jack and me, and hoped that we would not both fall in love with the same sweetheart. This was a test to which we were not subjected. I had not the pleasure of meeting Mrs Jack till he had made her his own. Since these lines were penned she has passed away amid the tears of a sorrowing family and to the regret of a wide circle of sympathising friends. It is pleasant to record that the long and intimate friendship between Professor Jack and myself remains to this day undisturbed by a single ripple. A VERY rapid sketch of what immediately preceded, and led up through innumerable modifications and improvements, to the present attitude of Government towards education is perhaps not inappropriate to the purpose of these reminiscences. About the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century there was a great educational awakening to the imperative necessity of supplementing existing provision by Government assistance. Lord Brougham's Committee of Inquiry in 1818 revealed great deficiencies and destitution in the Highlands and Islands. This led to the establishment in 1824 of the Education Committee of the Church, which made vigorous efforts to supply the defects, but with only partial It was found that there was clamant success. |