(iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep.
(iv.) I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again.
ARRAN SCHOOLS.
The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors. At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and Wordsworth.[23]
There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly dying out in the island. Twenty years ago it was the language of the playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the venerable tongue.
In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous Celtic manuscript, the Fernaig MS., a brown-leaved passbook, full of old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be worth £2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could not gratify myself by offering to purchase it.
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.
Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the daffodils beginning—
"I wandered lonely as a cloud."
Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse.