Excerpt from Education in Scotland
IF we except the Athenians and Jews, says Mr. Froude, no people so few in number have scored so deep a mark in the world's history as the Scots have done. Why this pre-eminence of a country, small, mostly barren, of harsh climate, and denied many of the natural advantages found elsewhere?
Her very difficulties of climate and soil helped her people to develop; her mountains became a nursery of independence and freedom, her glens and straths the home of a thrifty and hardy race.
A certain seriousness of outlook and tenacity of temper natural to their surroundings predisposed such a people to the things of the mind and the spirit. From early timcs they developed an interest in religion and a zeal for learning. Other countries may have Shown a finer flower of scholarship, but in none has the attitude towards education been so democratic, so thoroughly imbued with the belief that learning is for the whole people, so socialised as to afford the spectacle of the sons of the laird, the minister, and the ploughman, seated on the same bench, taught the same lessons, and disciplined with the same strip of leather.
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