The suspension of the application of the Revised Code to Scotland, in consequence of the appointment of a Royal Commission for the purpose of inquiring into the state of education, allayed the apprehensions of the Trustees.1

So much has been said of late years as to the tendency of the Privy Council grants, whether under the Original or the Revised Code, to lower the quality of the education given in the Scotch parochial schools, that it might not be out of place to consider here whether there are real grounds for such apprehensions. But to do so would be superfluous, as the whole subject of the relation of the Privy Council to Scotch schools is at present under consideration by the Commission above referred to. Of two things there can be no doubt,-First, that no parochial teacher is entitled to devote his attention to the instruction of his senior pupils in Latin and Mathematics whose junior pupils are unable to pass the examination in reading, writing, and arithmetic prescribed by the Revised Code: and, secondly, that whatever system of grants may be devised for the future, the conditions on which they will be obtainable will not counteract the higher parochial education of the three counties with which

1 In the Code of 1865, the clause complained of is made inapplicable to those rural schools in which the Government grant and the endowment do not make a total sum exceeding the rate of 15s. per scholar, according to the annual average of attendance. That Code, however, has been suspended in Scotland till June 1867.

the Trustees are concerned, so long as the principles on which they administer the Bequest are not rendered nugatory by some such provision as that which they gave their influence, not without effect, to resist.1

1 The influence of the Privy Council on the higher parochial school education, is again adverted to in the chapter on the Higher Instruction of the Parochial Schools.

CHAPTER VI.

VISITATION OF THE SCHOOLS.

Or the 154 parochial schools in the three counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray, 20 are excluded from participation on account of non-compliance with the regulations of the Trustees. The remainder are visited once in two years. Unless special circumstances arise, the report of the Presbytery during the year of non-visitation is accepted as sufficient.

It used to be a frequent subject of complaint that the schools were visited in the summer season, and urgent requests were made that the visitation should be made in early spring, before the beginning of field labour dispersed the highest class. During the last nine years the desires of the teachers have in this particular been generally complied with, because it has happened to be as convenient for the Visitor to inspect the schools in March and April as at any other season. The Trustees, however, have never resiled from their original position that a well-conducted school will show its true quality at whatever period of the year it may be inspected. Even the entire absence of the senior class will not necessarily affect the opinion of an inspector respecting the efficiency

of a school if he be competent for his work. The results produced in the highest class are by no means, taken by themselves, a sound measure of the quality of the work of a school. Indeed the temptation which the teacher feels to devote an undue share of his time to his oldest pupils causes him to rely so much on the excellence of a highest class, that he is scarcely aware of the defects of all the others. This is to misapprehend the main object of the parochial school, as of all education, and at the same time to exhibit an entire misunderstanding of method. The perusal of the first portion of this Report will show with sufficient clearness what is meant. It has been written to little purpose if it does not show that the importance of the classes is in proportion to the youth of the pupils, and this in all essential subjects of instruction as well as in the prosecution of the great purpose of education. A sound organization embraces every part of the school equally, and reveals itself even in a mere fragment of the whole. A wise discipline is of more moment, as well as of more efficacy, in the junior classes than in the senior. It is in the opening years of the young child's mind that religious instruction requires the most skilful handling, makes the most lasting impression, and yields the richest reward. It is at the same period that moral acts assume in the mind of the child the character of right or wrong, and the great gulf is fixed between bad and good. It is at the same period that the gentler sentiments

best respond to careful direction, and that mutual consideration can be most easily made to take the place of natural selfishness. It is at the same period, that the habit of intelligent apprehension of any subject to which the mind may apply itself is best formed. And finally, it is at the same period that the character and style of every mental acquirement, whether it be reading, writing, or any other, is permanently given. "Let the teacher take care of his junior classes, and the senior classes will take care of themselves," is probably not an extreme statement. It constantly happens, when discussing with a teacher some great defect in a senior class, that the inspector has to point to the six or seven-year old pupils as the portion of the school to which the remedy must be applied.

Holding the above views as to the periods, nature, and methods of school-work, consistency requires that I should maintain that a competent inspector can judge a school as fairly during the thinned attendance of summer as during the full attendance of winter. Given the same agricultural conditions, it is certainly possible to fix the relative capacity of farmers by the harvest which they lead home; but that man would be an indifferent judge who could not find materials for as sound a judgment in the seed-time.

Further, believing, as I do, that the chief faults of Scotch parochial schools have been, and still are, defective organization, haphazard discipline, comparative