SECONDARY EDUCATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3596, 20 January 1883, Page 2

SECONDARY EDUCATION.

[To the Editor of the Daily Telegkahi.] Sir, —Can you find .space for the following extract from v speech of the Duke of Argyle, recently delivered at an association meeting in Scotland, on the place and value of a widely diffused secondary education in a community, simply as an illustrative contrast to those sentiments quoted by you in a recent leading , article from ;i correspondent to some southern journal.—l am, &c., David Sidey. Now, gentlemen, I hope we are met here to-night, not merely to compliment ourselves upon the beauty of our county and upon the industry of our people, but to try if we can do something to show our fellowship and our interest in them, and the influence which possibly only the memories uf Argyle may have over the affections of some of us. Well, now, what can we do best to help the people of Argylcshire ? I point to those figures, 3300 small crofters, and I put my finger upon the service which we can render them, and which this Club, though on a very small scale, has endeavoured to render them, and that is to help them in the education of their children. (Applause.) Now, gentlemen, I know as a matter of fact that the children of many of those small crofters, and the crofters themselves, are fired with the spirit of a most honourable ambition, and that they desire that many of their sons should enter into one or other of the learned professions in this country. They look to the parish schools to give them the foundation of their education, and they look to the ancient Universities of Scotland to finish that education, and to enable them to enter these learned professions. Well, now, gentlemen, there are many schemes on foot at the present moment for improving", for altering—at all events —and for changing the system of Scottish education. I sun. willing to sec any scheme for what is called " middle class " education which may bo of use to the country ; but I protest against any scheme which shall lower the stanclai'd of our parochial education—(hear, hear) — which shall prevent the cluldrcn of those poor men from having , close to their own doors in every district, in every parish in the Highlands, a school at -which they can fret a really superior education, which will bring them to the doors of the class-rooms in the Universities of the country. If we had the education in our parochial schools reduced to the mere rudiments of what are called the " three It's;" and if we had nothing but middle-class schools erected, for example, in such towns as Oban, I can say this, that there is not one in ten of those poor men who could afford the expense which the education at such schools would entail upon them. They can afford to educate their sons at the parish schools, and by dint of scraping and most honorable industry, and by dint of most penurious and almost starvation habits on the part of students themselves, many of them have contrived to educate themselves to enter the Church and the bar, and the other learned professions in the country. But if they had not these facilities, if they had not a good sound education and a tolerably advanced education, available for them at their oavii doors, they could not attain the object of their desires, they could not succeed in their most honorable ambition. Now, one of the best schemes in the world for helping these people is that which this Club has carried out on a small and insufficient scale. We have' only one bursary, and it is, I think, only for £10 a year, which is perfectly inadequate for the support of a student. What I venture to suggest to those interested in the county of Argyle is, that we should sub - scribe to have a limited number of bursaries of sufficient amount, say £2.3 a year—and I believe that is the very minimum which is of much use in the University of Aberdeen —and that these should bo paid over to the children of the Argyleshire peasantry. I am sure it would have a most important effect, uud bo highly prized by the poorer agricultural classes of our county. Before I "sit down let me recommend this to your earnest attention. Let me mention a curious fact that came to my observation only last week. A good many years ;igo there was a native of Argyleshire who had an ambition to have his name, or rather, I believe, it was his brother's name, associated with a bursary of this kind, and lie left a considerable sum of money in the hands of certain trustees, who, along with the Synod of Argyle, were pleased to hold an examination for this bursary every three years. The bursary is held for a period of thr.ee years, and it is a much larger bursary than is at all necessary, being, I believe £120. On the last occasion that bursary was competed for there were four students presented themselves, and I mention this to show the comparative merits of the pupils who may have been educated at one of the first-class middle-class schools, as compared with those who are educated at our ordinary parish schools. One of the four boys was for several years at the High School of Edinburgh, which stands, I need not say, at the very head of the middle-class schools of the country. The other three boys had all of them been educated simply at their parish schools. I am told by examiners—soo being the maximum number of marks—that the boy who gained the bursary was the boy who attended the High School of Edinburgh, but he gained it by only a majority of eighteen marks out of KiO, and the examiner told me that he was not quite sure in his own mind whether— the different points of excellency being balanced one against the other—the eighteen marks ought not to have been the other way. There you have an example of a crofter's son who had never been out of the island of Tslay, uud had never, I believe, been out of the parish school of Bowmore, computing, you may say, on equal terms with the young man who had been four years at the High School of Edinburgh. (Applause.) Now, this is the system I wish to see continued, and I deprecate any ! plan Avhich would interfere with the access of the poorer classes to education of this kind. (Applause.) Gentlemen, lam sorry I have detained you so long. It has given me great pleasure to bo present on tlii.s occasion, and 1 should think myself more than amply rewarded if I could induce those who are proprietors in the county of Argyle, those who are the wealthier tenants, those who arc the friends of the county, and who perhaps may enjoy some happy mouths of the summer among its hills and lochs, to assist us in subscribing to a bursary fund which shall give a limited number of bursaries, and by which children oisome oi the poorer tenants may be able to introduce their sons into the learned professions ot Scotland. (Loud applause.)