My Schools and Schoolmasters; Or, The Story of My Education

There existed at this time no geological map of Scotland. Macculloch's did not appear until about six or seven years after (in 1829 or 1830), and Sedgwick and Murchison's intere...

I was joined in the course of a few weeks, in Peggy Russel's one-roomed cottage, by another lodger--lodgers of the humbler class usually consociating together in pairs. My new c...

There had occurred a sad accident among the Cromarty rocks this season, when I was labouring in Gairloch, which, from the circumstance that it had nearly taken place in my own p...

The apprenticeship of my friend William Ross had expired during the working season of this year, when I was engaged at Conon-side; and he was now living in his mother's cottage...

The great fires of the Parliament Close and the High Street were events of this winter. A countryman, who had left town when the old spire of the Tron Church was blazing like a...

"The muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel' he learned to wander Adown some trottin' burn's meander, An' no think lang: Oh, sweet to muse, and pensive ponder A heartfelt...

"Days passed; an' now my patient steps That maiden's walks attend; My vows had reach'd that maiden's ear, Ay, an' she ca'd me friend. An' I was bless'd as bless'd can be; The fo...

The restorative powers of a constitution which at this time it took much hard usage to injure, came vigorously into operation on my removal from the wet ditch and the ruinous ho...

I had taken no very deep interest in the Voluntary controversy. There was, I thought, a good deal of over-statement and exaggeration on both sides. On the one hand, the Voluntar...

"This while my notion's ta'en a sklent, To try my fate in guid black prent; But still the mair I'm that way bent, Something cries, Hoolie! I red you, honest man, tak tent; Ye'll...

"They lay aside their private cares, To mend the Kirk and State affairs; They'll talk o' patronage and priests, Wi' kindling fury in their breasts; Or tell what new taxation 's...

"Strange marble stones, here larger and there less, And of full various forms, which still increase In height and bulk by a continual drop. Which upon each distilling from the t...

The report went abroad about this time, not without some foundation, that Miss Bond purposed patronizing me. The copy of my verses which had fallen into her hands--a genuine hol...

I spent the holidays of two other autumns in this delightful Highland valley. On the second, as on the first occasion, I had accompanied my mother, specially invited; but the th...

"Now, surely, thought I, there's enou To fill life's dusty way; And who will miss a poet's feet, Or wonder where he stray! So to the woods and wastes I'll go, And I will build a...

Some of the wealthier tradesmen of the town, dissatisfied with the small progress which their boys were making under the parish schoolmaster, clubbed together and got a schoolma...

"At Wallace' name what Scottish blood But boils up in a spring-tide flood! Oft have our fearless fathers strode By Wallace' side, Still pressing onward, red wat shod, Or gloriou...

There was one special subject which my friend, in our quiet evening walks, used to urge seriously upon my attention. He had thrown up, under strong religious impressions, what p...

"For such is the flaw or the depth of the plan In the make of that wonderful creature called man, No two virtues, whatever relation they claim, Nor even two different shades of...

I was born, the first child of this marriage, on the 10th day of October 1802, in the low, long house built by my great-grandfather the buccaneer. My memory awoke early. I have...

Rather more than eighty years ago, a stout little boy, in his sixth or seventh year, was despatched from an old-fashioned farm-house in the upper part of the parish of Cromarty,...

"See yonder poor o'er-labour'd wight, So abject, mean, and vile, Who begs a brother of the earth To give him leave to toil; And see his lordly _fellow-worm_ The poor petition sp...

"Life is a drama of a few brief acts; The actors shift, the scene is often changed, Pauses and revolutions intervene, The mind is set to many a varied tune. And jars and plays i...

cause of their new-born misery, she had. He used, from motives of economy, to keep a pig, which, when converted into bacon, was always useful in the family; and an occasional ha...

chapter, that the Hill had its dense thickets, which, from the gloom that brooded in their recesses even at mid-day, were known to the boys of the neighbouring town as the "dung...

"Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate; and reasoned high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate-- Fixed fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute; And...

"He who, with pocket hammer, smites the edge Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised In weather stains, or crusted o'er by nature With her first growths--detaching by the...

It is now nearly a hundred years since Goldsmith remarked, in his little educational treatise, that "few subjects have been more frequently written upon than the education of yo...