provide for the education of their tenants, whose labour sustained them; and this practically meant for the community at large. The public body representative of the collective interests of the landed proprietors was the heritors. Accordingly we find educational reform following one uniform line during the period under review ; the Church presses upon the heritors in each parish the duty of providing a school, with suitable equipment and endowment. Kirk Session, Presbytery, General Assembly are all active. When the Church's direct efforts fail it is powerful enough to get Acts of Parliament to back it up. All through the seventeenth century the struggle goes on, the Church insisting, the heritors resisting. Even Acts of Parliament, somehow or other, always seem to fall a little short of success. The year 1616 is an important date, as it marks the distinct recognition by the Privy Council of the necessity of a school

in every parish of this Kingdom where convenient means may be had for entertaining a school"-just a reaffirmation of Knox's idea. Many other instruments might be cited in a similar sense. But it was not till 1696 that the

great Act of Parliament was passed which may be regarded as the legislative charter of the Parish School. It succeeded where previous Acts had failed, probably because, in default of the heritors' action, it introduced an alternative machinery for carrying out its enactments, and because it provided remedies and penalties whose force would make itself unpleasantly felt. This Act may be regarded as the completion of the movement begun by the reformers in one of its branches. In the scheme of the First Book of Discipline there had been two chief underlying ideas: first, universal provision of schools for the country; second, a carefully graded system leading up to the University. After a hundred and thirty-five years the first was embodied in the law of the land. But, alas! after two more centuries Scotland still lacks the carefully graded system.

It

During the eighteenth century the Church's chief effort was directed toward the carrying out of the provisions of the Act of 1696. still had to be vigilant lest the heritors should shirk the duties imposed on them. The heritors were pretty much like their successors and like

public bodies in general: some were zealous and enlightened, others apathetic and disinclined to incur expenditure which could be avoided. Naturally more is heard of the latter than of the former. The Church, however, remained firm and consistent in its endeavours to secure at least the minimum of provision for Education a proper school in each parish.

But the century was one of progress too. A higher standard of accommodation for scholars and teachers was set up, better emoluments were provided, and otherwise educational interests were advanced and the status of the teacher improved. Several Acts of Parliament were passed, all with this object, and all, no doubt, due in chief measure to the representations and influence of the Church. On the whole during this period the evolution was in the direction of improving the schools rather than increasing their number.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the necessity for more schools became apparent. From 1803 onwards there is a series of enactments in which the erection of additional schools is generally a prominent feature. These schools

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were all after the model of the Parish School, and were designed to spread Education more generally, to bring it within reach of children in the more remote parts, to perfect the system in fact as well as in theory. The establishment of additional schools, besides the Parish Schools, is analogous to the establishment of quoad sacra parishes. There were in many of the wide parishes. with houses fer asonder" districts which were without the range of religious and educational influence emanating from the parish church and school. For these quoad sacra churches and additional schools were provided in course of time. The two chief classes of these were Side Schools (1803) and Parliamentary Parish Schools (1838). These classes have now been merged with the older Parish Schools, and all rank as Elementary Public Schools. Within the parish there is generally, even at the present day, a distinction maintained between the Parish School and other schools, all which, without respect to their origin, appear to be now called Side Schools.

There are among these Side Schools some

which arose in a different way from the preceding, and which introduce us to the next important event in connection with the history of the Elementary School. The great ecclesiastical convulsion which parted Scotland into opposing camps in 1843 reacted powerfully upon Education. The Church of Scotland had all along, as we have seen, taken the warmest and most active interest in the progress of Education. The spirit of the whole was carried into the parts, into which the Church of Scotland was now divided, the Established and the Free Churches. The latter, from its position as schismatic, was bound to take the aggressive in the establishment of schools. The old schools, with the old churches, remained in possession of the old Church. The new Church applied itself with the utmost energy and generosity to the building of schools no less than of churches. These schools were more or less rivals and competitors of the schools already in existence, but they proved in great measure supplementary to them. The country was still undermanned with schools. What was begun. by the Free Church from denominational zeal, and was indeed sine qua non of its existence