ON

THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF

THE ATHENIANS.

BY

JOHN BROWN PATTERSON, M.A.

A New Edition,

WITH LARGE ADDITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION

BY THE AUTHOR SOME TIME BEFORE HIS DEATH.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS,

EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

MDCCCLX.

12-9-37

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

THE Author of the following Essay was born at Alnwick, the county-town of Northumberland, on the 29th of January 1804. He was the son of Robert Patterson, who possessed a small property in the vicinity, and of Janet Brown, daughter of the Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, an eminent member of what was then called The Associate Synod, and Professor of Divinity to that body for more than a quarter of a century.

In 1810, Mrs Patterson, who had been some time a widow, removed with her family from Croft House, the name of her husband's property, to Edinburgh. Her son John was sent at a very tender age to a private classical school then taught by the late Benjamin Mackay, who was afterwards one of the Masters of the High School, and remained a pupil of his for three successive years. In 1815, Mrs Patterson removed with her family to her native place, Haddington. Its Grammar School, to which John was sent, was not then taught in a way to add much to the elementary training of Mr Mackay, or to bring into action the latent powers of the boy. Excellent as his moral training had been under the maternal roof (for to his mother he was greatly indebted for the gentleness, modesty, and equanimity of his character through life), he had not been so fortunate in his opportunities of public instruction. Accordingly, it was remarked that his physical

gained more than his mental development during the three years he resided at Haddington.

The intellectual history of John Patterson begins with his becoming a pupil in the Rector's Class of the High School of Edinburgh in 1818. He had nearly completed his 15th year, a time of life at which talent placed in favourable circumstances unfolds itself with singular rapidity. He was launched then into a class of upwards of 200 boys. Not having passed through the drill of the inferior classes, he took his place as the lowest member of the lowest form, and was pitched against boys, most of whom had gone through four, and many through five years of High School training. The system of teaching in the Rector's Class, by which every member of so numerous a body, from the highest to the lowest, was constantly under the influence of a motive to exertion, was then at its highest point of efficiency;* and such was its effect on the mind of Patterson, that in the course of his first year's attendance, he rose to distinction on the highest or dux's Form. In the following year he was facile princeps in every branch taught-Latin, Greek, and Ancient Geography; and in August 1820, he gained the Gold Medal, which proclaimed him the Head-boy of a Classical School, numbering considerably upwards of 800 pupils. During the whole of this period of increasing distinction and undisputed pre-eminence, he bore his faculties so meekly, that he was the only one among his schoolfellows who seemed not to be aware of his own vast superiority. There was no feeling of jealous rivalry, no breath of calumny. He was equally beloved and admired. That his teacher should be penetrated with the same sentiments, and could not always conceal them, was not to be wondered at; and yet he never was suspected of

* The nature of this system and the principles on which it was founded, are fully explained in the "Rationale of School Discipline," published in 1852, and will be found in Prof. Pillans's "Contributions to the Cause of Education," published by Longman & Co., 1857.

favouritism, of which schoolmasters are so frequently and in general so unjustly accused.

These two years, 1818-19, and 19-20, were doubtless, not only the most improving, but the happiest that his youth had hitherto passed; and to the feelings with which they had inspired him he gave expression in a paper written on occasion of his leaving the Rector's Class. It was entitled, "Recollections of the High School," and is valuable as a proof that, under the calm, unpretending, and apparently passionless simplicity of his exterior deportment, there lay concealed a warmth of cordiality, an earnestness of purpose, an enthusiasm, an imagination, and a command of eloquent expression, that do equal credit to the head and the heart of a boy of sixteen, and, as such, are not to be omitted in a portraiture of John Patterson. It does not appear to have been addressed to any one, or intended for any specific purpose, other than to put on record what he felt while it was fresh in his memory; for it was found among his papers after his death. It consists mainly of a minute and vivid description of the various processes which the Rector had adopted to keep alive the attention, to stimulate the exertions, and to secure the progress of 250 boys assembled in one class. It has been printed nearly entire in a Memoir prefixed to a posthumous work of the author published in 1837, and some readers may be curious to compare Patterson's narrative as there given, with the account which the Rector gave of the same thing in his "Rationale of School Discipline."

We have room here only for the opening and closing reflections of this long paper-the composition of a boy of 17, "just let loose from school :"

66

My attendance at the Rector's Class in the High School of Edinburgh is endeared to me by many a delightful recollection. It was

* See "Discourses by the late Rev. J. B. Patterson, with a Memoir of his Life." Edinburgh Oliver & Boyd. 1837.