own mountains, the moment the day was lost, the Highlanders, in a great measure, dispersed. The individuals had their own homes to retire to, and their own families to protect; the tribes had each its own country to defend, and, when the Highlanders were defeated at Culloden, their army in a great measure broke up into the separate clans of which it was composed, which went off in different directions to their own several glens. Many, no doubt, were thrown into such confusion that they made to Ruthven in Badenoch as a common place of rendezvous, and the Lowland troops went thither also, because it had been named as such, and because, being strangers in the country, they knew not where else to go. But Chevalier Johnstone talks widely and wildly when he speaks of five thousand Highlanders being there able and ready to resume the struggle. If the prince had not had the spirit (as Johnstone pretends) to have put himself at the head of such a body, the Highland chiefs themselves would have endeavoured to maintain themselves in arms, in order to enter upon negociation, which they had been twice able to effect in former cases. But the whole is a vision. There was never above a thousand or fifteen hundred men assembled at Ruthven, and these were many of them lowlanders. The prince's army was entirely broken up; all the foreign troops surrendered forthwith, with everything belonging to the materiel of their army; the clans had in a great measure dispersed themselves and gone home, as was their uniform custom after defeat. All the efforts of their chieftains could not bring them together again. This was attempted, and the principal actors entered into resolutions binding themselves to rendezvous for that purpose. But the spirit of the clans was entirely broken by the immense superiority of the king's forces, while the desire of defending each its own lonely glen from the fire and sword with which that was threatened, overcame the feelings of sounder policy which would have induced them to persevere in a system of co-operation. A full account of the attempt to re-assemble their forces, and of the causes of its being abandoned, will be found in Home's works, (vol. iii. p. 369,) and we may conclude by observing that Lochiel, by whom the affair was managed, and who saw himself, by irresistible obstacles, constrained to abandon a course which might have at least extorted some terms from the Duke of Cumberland, was as brave a man, and, to say the least, as good a judge of what the Highlanders could or could not do in the circumstances, as the Chevalier Johnstone could possibly pretend to be. We do not, on the whole, mean to arrogate for the unhappy Chevalier the character of a great man, to which he displays few pretensions; but to deny energy to the prince who plunged into an enterprise so desperate, and where his own personal safety was SO so deeply implicated, on the word of one or two private and disappointed men, contradicted by a hundred others, seems to involve a denial of the whole history from beginning to end. He was not John of Gaunt, but yet no coward. It is time to conclude this old-fashioned Scottish gossip, which, after all, in a literary journal of the present day, sounds as a pibroch might do in the Hanover Square concert-rooms. ART. VIII.-1. Outlines of Philosophical Education, &c. By G. Jardine, A.M., F.R.S.E., Professor of Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow. Second Edition, enlarged. 1825. 2. Observations on the Preparatory Education of Candidates for the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the Scottish Universities. Submitted to the consideration of His Majesty's Commissioners for visiting the Universities and Colleges of Scotland. By John Thomson, M.D., late Professor of Military Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. 1826. 3. A General View of the Present State of Public Education in France; and of the Laws, Regulations, and Courses of Study, in the different Faculties, Colleges, and Schools, which now compose the Royal University of that Kingdom; preceded by a short History of the University of Paris before the Revolution. By David Johnston, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Edinburgh. 1827. Svo. 4. Frederich Thiersch, ueber gelehrte Schulen mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Baiern. Stuttgart. 1826. 5. Dr. L. F. Baumgarten, über wissenschaftliche Freheit an sich und in Beziehung auf die deutsche Universitäten. Jena. 1826. A ROYAL Visitation is now engaged in examining into the system of education in the Scottish universities. The appointment of this commission-so rare an event in modern times the high rank, talents, and character of the commissioners, and the inquiries already instituted by them, have created a considerable sensation among our countrymen in the North. At several periods in the early history of the Scotch universities, royal visitations were instrumental in reforming and enlarging the course of academical studies; and Adam Smith, from a retrospect perhaps of those beneficial effects, after panegyrising the learned seminaries of his own country as the best in Europe, pronounced an opinion that a royal visitation could alone remedy several remaining defects. The present commission accordingly arose out of a direct application to the crown from the Senatus Academicus Letter to Dr. Cullen.-See Dr. Thomson's Observations, &c., p. 18. of of Edinburgh and very little jealousy with regard to its objects has been betrayed on the occasion by any of the sister academies, a circumstance well deserving to be recorded as a rare exception to the usual sensitiveness of incorporated bodies, whether learned or unlearned, whenever the slightest interference with their internal regulations, or supposed rights and privileges, is anticipated. A rumour has, indeed, reached us, that Glasgow has not given so cordial a welcome as the rest to the present visitation ; but if this be true, we are sure it cannot have arisen from the recollection of the parliamentary visitors who, in 1690, expelled from that university the principal and three professors, because, said they, they did not approve of their carriage towards their majesties' government since the late happy revolution.'* The commissioners, in fact, on former occasions, however much they had at heart the true interests of science, were always, more or less, biassed by political feelings, and sometimes by violent party-prejudices. But at present, there are of course no apprehensions of this kind at Glasgow; and if their system be already so perfect as scarcely to admit of improvement, this should only afford to themselves, and to the commissioners, the strongest motive for giving the utmost publicity to its details. The late Professor Jardine, in his account of the present method of teaching in Glasgow, has commended the changes introduced there on the suggestion of the royal visitors of 1727, with respect to the greater subdivision of sciences. But without appealing to any historical proofs, it will readily be conceded, that visitations free from all suspicion of political prepossessions can rarely be without their use. The very discussion excited by their investigations is a good. But there are improvements in the discipline of the Scotch universities, for which the public mind is prepared, and which the sanction of a high authority is alone required to execute and confirm. When we consider how many causes may affect, and insensibly pervert, the original spirit and intent of academical institutions, it may safely be asserted, that a century can rarely elapse without some considerable modifications becoming indispensable. Every step in the progress of the human mind-every political change-every variation in the religious opinions of the mass of the community, or even in the manners and fashions of the age, may materially influence the practical operation of academical laws. Statutes of high antiquity may not only become inoperative, through the lapse of time, but become productive of evil consequences, the possible occurrence of which was never even dreamt of at the period of their original enactment; so that their remaining unre Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 311. + Jardine's Outlines of Philosophical Education, second edition, p. 18. pealed pealed may not merely afford no proof of consistency, but amount, in fact, to a vivid illustration of the Baconian maxim, that Time is the greatest innovator.' It was our first intention to have entered into some of the questions now agitated, concerning the discipline and course of study in the Scotch universities. But upon considering these, and perusing the tracts addressed to the commissioners, we are struck with this most singular fact, that-amidst numerous differences as to minor details-several broad principles, completely at variance with the practice, and in a great degree with the speculative opinions of the learned in the English universities, are tacitly assumed by all as the basis of their reasoning. Our brethren of the North are not remarkable in general for lack of reasonable scepticism, nor for a dislike of argument and disputation; when, therefore, we find that on several important topics connected with education, they are in harmony with each other; nay, further, that they are at harmony on the same points with nations so widely different in laws, religion, and government, as the French, the Germans, and the Italians-and, nevertheless, observe, as it is impossible not to do, that on the same points their practice is diametrically opposed to our own, we feel it incumbent on us to examine carefully into the grounds of such an extraordinary discrepance. There are three striking peculiarities in the system of education in England and Ireland, without parallel in any of the other nations of modern Europe: First, the length of preliminary education, and the limited extent of the subjects it embraces: Secondly, the virtual exclusion of a regular professional course of study in the faculties of theology, law, and medicine: Thirdly, the very incomplete subdivision of sciences amongst those on whom the whole burden of teaching is cast. To trace the origin and consequences of the two last characteristics is doubly interesting, for here we are at variance with our own ancestors, as well as with all our contemporaries. We shall, however, proceed briefly to consider the three topics in order, beginning with preliminary education, by which we mean whatever precedes a professional course of study. This preparatory course occupies in every country all the years spent at school, and one or more of those passed at the university; but nowhere, in so far as our knowledge extends, except in England and Ireland alone, does it consume the whole period of academical residence. We might naturally, therefore, have expected that the range of studies would in this kingdom be proportionably more comprehensive, instead of being, as the fact is, more confined, than elsewhere. In one respect, it certainly embraces in this country an important sub ject ject often entirely omitted in others. Every student is required to learn the rudiments of the religion he professes, whatever be his future destination in life. At Oxford, he is examined in the gos pels in the original Greek, in the articles of the church of England, and the evidences of religion, natural and revealed. At Cambridge, in consequence of regulations lately adopted, an examination somewhat similar has been instituted. The fre quent attendance at chapel is considered by many as an additional subject of commendation in the plan of religious instruc tion in our universities; while others are of opinion that as this attendance is compulsory, and sometimes repeated ten times a-week, or oftener, and even occasionally inflicted in some colleges as a penalty for academical misdemeanours, its tendency upon too many dispositions is to weaken, rather than to exalt, the senti ment of true devotion. These last, perhaps, forget that religious observances, but slightly attended to at the moment, often exert a most deep and powerful influence afterwards. But, however this may be, the attention paid to the religious instruction of the laity marks, in so far as we can recollect, the only point in which our course embraces what is neglected by the rival system or systems. In other respects, branches of knowledge considered as essential to preliminary education in the schools and universities of Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy, are entirely excluded from the regular English course. Natural history, for instance, is among the number; and its total neglect is the more inexplicable, when we consider that it is at variance with the opinions of some of our greatest writers-such as Bacon and Locke. Notwithstanding the slight impression made by such high authorities on the public mind of their own times, it may not be presumptuous at present to offer some arguments in favour of a cause espoused by them. Although a taste for examining into the works of nature is implanted in the youthful mind, and is, perhaps, more general than any other, it is comparatively feeble in many; and, if not encouraged, is soon supplanted by the more powerful excitement of topics connected with human actions and passions. But there are some who have an irresistible, and, as it were, instinctive propensity to cultivate such studies, and if no elementary knowledge be communicated in a scientific form, they will, nevertheless, follow the bent of their inclinations; and what might, under a proper direction, have led to the improvement and exercise of the mental faculties, must often degenerate into a frivolous amusement. To constitute such pursuits a prominent part of elementary education would without doubt be erroneous: it is, however, certain that none are more eminently fitted to fill the minds of youth with admiration |