"It is said, however, that the petr.'s predecessor had, along with the farm, a right of grazing in the Broomhill, and that his right was not an exclusive right thereto. It seems to the Sheriff to be a fair answer to this, that, according to the missive of lease, while the farm is let 'lately possessed by James Millar,' his right to the grazing on Broomhill is not limited by any such reference. It is quite general 'the grazing on the Broomhill,' and this means the whole grazing, and not a part of it merely.

"Then it is said that the respt. has possessed a right of grazing two cows and stirk thereon ever since Whitsunday 1831. He entered, he says, at this last date, and his lease was a mere verbal one, renewed from year to year. This right at Martinmas 1867, when the petr.'s written lease commenced, was no better than under a lease commencing at Whitsunday 1867, and it expired unless renewed at Whitsunday 1868. It is said, however, that it was renewed at Whitsunday 1868, and each year subsequently, by relocation either implied or express. But the Sheriff is of opinion that having let to the petr. the exclusive right to the said grazing since Martinmas 1867, the proprietor had no power and no right to relet the grazing to the respt. after Whitsunday 1868, when his verbal lease expired, and that if he did so, and thereby let the same subject to two different parties, he did so at his peril.

"But it is said the petr. did not challenge the respt.'s right during the life of the late proprietor, nor until 1871. This seems to be true, and it is the most unfavourable feature of the petr's. case. Still the Sheriff cannot hold that this is sufficient to deprive the petr. of his legal rights. He may not at first have been fully aware of his rights or he may have had his own reasons for not enforcing them during his late master's life. The petr. was grieve and the respt. gamekeeper to the same master, and the petr. may have been afraid that the master might take a short and unpleasant method of settling any dispute between the two servants.

"It seems to the Sheriff to be unfortunate that after Mr. Brand's very fair and moderate letter of 1st July 1871, the factor did not make a point of having this dispute settled. F. L. M. H."

Act.-Davidson, Kirriemuir. - Alt. - Lowson, Forfar.

THE

JOURNAL OF JURISPRUDENCE.

HOW TO PROVIDE FOR THE HIGHER INSTRUCTION

IN SCOTLAND.

I.

THERE are, probably, few educated persons in Scotland who, on second thoughts, do not recognise the propriety of the provisions of the Education Act being confined, almost exclusively, to the lower instruction. The want of primary education, though not existing in this country to the extent that it does in England, is still an evil of gigantic magnitude, and to get rid of evils is the first and most obvious form in which we must court advantages. We must flush our drains before we stock our conservatories, most of all when cholera is at our doors; and that moral cholera, the source of physical cholera and of every other physical ill, is raging around us perpetually, is a fact of the reality of which ten minutes' walk in the poorer part of any town in Scotland will satisfy us. Moreover, in so far as the degraded condition of her population arises from ignorance, the evil is one with which Scotland, by her historical traditions, seems peculiarly called upon to cope. As regards the lower instruction, at all events, a pre-eminence over the other sections of the British Empire has always been conceded to her, and that pre-eminence she is bound to maintain. Lastly, the primary necessity of primary education, pressing in every country and in every condition of society, is specially pressing in a country in which, wisely or unwisely, we have made the still ignorant majority the final arbiters of the national fate. Many of us thought that education ought to have preceded political enfranchisement. But that is a question no longer open. We have submitted ourselves to the rule of ignorance in the meantime, and our first duty, and now our only safety, consists in seeing that that ignorance shall cease. "We must educate our masters." The social organization which custom has established may give us VOL. XVII. NO, CXCV.--MARCH 1873.

I

breathing time for the accomplishment of our task, but there is clearly no time to lose.

II.

Wisely and well then, the nation, as a whole, has resolved to take popular education on its shoulders. Rich and poor, and the rich more than the poor-for be it remembered direct taxation, whether local or imperial, stops before it reaches the poor at all-are to pay for that; and he must be at once a heartless and shortsighted man who grudges it. We shall perform this primary duty all of us, and perform it cheerfully. But is it necessary that we should stop there? Can Scotland pay, and ought Scotland-for here the duties and necessities of the two Kingdoms separate-to pay for the support of nothing beyond the primary education? or is Scotland so insensible to the value of civilization, in its higher and nobler manifestations, as to be unwilling to purchase it in the only form in which it can be secured, viz., by the maintenance of the higher educational institutions, and of a learned class? I believe, on the contrary, that whilst recognising the necessity of doing what we are doing now, in the first instance, there was scarcely an educated man in Scotland who did not feel a pang of grief and shame when he learned that the Education Bill did nothing for the higher instruction. The lower education, it is true, has always been an object of our special care; but if there be one thing more than even this in which Scotchmen take pride, it is in the relatively high position which their country has maintained till now in learning and science. If there be one thing more than another which Scotchmen would regret it would be that that position should be abandoned. But what is to be done? We cannot go to Parliament for such an object, for Parliament is now a Poor-Man's-Parliament, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he is continually telling us, is a Poor-Man's-Chancellor. The moment that anything beyond the three R's is hinted at, he convulsively draws the national purse-strings. I have said already that he is possibly right, for it would not be becoming that poor men should pay for the education of rich men; and rich men, or even men in reasonably easy circumstances, I am sure, would not wish them to do it, even if their feeling of the importance of the object to themselves were stronger, as it very possibly may be, than is generally supposed. What then, I repeat, is to be done ?

111.

In England the answer to any claim for taxation for the support of the higher instruction, even if confined to the wealthier classes, would be obvious, and for the present unanswerable. Utilise, it would be said, the vast endowments which are now being trifled away for the support of institutions which no longer fulfil the objects of their founders, and for the maintenance of abuses which are a scandal to the age in which we live. If it be true, as Mr. Gladstone recently asserted, that England possesses resources for the purposes of the higher instruction equal to the whole of Continental Europe, it is plain that, till these are taken advantage of, nothing else can or need be done. But in Scotland we have no such reserve fund to fall back upon. The slender endowments for the support of the higher instruction, and for the encouragement of learning and science, which we possess, are already employed to the fullest extent; and, in case of the Universities at least, in accordance with the system which the experience of Europe has proved to be at once the most efficient and the most economical. This system, in its local application, has just been subjected to the most complete revision; and, as regards the disposal of the resources at our command, legislation may fairly be presumed to have exhausted the ingenuity of this generation. But motive power is awanting, the resources by which the systemis fed are flagrantly and confessedly inadequate and this in the heart of a country which is continually deploring their deficiency, and which, relatively to its extent and population, is now one of the richest in Europe. What then shall be the remedy ? for that a remedy, in such circumstances, cannot be far to seek seems scarcely questionable.

IV.

The first and most obvious answer is-Trust to the voluntary efforts of the wealthy. If the rich know what is equally their interest and their duty in times like these they will gladly do it. If they do not know it, or do not heed it, teach them, appeal to them, convince them, entreat them. That is the view which those of us who have advocated the cause of the higher instruction in Scotland have hitherto held and acted on. Nor have our efforts been wholly unsuccessful. To a far greater extent than they did twenty years ago, the wealthier portion of our fellow countrymen now recognise their duty in this respect both to others and themselves, and some of them are doing it in a manner that is infinitely to their honour. Bequests to the extent of £60,000 have flowed into the University of Edinburgh alone during the last ten years, and the tide once set, will probably flow far more bountifully than any former experience would warrant us in believing. Far be it from me to check beneficence in what is surely one of the noblest efforts it can propose to itself, or to close my eyes to the fact that thus, and thus only, can our country take the place in the world of culture to which the genius and perseverance of its hardy sons really entitle it. But is there any reasonable prospect that this exceptional source of supply will ever be adequate to the ordinary demand? Like private charity private munificence flows irregularly, unequally, inadequately. Exceptional individuals will give bountifully, but they will always be but a few, and their liberality will meet only exceptional cases. Studies that are the fashion of the day, or which commend themselves to interests that have been accidentally awakened, may be thus provided for. But the higher education of a whole country, and the normal machinery by which alone it can be maintained and advanced, is a very different matter. Private munificence has founded chairs of Geology and Sanskrit in the University of Edinburgh, but does anything that has yet occurred warrant us to expect, or even hope, that it will bring, and keep, the ordinary resources of the four Universities, whether for teaching purposes or for the prosecution of learned and scientific labours, together with the whole secondary school system of Scotland, up to the point of efficiency which the exigencies of an advancing society demand, and the resources, material and spiritual, of a progressive country render attainable? And that surely is the object which we must set before us. Private munificence, like private charity, has functions of its own to which there is no reason to suppose that it will not prove fully equal. The endowment of scholarships, bursaries, and fellowships, the offering of prizes, the adornment of learned institutions with works of art or historical memorials, even the foundation of new chairs in institutions in which the ordinary teaching staff is already complete, fall fairly, I think, within its range. All these objects excite the interest and call forth the liberality of donors. But to supplement what already exists: to supply deficiencies arising from a fall in the value of money: to meet additional requirements which have grown up from the increase of population: or from improvements which have been made in the organization of kindred institutions in other countries : are objects the realization of which I fear must still depend on the efforts of the country itself. To entrust this latter class of objects to private munificence is simply to neglect them; and to neglect them is like sending an army into the field without food and gunpowder. Besides, is not self-help the first duty of communities as well as of individuals? and would there not be something degrading and demoralizing to the whole of us, if we were to go begging to the more generous members of the community for the daily bread which is to sustain our higher life? There is as much difference between receiving gifts and legacies for learned and scientific purposes, and asking for normal support for the higher instruction, as there is is between receiving a haunch of venison with a friend's compliments, and asking him to buy you a leg of mutton in a butcher's shop!

V.

I now reach the consideration of the scheme which it is my object to urge. What cannot and ought not to be effected either by voluntary effort, or by imperial taxation, must be effected, if at all, by local taxation, or, in other words, by compulsory assessment. To a compulsory assessment for the higher education, covering the same area of population over which the assessment for the lower education is levied, the objections, though not so great as to imperial taxation, would probably be insuperable. Even though limited to Scotland, the lower classes would object to it; and Members of Parliament who,