Any fitness I have had for Parliamentary life I ascribe largely to my historical reading. My school life in Borgue came to an end about fourteen or fifteen, and I then had a short time at the academy in Kirkcudbright, and entered Edinburgh University before I was sixteen, going into the Senior Humanity class in the days of Pillans, and the Junior Greek the year before that eccentric genius John Stuart Blackie came to us. I was also under Kelland in Mathematics-an excellent teacher. I spent two winter sessions and one summer session in Edinburgh, throwing my whole soul into classical learning; and read under Blackie, in my second session, the three great plays of Aeschylus, the Prometheus Bound, the Persians, and the Furies. Their grandeur made a deep impression on me. Blackie was a poet and genius, but a poor teacher. My summer session was delightful, as I took Botany under Professor Balfour, and made charming excursions to gather plants all round Edinburgh and the English lake district. There stands out in my memory as one of the happiest times of my life an excursion of forty students to Windermere. We botanized over Helvellyn to Patterdale, and afterwards walked to Penrith, and the beauty of the scenery almost intoxicated me. We came back to Edinburgh footsore and tired with incessant walking. I should have mentioned that my frequent trips with my father to the hills and dales of Galloway were a wonderful delight. I climbed with him Cairnsmore and Criffel by the time I was eight or ten years old; and we made annual fishing expeditions to Loch Grannoch for several years, living in the little lodge, with a babbling brook running past, and delicious odours of heather and rhododendrons perfuming the air. We carried our food for a week or ten days on our backs, with the aid of a serving man, walking six miles over the soft moor (too soft for ponies), and we lived there far away from the world in romantic seclusion. A little later, when I was fourteen, I travelled with my father for six weeks in the Highlands; we did much of it on foot, climbing then or on a later tour, Ben Nevis, Ben MacDhui, Lochnagar, Ben Lawers, and that almost inaccessible mountain, Scuir Nan Gillian, in Skye. Two adventures stand out in my memory. We started to walk from Portree to Quiraing, taking the Storr Hill on our way. We tarried too long admiring the splendid view, and the night fell on us, and we lost our way on the moors. We were followed by a kindly Highlander, who saw that we were belated travellers, and he took us near midnight to a little village of thatched cottages pitched in a glen beside a brawling stream. He gave us quarters in one of the largest of the cottages, and next morning when we awoke we found the family of three generations swarming about us. They had all slept in one large room, curtained off into apartments. We got true Highland hospitality, with a courtesy that might have become an ancient chieftain, and all recompense was declined. But for this kindly intervention we might have slept in a peat-stack on the moors. Next day we had a long walk to the curious precipitous hill called Quiraing, and we made our way back by a little fishing smack to Portree, and entered the bay with a large fleet of fishing boats on a lovely summer evening. The other adventure was the attempt to reach the summit of Scuir Nan Gillian, the highest of the Coolins. We started at 5 a.m. from Sligaghan Hotel, and clambered up an almost perpendicular face by putting our feet into the crevices of the rock. We reached a narrow ledge where we had to lie flat, as there was a precipice on either side, and above us rose the smooth dome which crowned the mountain. We found it impossible to get further; but I understand that steps have been cut, or a ladder placed against it, by which the ascent can now be made. At the time I refer to, half a century ago, the ascent had only been made once, as far as I remember. It was then the Matterhorn of Scotland. I knew one mountaineer who afterwards lost his life there. We got back to our hotel on a broiling hot day and breakfasted at 11, and then walked to Broadford, which we did not reach till dark, thoroughly tired out. These long excursions with my father were of great advantage to me. He was a man of rare sagacity and sound judgment, and we discussed all manner of subjects. My father had also a fine perception of the beauties of nature, especially of mountain scenery, and trained me to observe every effect of sea or sky, of mountain or flood. My pulse beat to these lines of Scott :— O, Caledonia, stern and wild! Meet nurse for a poetic child. Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Can e'er untie the filial band, That knits me to thy rugged strand? Before passing from my college life, let me say that I intensely enjoyed my studies and longed to continue them at least up to the completion of the Arts course. The scholarship of Scotch undergraduates in those days was not high: There were no entrance examinations, and youths of fifteen or sixteen came up from the country knowing but little Latin and less Greek, and anxious to get through the long period of eight years' study required for the clerical and medical professions. They lived in lodgings without any supervision-not a good system-and many were very poor. I knew of some who almost lived on oatmeal porridge, and regularly got their bag of meal sent from home. They often eked out their income by private teaching, and led laborious lives. The usual custom was to study late at night; and most of us got into the habit of sitting up to one or two in the morning. Before examination times we crammed with great severity, though the professional "crammer was not then known. I remember on one occasion rising at 2 a.m. on Monday (for on Sunday I never touched my college books), and working the whole day and all next night without going to bed, and I just finished two essays in time to deposit them at midnight on Tuesday. When intolerable drowsiness overpowered me, I dashed water on my face, and drank strong tea as long as the landlady sat up. Many of us injured our health by these insane practices, but none of our professors ever gave us a word of counsel or guidance on such subjects. College life in Scotland was a rough and ready means of developing energy and perseverance, but not fine scholarship. An Arts course gave a tolerable acquaintance with the main lines of human knowledge to those who studied conscientiously; but it was needful to finish in England or Germany to get really high scholarship, and graduates leaving Edinburgh and Glasgow at twenty, oftentimes put in two or three years more at Oxford or Cambridge. I would add, however, that the all-round training of the mind, and above all, the self-reliance and perseverance evoked, was a better preparation for the common work of life than the minute and verbal scholarship of the English or German universities. Those Scottish youths, brought up on porridge, Shorter Catechism, and hard work, went to the front in India, in America, and the Colonies, and rose to the highest commercial positions in England: No doubt great improvements have been made since then. Scholarship is much higher now. Mr. Carnegie's noble gift will largely benefit the technical side of Scottish education. Immense strides have been made in science of all kinds, especially in medicine. The remission of fees will make it easier for all the youth who have abilities to enter on equal terms, but I question whether greater men will be grown than in the days of Hamilton and Playfair, Dugald Stewart and "Christopher North." What characterized the Scottish youth then was indomitable perseverance and strong individuality of character. I look back with admiration on the strenuous, uncomplaining lives that many of those poor, hardy students led. Some of them literally wore themselves out by over-study and privations; but those who fought their way to the front were tough and enduring beyond what one sees in these days of luxury and amusement: CHAPTER II Early Business Life in Liverpool-The Philomathic Society -The Cotton Trade-Commercial Panic of 1857Holiday in Wales I HAD now to face the question of my future career. I had a strong taste for literature, but felt no call to one of the learned professions. It was needful for me as the eldest of seven children, with "res angusta domi," to make my way in life pretty early. I had no taste for agriculture, and there seemed no opening except in commercial life. About it I knew nothing and cared nothing. Yet I finally decided, with my father's sanction, to seek an opening in a business house in Liverpool; and towards the end of 1853 we came together to Liverpool, and it ended in my being apprenticed to a firm of cotton-brokers. It was in one sense a great trial. All my tastes and youthful ambitions were quenched for a time, and I found the dull routine of the counting-house wearisome beyond measure. The change from the literature and philosophy of Greece and Rome to the making of invoices and account sales seemed a kind of degradation; but I resolved to do my best to master the business scientifically, and turned my attention to political economy and commercial statistics, and used up all my spare time in study. I set aside four hours an evening in my lodgings, dividing them between the classics, history, philosophy, and political economy. About that time, or soon after, I carefully studied Locke on The Human Understanding, and some of the works of Reid and Dugald Stewart, and also thoroughly mastered Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the best foundation for economic science. From it I proceeded to John Stuart Mill, and a little later took up specially the question of monetary science, studying such writers as Ricardo, Fullarton and Bagehot. This most difficult branch of political economy had a special fascination for me. For many years I read largely in this direction, and it prepared me for the |