“That’s the kind o’ staggerer puir wee Alick gets thrashed for if he canna answer’t richt. I couldna dae a coont like that mysel’, as shair’s death, if I was pyed for’t, unless I had the cistern aside me, and a len’ o’ the measures frae the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults, and Jinnet wi’ a lump o’ chalk keepin’ tally. I’m no’ shair that it’s ony guid to thrash wee Alick for no’ can’ daein’ a coont o’ that kind, or for no’ bein’ able to spell ‘fuchsia,’ or for no’ mindin’ the exact heights o’ a’ the principal mountains in Asia and Sooth America. “Hoo wad ye like it yoursel’? Ye canna put mathematics into a callan’s heid by thrashin’ him ower the fingers, if he’s no’ made wi’ the richt lump in his heid for mathematics; and if Alick’s schoolmaister gaes on thinkin’ he can, I’ll gae oot some day to his school and maybe get the jyle for’t.” “Come, come, Erchie,” I protested; “you are in quite an inconsistent humour to-day; surely Alick’s thrashings are all in the scheme of nature. If he is not punished now for inability to do that interesting proposition in compound proportion, he will be swindled out of part of his just payment when paid for bricklaying by the piece when he has taken to the trade, and the thing--once more as the Highlandman said--is as broad as it’s wide.” “Nane o’ my guid-dochter’s sons is gaun to tak’ to treds,” said Erchie, coldly; “they’re a’ gaun to be bankers and electreecians and clerks and genteel things o’ that sort. If I’m no’ consistent aboot, this, it’s because o’ whit I tellt ye, that I’ve read ower mony o’ thae letters and interviews in the papers, and canna mak’ up my mind. I ken fine a’ the beltin’s I got in the school were for my guid, but--but--but it’s different wi’ wee Alick.” “But we have all our wee Alicks, Erchie.” “Then we’re a’ weel aff,” said Erchie, glowing, “for yon’s the comicalest wee trate! The Rale Oreeginal.” “But the teachers don’t understand him?” “That’s the hale p’int,” said Erchie, agreeably; “the teachers never dae. They’re no’ pyed for understandin’ a’ the wee Alicks: a’ that can be expected for the wages the schoolmaisters get in Gleska is that they’ll haul the wee cratur by the scruff o’ the neck through a’ the standards.. The schoolmaister and the mither ought to be mair prized and bigger pyed than ony ither class in the country, but they’re no’, and that’s the reason their jobs are often sae badly filled up. “If education was a’ that folk think it is, there wad lang syne hae been nae need for cane nor strap. For mair nor a generation noo, every bairn has had to go to the school--a’ the parents o’ a’ the weans in school the noo have had an education themsel’s, so that baith at hame and in the school the young generation of the present day have sae mony advantages ower whit you and I had, they ought to be regular gems o’ guid behaviour and intelligence.