I remember once going with the minister to pay a visit to the Assembly’s Institute in these parts. When we arrived the academic grove was deserted, and we were informed that the “squeelmaister and the loons were oot on the peat moss.” There we found them, the dominie putting his pupils through a very novel kind of military exercise. He had collected his army on his own division of the moss, where his peats lay in stacks, ready to be carted home, when he could afford to pay for the cartage. We arrived on the scene just as the review began. “Now, poys,” said the dominie, taking up a peat in each hand, “this is a sword and this is a cun”—the Highland pronunciation of “gun”—“shoulder arms, poys.” Here the “poys” took a peat in each hand and shouldered them. “March, poys,” said the dominie, flourishing his peat sword; and away marched the boys with their peats, until they reached the school-house, when the dominie made them defile into a shed and ground arms; that is to say, lay down their peats in a heap convenient for the domestic use. This was what the dominie called his gymnastic exercises, which, he boasted, combined amusement and exercise with instruction; but a suspicion arising that these gymnastics were nothing more nor less than a Highland device for carrying home the dominie’s fuel on an economical principle, an order was issued from head-quarters that such military instruction should only take place in play-hours, and should not be included in the regular curriculum of study.