He saw the abacus, the book, and the student, and forthwith descended to the village, big and puffing with the tale. A visit from the parson at any other hour than that of dinner, is always an ominous matter to some of the family of a Scotch peasant. If the young folks be children they dread the catechism. If more advanced, there are occasional terrors of that Scotch tread-mill, which is trodden alone and in presence of the assembled congregation. The mother of the philosopher had nothing to dread upon either of those grounds, but still she felt all the glow of a woman’s curiosity, when the parson approached her husband with so hasty steps and so important looks. “Well, Mr. Lascelles,” said the parson, “you must take care of Jock, and that forthwith, for I am thinking that he is a _genus_.” “I am very sorry to hear it, Sir,” replied Mr. Lascelles, lifting his bonnet, “but he is very young, and will get steadier as he grows up. Has he been letting the cows eat your corn?” “The Lord forbid either the one thing or the other,” said the parson. “He is a genus, a mathematical genus, and will be an honour to the parish when we are both dead and gone.” The father now understood that the words which he had at first considered as lamentation were laudatory; the fatted calf was killed, the parson was feasted, the boy taken from the cows, and sent to college; and the result is--a perfect Anak in philosophy.---- That the literary men of Scotland are drawn from the whole range of the population is not only in favour of themselves; it is also highly advantageous to the humbler classes of the people. In as far, indeed, as merely literary men are concerned, the advantage to Scotland is by no means great, because in Scotland they meet with but little reward to stimulate their exertions. And hence they are obliged to scatter themselves over the world. But still, the number that remain, and fill the duties of parochial and other teachers throughout the country, are superior, not in degree merely, but absolutely in kind, to the teachers of youth, more especially youth of the poorer classes, in any other part of the country. In England, for instance, when a man of general information undertakes the office of teacher, he does it either with the hope of making a fortune by teaching the children of the rich, or as a matter of necessity, and as a dernier resort after having been unfortunate in teaching the children of the poor. But one who is to have any chance of succeeding in the communication of any thing else than the mere mechanism of reading, writing, and casting accounts, which after all does not deserve the name of education, must love his profession for its own sake, and look upon the exercise of it as an honour,--which, in one that instructs the children of the lower orders, can never be the case, unless he himself has been educated as one of those orders. It is quite natural, and it is also quite true, that the