Dr. Philip Maclagan, referring to those early school-days, says: “I was one of the original members of the Juvenile Society for the Advancement of Knowledge. The society met on Friday evening; papers were read by the members in rotation, and questions previously started were debated. I remember some of them--‘Whether the whale or the herring afforded the more useful and profitable employment to mankind?’ ‘Whether the camel was more useful to the Arab or the reindeer to the Laplander?’ and similar puzzles for youthful ingenuity.” As yet political and social questions were unheeded; and the Saturday rambles, for which Edinburgh offers such rare advantages, furnished materials for subsequent discussion in diverse geological, botanical, and antiquarian subjects of interest. Those excursions extended to Cramond; to Royston Castle, picturesquely crowning a rock near the sea-shore; to Newhaven, Leith, or Portobello; or landward, to Craigmillar Castle, Corstorphine, Colinton, the Esk; and to the Braid or Blackford Hill: a stolen pleasure, since we were at that time liable to pursuit and ejection as trespassers. The Arthur’s Seat as well as the Blackford Hill of those days, if less adapted for the proprieties of a city park, were more to the taste of youthful explorers while still in a state of nature. It was the Blackford of young Walter Scott-- “On whose uncultured breast, Among the broom, and thorn, and whin, A truant boy, I sought the nest; Or listened, as I lay at rest, While rose on breezes thin The murmur of the city crowd.” Already, when Scott penned his “Marmion,” the agriculturist and the builder were working havoc on the scene. How much more may survivors of that younger circle now say,-- “O’er the landscape, as I look, Nought do I see unchanged remain, Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook. To me they make a heavy moan Of early friendships past and gone.” But such feelings found no place in the thoughts of the eager truants. Close at hand were the never-failing Calton Hill, or Arthur’s Seat and Duddingston, with charm enough for a pleasant ramble, but also utilized, along with more extended excursions, for collecting specimens to furnish material for subsequent discussion in their Juvenile Society, as well as contributions to the museum which was already in course of formation.