These undertakings may, indeed, be regarded in the light of a

workingacademy; from which eight hundred men have annually gone
forth improved workmen. They have either returned to their native

districts with the advantage of having used the most perfect sort
of tools and utensils (which alone cannot be estimated at less than

ten per cent. on any sort of labour), or they have been usefully
distributed through the other parts of the country. Since these

roads were made accessible, wheelwrights and cartwrights have been
established, the plough has been introduced, and improved tools and

utensils are generally used. The plough was not previously
employed; in the interior and mountainous parts they used crooked

sticks, with iron on them, drawn or pushed along. The moral habits
of the great masses of the working classes are changed; they see

that they may depend on their own exertions for support: this goes
on silently, and is scarcely perceived until apparent by the

results. I consider these improvements among the greatest
blessings ever conferred on any country. About two hundred thousand

pounds has been granted in fifteen years. It has been the means of
advancing the country at least a century."

The progress made in the Lowland districts of Scotland since the
same period has been no less remarkable. If the state of the

country, as we have above described it from authentic documents,
be compared with what it is now, it will be found that there are few

countries which have accomplished so much within so short a period.
It is usual to cite the United States as furnishing the most

extraordinaryinstance of social progress in modem times. But
America has had the advantage of importing its civilization for the

most part ready made, whereas that of Scotland has been entirely
her own creation. By nature America is rich, and of boundless

extent; whereas Scotland is by nature poor, the greater part of her
limited area consisting of sterile heath and mountain. Little more

than a century ago Scotland was considerably in the rear of Ireland.
It was a country almost without agriculture, without mines, without

fisheries, without shipping, without money, without roads.
The people were ill-fed, half barbarous, and habitually indolent.

The colliers and salters were veritable slaves, and were subject to
be sold together with the estates to which they belonged.

What do we find now? Praedial slavery completely abolished;
heritable jurisdictions at an end; the face of the country entirely

changed; its agriculture acknowledged to be the first in the world;
its mines and fisheries productive in the highest degree; its

banking a model of efficiency and public usefulness; its roads
equal to the best roads in England or in Europe. The people are

active and energetic, alike in education, in trade, in manufactures,
in construction, in invention. Watt's invention of the steam

engine, and Symington's invention of the steam-boat, proved a
source of wealth and power, not only to their own country, but to

the world at large; while Telford, by his roads, bound England and
Scotland, before separated, firmly into one, and rendered the union

a source of wealth and strength to both.
At the same time, active and powerful minds were occupied in

extending the domain of knowledge,--Adam Smith in Political
Economy, Reid and Dugald Stewart in Moral Philosophy, and Black and

Robison in Physical Science. And thus Scotland, instead of being
one of the idlest and most backward countries in Europe, has,

within the compass of little more than a lifetime, issued in one of
the most active, contented, and prosperous,--exercising an amount

of influence upon the literature, science, political economy, and
industry of modern times, out of all proportion to the natural

resources of its soil or the amount of its population.
If we look for the causes of this extraordinary social progress,

we shall probably find the principal to consist in the fact that
Scotland, though originally poor as a country, was rich in Parish

schools, founded under the provisions of an Act passed by the
Scottish Parliament in the year 1696. It was there ordained

"that there be a school settled and established, and a schoolmaster
appointed, in every parish not already provided, by advice of the

heritors and minister of the parish." Common day-schools were
accordingly provided and maintained throughout the country for the

education of children of all ranks and conditions. The consequence
was, that in the course of a few generations, these schools,

workingsteadily upon the minds of the young, all of whom passed
under the hands of the teachers, educated the population into a

state of intelligence and aptitude greatly in advance of their
material well-being; and it is in this circumstance, we apprehend,

that the explanation is to be found of the rapid start forward
which the whole country took, dating more particularly from the

year 1745. Agriculture was naturally the first branch of industry
to exhibit signs of decidedimprovement; to be speedily followed by

like advances in trade, commerce, and manufactures. Indeed, from
that time the country never looked back, but her progress went on

at a constantly accelerated rate, issuing in results as marvellous
as they have probably been unprecedented.

Footnotes for Chapter VIII.
*[1] Romilly's Autobiography,' ii. 22.

*[2] Statistical Account of Scotland,' iii. 185.
*[3] The cas-chrom was a rude combination of a lever for the

removal of rocks, a spade to cut the earth, and a foot-plough to
turn it. We annex an illustration of this curious and now obsolete

instrument. It weighed about eighteen pounds. In working it, the"
upper part of the handle, to which the left hand was applied,

reached the workman's shoulder, and being slightly elevated, the
point, shod with iron, was pushed into the ground horizontally; the

soil being turned over by inclining the handle to the furrow side,
at the same time making the heel act as a fulcrum to raise the

point of the instrument. In turning up unbroken ground, it was
first employed with the heel uppermost, with pushing strokes to cut

the breadth of the sward to be turned over; after which, it was
used horizontally as above described. We are indebted to a

Parliamentary Blue Book for the following representation of this
interesting relic of ancient agriculture. It is given in the

appendix to the 'Ninth Report of the Commissioners for Highland
Roads and Bridges,' ordered by the House of Commons to be printed,

19th April, 1821.
*[4] Anderson's 'Guide to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland,'

3rd ed. p.48.
*[5] He was accompanied on this tour by Colonel Dirom, with whom he

returned to his house at Mount Annan, in Dumfries. Telford says of
him: "The Colonel seems to have roused the county of Dumfries from

the lethargy in which it has slumbered for centuries. The map of
the county, the mineralogical survey, the new roads, the opening of

lime works, the competition of ploughing, the improving harbours,
the building of bridges, are works which bespeak the exertions of

no common man."--Letter to Mr. Andrew. Little, dated Shrewsbury,
30th November, 1801.

*[6] Ordered to be printed 5th of April, 1803.
*[7] 'Memorials of his Time," by Henry Cockburn, pp. 341-3.

*[8] 'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir John Sinclair, Barb,'
vol. i., p. 339.

*[9] Extract of a letter from a gentleman residing in Sunderland,
quoted in 'Life of Telford,' p. 465.

*[10] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Salop, 18th
February, 1803.

*[11] The names of Celtic places are highly descriptive.
Thus Craig-Ellachie literally means, the rock of separation; Badenoch,

bushy or woody; Cairngorm, the blue cairn; Lochinet, the lake of nests;
Balknockan, the town of knolls; Dalnasealg, the hunting dale;

Alt'n dater, the burn of the horn-blower; and so on.
*[12] Sir Thomas Dick Lauder has vividly described the destructive

character of the Spey-side inundations in his capital book on the
'Morayshire Floods.'

*[13] 'Report of the Commissioners on Highland Roads and Bridges.'
Appendix to 'Life of Telford,' p. 400.

CHAPTER IX.
TELFORD'S SCOTCH HARBOURS.

No sooner were the Highland roads and bridges in full progress,
than attention was directed to the improvement of the harbours