992 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Old High School.
the great William Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham.
My master was a great favourite of his pupils,
about sixty in number.
&cond.-Gilchrist, a good-humoured man, with
a great deal of comedy about him ; also liked by the
class, in number somewhat exceeding Farquhar's.
" Third-Rae, a severe, harsh-tempered man,
but an excellent scholar, a rigid disciplinarian, and
very frequent floggerof the school, consequently very
unpopular with the boys, though from the reputation
were then removed to the Rector's class, where
they read portions of Livy, along with the other
classics above mentioned. The hours of attendance
were from seven to nine a.m., and after an
interval of an hour for breakfast, from ten to twelve ;
then after an interval of two hours (latterly, I think,
in my time, three) for dinner, returned for two
hours in the afternoon. The scholars wrote versions,
translations from Latin into English ; and at the
annual examination in August rkited speeches, as
of his superior learning, he had more scholars than
either of the above masters.
Aurfk-Gib, an old man, short and squabby,
with a flaxen three-tailed wig, verging towards
dotage, though said to be in his younger days a
very superior scholar, and particularly conversant
in Hebrew. He had then only twenty-five or
thirty pupils, who liked him from the indulgence
which his good-natured weakness and laxity of
discipline produced.
"The scholars went through the four classes
taught by the under-masters, reading the usual
elementary Latin books-for at that time no Greek
was taught in the High School-and so up to
Virgil, Horace, Sallust, and parts of Cicero. They
they were called, being extracts of remarkable
passages from some of the Roman poets.
Of eminent men educated at the High School
were most of the leading lawyers of Scotland. In
modem times were President Hope, Mr. Brougham,
Mr. Francis Horner, Mr. Wilde, the great favourite
of Mr. Burke, hfr. Reddie, town clerk of Glasgow,
who, during the short time hewas at the Edinburgh
bar had a high reputation for his ability and
knowledge of law. Lord Woodhouselee was at the
school with me, in the class below mine; so was
Lord Meadowbank, who had for his tutor Mr.
Adam, afterwards rector. The Chief Commissioner
Adam was of the same standing and class."
In 1765 began the connection of the eminent
*
The Secoud High SchooLl DR ADAM. 293
Alexander Adam, LLD., with this seminary,
when he was appointed joint-rector with Alexander
Matheson, who died in Merchant?s Court in 1799;
and of the many distinguished men who have presided
over it, few have left a higher reputation for
learning behind them.
Born at the Coates of Burghie in Elgin, in 1741,
he was the son of humble parents, whose poverty
was such, that during the winter mornings, in boy.
hood, he conned his little Elzevir edition of Livy
and other tasks by the light of bog-splinters found
in the adjacent morass, having to devote to manual
labour the brighter hours of day. In 1757 he
obtained a bursary at Aberdeen, and after attending
a free course of lectures at the Edinburgh University,
he was employed at the sum of one guinea per
quarter, in the family of Alan Maconochie, afterwards
Lord Meadowbank ?At this time,? says
Anderson in his biography of Adam, ?he lodged
in a small room at Restalrig, for which he paid
fourpence per week. His breakfast consisted 01
oatmeal porridge with small beer ; his dinner often
of a penny loaf and a drink of water.? Yet, at the
age of nineteen, so high were his attainments, he
obtained-after a competitive examination-the
head-mastership of Watson?s Hospital ; and %I
1765, by the influence of the future Lord Provost
Kincaid, he became joint-rector of the High
School with Mr. Matheson, whose increasing infirmities
compelled him to retire on a small annuity ;
and thus, on the 8th of June, 1768, Adam succeeded
him as sole rector, and most assiduously
did he devote himself to his office.
To him the school owes much of its high reputation,
and is entirely indebted for the introduction
of Greek, which he achieved in 1772, in spite ol
the powerful opposition of the Senatus Academicus.
Into his class he introduced a new Latin grammar
of his own composition, as a substitute for Ruddiman?s,
causing thereby a dispute between himseU
and the masters, and also the Town Council, in
defiance of whose edict on the subject in 1786 he
continued to use his own rules till they ceased to
interfere with him. In 1780 the degree of LL.D.
was conferred upon him by the College of Edinburgh,
chiefly at the suggestion of Principal
Robertson ; and before his death he had the satisfiction
of seeing his own grammar finally adopted
in the seminary to which he had devoted himself.
By 1774 it was found that the ancient school
house, built in 1578, was incapable of accommodating
the increased number of pupils ; its unsuitable
state had frequently been brought before the
magistrates ; but lack of revenue prevented them
from applying the proper remedy of the growing evil.
At last several of the leading citizens, including
among others, Sir William Forbes, Bart., of Pitsligo,
Professor John Hope, William Dalrymple, and Alexander
Wood, surgeon, set afoot a subscription list to
build a new school, and on March 8, 1775, the
Council contributed thereto 300 guineas. The Duke
of Buccleuchgave 500, LordChancellor Wedderburn,
100, and eventually the sum of L2,ooo was raised
-but the building cost double that sum ere it was
finished-and plans were prepared by Alexander
Laing, architect. The managers of the Royal
Infirmary presented the projectors with a piece of
ground from their garden to enlarge the existing
area, and the Corporation of Surgeons also granted
a piece from the garden before their hall.
On the 24th June, 1777, the foundation-stone of
the second High School was laid by Sir William
Forbes, as Grand Master Mason of Scotland. The
procession, ,which was formed in the Parliament
Square,-and which included all the learned bodies
in the city, .moved off in the following order :-
The magistrates in their robes of office ; the Principal
of the University(Kobertson, the historian) and
the professors in their academic gowns ; the Rector
Adams in his gown at the head of his class, the
scholars marching by threes-the smallest boys in
front ; the four masters, each with his class in the
same order ; sixteen masonic lodges, and all the
noblesse of the city. There was no South Bridge
then; so down the High Street and Blackfriars
Wynd, and from the Cowgate upward, the procession
wound to the High School yard.
The total length of the building erected on this
occasion-but now turned to other nses-was a
hundred and twenty feet long, by thirty-eight. The
great hall, which was meant for prayers, measured
sixty-eight feet by thirty, and at each end was a
library of thirty-two feet by twenty. The second
floorwas divided into five apartments or class-rooms,
with a ceiiing of seventeen feet. It was all built of
smoothly-dressed ashlar, and had a Doric portico of
four columns, with a pediment.
This, then, was the edifice most intimately-associated
with the labours of the learned Rector
Adams, and one of the chief events in the history
of which was the enrolment of Sir Walter Scott as
a scholar there when the building was barely two
years old.
?? In 1779,? says Sir Walter in his Autobiography,
?I was sent to the second class of the grammar
school, or High School, then taught by Mr. Luke
Fraser, a good Latin scholar and a very worthy man.
Though I had received with my brothers, in private,
lessons of Latin from Mr. James French, now a
minister of the Kirk of Scotland, I was nevertheless
