Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/439

  

LAURIE, JAMES STUART (1832–1904), inspector of schools, born in Edinburgh in 1829, was younger brother of [q. v. Suppl. II]. Educated in the Universities of Edinburgh, Berlin, and Bonn, he became a private tutor in the family of Lord John Russell. Becoming attracted to the study of educational theory and practice, he was chosen in 1854 inspector of schools, and was appointed by the government from time to time to make special educational investigations. In 1863 he resigned as a protest against the revised code of (Lord Sherbrooke) [q. v.]. He was subsequently special commissioner to the African settlements, assistant commissioner under the royal commission of inquiry into primary education (Ireland), 1870, and director of public instruction in Ceylon. He entered the Inner Temple as a student on 2 Nov. 1867, and after leaving Ceylon was called to the bar on 6 June 1871.

Thenceforth he mainly devoted himself to literary work, which consisted of educational handbooks and science manuals, together with the following: 'Christmas Tales' (1863); 'Religion and Bigotry' (1894); ’The Story of Australasia' (1896); ’Gospel Christianity versus Dogma and Ritual' (1900). He died at Bournemouth on 13 July 1904. He married on 7 Oct. 1875 Emily Serafina, eldest daughter of Frederick G. Mylrea of London.



LAURIE, SIMON SOMERVILLE (1829–1909), educational reformer, born in Edinburgh on 13 Nov. 1829, was eldest of five sons of James Laurie, chaplain to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, by his wife Jean, daughter of Simon Somerville united presbyterian minister at Elgin. Thomas, a publisher in London, and James Stuart were younger brothers. Owing to the family's narrow means Simon at eleven was earning money by teaching. Educated at the High School, Edinburgh, between 1839 and 1844, he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1844, and soon acted as class assistant to Professor [q. v.] He graduated M.A. in May 1849. After five years spent in travel with private pupils on the Continent, in London, and in Ireland, he was from 1855 till 1905 secretary and visitor of schools to the education committee of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh. The committee, until the Act of 1872, controlled the parish schools of Scotland and administered till 1907 the Church of Scotland training colleges for teachers in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. During his fifty years' secretaryship Laurie directed all his great influence towards improving the schools by raising the education and status of the teachers. He insisted that the students preparing in training colleges to become teachers should receive their general education in the classes of the universities, in association with the students preparing for other professions, and should obtain only their strictly professional training in the training college. Not till 1873 was the cause won; then Scottish training college committees were granted permission by the board of education to send their best students to university classes. The movement for establishing university (day) training colleges in England had his hearty support, and in 1890 he delivered the inaugural address to the Liverpool day training department of the University College, one of the first established in England.

In 1856 Laurie was appointed visitor and examiner for the Dick Bequest Trust, and he remained in office till 1907. The trust was formed by James Dick in 1828 to distribute substantial grants of money, formerly averaging 5000l. yearly, among the best equipped and most efficient parochial schoolmasters in the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray. The funds were apportioned in agreement with Laurie's reports, which, published in 1865 and 1890, form masterly expositions of educational principles and practice.

In 1868, at the request of the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, Laurie inspected and reported on the Edinburgh schools known as Daniel Stewart's Hospital, George Watson's Hospital, the Merchant Maiden Hospital and James Gillespie's Free School, while the governors of the Heriot Trust asked him to include in his inquiry the George Heriot's Hospital. Laurie pointed out that these schools lacked ‘moral and intellectual ventilation,’ self-dependence, and family life, and financially the sum spent on them annually in Edinburgh was larger than the total assessment for the maintenance of the parochial schools of Scotland, and more than half the expenditure of the privy council on schools of all kinds in the northern part of the kingdom. Laurie reported against distinctive dress,