Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/663

Rh GLASGOW’ from the grammar school to the high school. The school was up to 1873 under the control of the corporation, but it was in that year placed under the jurisdiction of the school board of the city. In 1878 the school was removed to Elmbank Street, to the premises occupied by the Glasgow academy—a commodious building. The high school has been greatly improved by the school board, and is now one of the best secondary educational establishments in Scotland. It has upwards of 500 pupils. There are other secondary schools in Glasgow that are doing good educa- tional work. Among these may be mentioned the Glasgow academy, the Kirklee academy, and the schools belonging to Hutcheson’s hospital. There is also a Government school of design well attended, a technical school recently insti- tuted, the mechanics’ institution, founded in 1832, for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge of science among the working classes, the atheiueum, which draws its students principally from the lower middle class, and the normal schools belonging to the Church of Scotland and the Free Church, for the training of teachers. The passing of the Education (Scotland) Act in 1872 gave Glasgow an opportunity of dealing practically with the dense ignorance that prevailed within her boundaries. Before the Act passed it was believed that at least 20,000 (possibly far more) children in the city received no educa- tion whatever. The school board has persistently dealt with these uneducated waifs, and the most of this large ignorant mass have been reached. There are now not more than 3000 children of school age who are not receiving some e;luc-ation in the board and other schools. The school board rate in the city is 4d. per pound on the rental. The amount raised per annum is about £30,000. Libraries, Jluseums, &c.—The libraries open to the public are Stirling’s public library, a large collection of literature, and famous for its tracts of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the Mitchell public library, established a few years ago by the munificence of a citizen of Glasgow, who left about £80,000 for the purpose. This library is under the manage- ment of the town council, and during the short period of its existence has collected a large number of valuable books. It is meant to be a consulting library. The college library is very extensive, but can only be used by alumni of the university. An industrial museum was instituted some years ago in the old residential building of the West End Park. An addition was made to it about three years since, and the collection is now very considerable. It is supported under the Parks and Galleries Act, as are also the corpora- tion galleries of art, a collection of pictures and statuary, acquired partly by purchase but more largely by donation and bequest. The galleries contain a very valuable series of old Dutch masters, and there is a noble statue of Pitt by Flaxm-an. The Hunterian and Andersonian museums are accessible to the public. The Hunterian contains a noble collection of anatomical subjects, and a most valuable assortment of coins. There is a botanical garden in Glas- gow, but this has never been worthy of the city. Tlieatres.—Tl1e drama has always been tolerably well patronized in Glasgow, which now contains some half dozen theatres. Commercial I2zstz'tutions.—Tlie Chamber of Commerce was instituted in 1783, for the purpose of encouraging and protecting trade, and keeping a watchful eye on whatever might be supposed to affect the commercial interests of Glasgow and its neighbourhood. There are eight banks and branch banks in the city, two of them being properly Glasgow institutions ; they are all joint-stock companies. In 1815 the ﬁrst attempt was made in Glasgow to estab- lish an institution for the accumulation of the savings of the community, the Provident Bank. This and some others of a like kind in 1836 were all merged in the National 645 Savings Bank, which has had a most successful career. The deposits now amount to about £2,771,066, and the de- positors are 104,329 in number. 1’arIcs.——Tlie city is specially well provided with public parks, although not more than a quarter of a century has elapsed since it possessed only one—Glasgow Green—a noble expanse along the north bank of the river, which was long neglected and uncared for. Since that time K elvingrove Park, in the Kelvin valley at the west end of the city, was acquired, and laid out under the direction of Sir Joseph Paxton, and it has been frequently added to. At a later date the Quccn’s Park, on the southern out- skirts, was formed; and subsequently the city improve- ment trust expended £40,000 on the purchase and laying-out of the Alexandra Park on the north east side of the city. These parks are all liberally maintained by the parks and galleries trust of the town council. Glasgow has been almost exclusively a commercial city within the last half century. As wealth increased culture also increased, though more slowly. The university has always been the centre of intelligence in the city, and many of its professors have been conspicuous for their devotion to the applications of pure science to the development of the arts and manufactures. Of the great names connected with this institution it may suﬂice to mention Baillie, whose letters on the troubles of the 17th century, recovered by the late Dr Laing of Edinburgh, added considerably to our knowledge of that period, and Professors Adam Smith and Thomas ltcid. James Watt, though not a member of the university, was generously protected by it when the burgesses of Glasgow refused to allow him to open shop within the jurisdiction of the trades house and magistrates of the city. There are many literary men, and poets of the minor class, who claim Glasgow as their birthplace, but none of them reached sufficient eminence to claim particular notice. Of the practical workers who by their mechanical aptitude, amounting in many cases to genius, have pushed on the industries of the city, it is impossible here to give even meagre biographical details. The commercial capital of Scotland has prospered more by the general energy and indomitable perseverance of its inhabitants than by the special genius of individuals. I:'nvsrn1i2s.—The most outstanding feature in the industrial position of Glasgow is the great variety and wide range of its manufacturing and trading activity. While no one of the great industries occupies a position of predominant inipoitance so as to stamp itself as the peculiar characteristic of the town, there are numerous leading departments of industry which have been long established and are prosecuted on a great scale, while a variety of special manufactures have found their princil-al centre in Glasgow and the Clyde valley. When to this fact is added the consideration that Glasgow is one of the three principal sea iorts of the United Kingdom, it will at once be obvious that the wea th and prosperity of the city are contributed to by many separate and im- portant streams. The circumstances and conditions which have favoured the establishment of the leading industries in Glasgow are quite as varied as are the industries themselves. The abundance of pure water in the hill streams around the city led at an early date to the. introduction of bleaching, calico-printing, and allied puisuits; and these, in their turn, reacted favourably on hand-loom weaving and other textile manufactures. In a similar way the first begin- nings of the now great chemical industries are clearly related to the early stages of the bleaching and printing trades. The fact, how- ever, that the town is actually built within the richest coal and ironstone ﬁeld in Scotland has had, of all causes, the most import- ant inllucnce in determining the current and prosperity of ocal industries. Further, the river Clyde, rendered navigable for vessels of the largest tonnage, ﬂowing through the centre of that great coal and iron region, presents incomparable facilities for the prosecution of shipbuilding and maiine engineering. But beyond the advantages of natural position and mineral wealth it is right to say that Glasgow owes much of her industrial prestige to a long line of highly-gifted, ingenious, sagacious, and energetic citizens, whose inﬂuence has not only been stamped on local industries, but has been felt and acknowledged throughout the entire world. The principal industries of Glasgow range themselves under the