Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/688

666 666 EDINBUKGH Institution, of which Mr Thomas Carlyle is president. The lending library of this institution is extensive and valuable, and its annual winter courses of lectures are of a high character, and command great popular interest. The Edinburgh Literary Institute, formed on a nearly similar basis, has its building in South Clerk Street, in the southern part of the city. Schools. The public seminaries of Edinburgh, including the hospitals and other charitable foundations chiefly directed to the training and education of youth, are upon a very liberal scale. The High School of the burgh dates its existence from an early period in the 16th century. The Burgh Record, under date March 12, 1554, contains an order for the building of the grammar school on the east side of the Kirk of Field Wynd. At a later date, and down to the present century, it occupied the site of the Blackfriars monastery founded by Alexander II. in 1230. But in the year 1825 the foundation stone was laid of the beautiful classical building which now occupies a prominent site on the southern slope of the Calton Hill. It was originally, and till a comparatively recent date, a purely classical school; but it now furnishes systematic instruction in all the departments of a liberal and commercial educa tion, including the ancient and modern languages, the natural sciences, mathematics, &c. The Edinburgh Academy, which was established in 1824, and incorporated by royal charter of George IV., is a proprietary school under the superintendence of a board of directors elected by the subscribers. It is arranged into two divisions, the classical and the modern school, for the senior classes. It has established a high character for its classical training, and has already taken an honourable rank among the public schools of Great Britain, by the dis tinctions achieved by its pupils both at the English and Scottish universities. Charitable Foundations. Foremost among the charitable foundations for the education and training of youth is George Heriot s Hospital, founded by the jeweller of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who at his death in 1624 left his estate in trust to the magistrates and ministers of Edinburgh for the maintenance and education of poor fatherless sons of freemen of the city. The build ing erected for the purposes of the charity is a noble quadrangular edifice, enriched with the elaborate details of the transitional style of domestic architecture of the earlier Stuart kings of England. It occupies a commanding site on the summit of a ridge known of old as the High Riggs, lying between the Grassmarket and the Meadows, and forms a striking feature in the view of the city from various points. 180 boys are maintained on the foundation, 120 resident, and 60 non-resident. Those among them who give proof of diligence and ability are afterwards maintained during a full course of four years at the university; and those who are apprenticed to trades are also provided with funds for five years, amounting in all to 50 sterling, with an additional 5 on proof of good behaviour at the close. The popular character of Heriot s Hospital, and the effective architecture of its building, have largely influenced the disposition of later charitable bequests in Edinburgh, somewhat to the detriment of the university. Following the example of the jeweller of King James, successive benefactors have founded George Watson s Hospital, the Merchant Maiden Hospital, the Trades Maiden Hospital, the Orphans, John Watson s, Donaldson s, and Stewart s hospitals all more or less modelled on the original founda tion. Several of their buildings are also possessed of con siderable architectural beauty, foremost among which is Donaldson s Hospital, the founder of which amassed a large fortune as a printer, and bequeathed nearly the whole of it in trust for the erection and endowment of a hospital for the maintenance of poor boys and girls. The trustees have taken advantage of the liberty of choice permissible under such terms to select one-half of the children admitted to the hospital from the class of the deaf and dumb. The building has accommodation for 300 children. In 1877 it contained 214, of whom 120 were boys and 94 girls. Of those 70 of the former and 45 of the latter were deaf and dumb. Experience has thus far tended to show that the constant intercourse between the deaf mutes and their more fortunate companions exercises a beneficial influence on both. _ George Watson s Hospital, founded by the bequest of another citizen in 1738, and the Merchant Maiden Hospital, founded so early as 1605, were designed to extend to the sons and daughters of merchants of Edinburgh similar advantages to those which the Heriot s Hospital secured for burgesses sons. The Trades Maiden Hospital provided for burgesses daughters, and John Watson s, Daniel Stewart s, and other similar institutions provided in like manner for the maintenance and education of poor children of various classes. But the multiplication of such charities threatened to outgrow the legitimate wants of the community, and needlessly to withdraw many children from the healthful influences of home training. Hence a growing feeling of the abuses of the system, at the very time when the revenues of Heriot s Hospital were greatly increased in consequence of the extension of the New Town over its lands, at length led to an application to Parliament for power to modify the disposition of the surplus revenue. By the Act thus obtained the governors of that institution were empowered to expend such surplus funds in erecting and maintaining ele mentary schools for the free education of poor children of deceased burgesses and freemen, and generally of the children of poot citizens of Edinburgh. There are now eighteen of those Heriot foundation schools, in different parts of the city, divided into the two classes of juvenile and infant schools, giving free education, and, in certain cases of extreme poverty, also a sum of money in lieu of maintenance, to 4400 boys and girls. The example thus set has been followed by the governing bodies of other similar institutions. The Merchant Company, as trustees of the George Watson s, Merchant Maiden, Gillespie s, and Stewart s charities, taking advantage of powers given by the Endowed Institu tions (Scotland) Act, obtained power to convert the George Watson s Hospital into a school ; and since then, they have sold the building and grounds to the corporation of the Koyal Infirmary, and the New Infirmary is now in progress on the site. The Edinburgh Merchant Company s Schools now include the George Watson s College-Schools, in which ample provision is made for furnishing a liberal educa tion for boys, qualifying them for commercial or professional life, for the civil service, and for entering the university. Bursaries are also offered for competition, which secure a free enjoyment of the entire course of studies to the successful competitors, and furnish the sum of 25 annually, for four years, after leaving the schools. A similar institution provides corresponding advantages for girls ; and the Edinburgh Educational Institution, or Ladies College, in. like manner furnishes a high-class education in the ancient and modern languages, mathematics, the natural sciences, and in music and other more strictly feminine accomplishments ; and bursaries and other prizes, of like value to those offered for competi tion in the College Schools, are placed within reach of the ablest and most diligent female students. Experience has, therefore, amply confirmed the wisdom of the course thus pursued in the readaptation of this class of charities to the wants of the age ; and the example of Edinburgh is likely to influence other cities where similar endowments are, in some cases at least, very partially turned to useful account. Edinburgh is otherwise well provided with both public and private schools, to which pupils resort, not only from many parts of the kingdom, but from the colonies. The Fettes College was apparently designed by the terms of the will of its founder, Sir William Fettes, to correspond very nearly to Heriot s Hospital. But the trustees have so far modified that idea as to establish a college for boys modelled after the great public schools of England, and designed to furnish a liberal education in the fullest sense of the term. The college building which has been erected at Comely Bank, the estate of the founder, on the north side of Edinburgh, is a structure of an imposing and stately character in the semi-Gothic style of architecture prevalent both in France and Scotland in the 16th century. The Church of Scotland Training College, the Free Church Normal School, Merchiston Academy, occupying