Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/38

26 least £3. Those o’ the second rank, though well enough aff, but inferior in rank to the barons, were to pay £2; those of the third rank had to pay £1; while the poor were admitted free.

It's no’ for the like o’ me to offer an opeenion as to whether a plan like that wudna work noo, but I sometimes wonder whether the class-rooms i’ the new College are no’ big enough, and for that maitter empty enough, to alloo the admission o’ a few student callants free at the beginning o’ each session. Suppose there were ten vacancies every year, and that these were open to the cleverest laddies in oor Board Schules; I think that wud gie such additional glory to the building, without making the Professors puirer, as might tend to bring the College authorities and the community into closer sympathy, and wud, I am sure, be nae loss to the College i’ the lang run. Noo, I am no’ a business wumman mysel’, and coontin’ was a thing I never could thole; but I ken if ye put past a certain slump sum it will produce so much a year o’ sterling siller as interest, and, that sum, ye might set aside and ca’ it a bursary, if ye felt so inclined.

I am aware what a bursary is—having seen it in operation, for I have passed a good wheen bursars through my hands— clever billies some o’ them were, though whiles as daft as yetts in a winy day—but the relief and comfort this twenty, thirty, or fifty pounds a year afforded them, often made me sit doon wi’ tears in my een and bless the memories o’ the men that had gi'en my hard strugglin’ laddies sic timeous help. There are plenty o' folk wha could braw-an-weel afford to lay aside siller for this purpose without missing it; and maybe they