Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/16

Rh thrown away when it has served a purpose. It is well worth knowing for its own sake. It is only in the later years of High School and student life that its true worth for the higher culture begins to appear. When a Highland lad begins to study Gaelic systematically as a literary language it has a remarkably stimulating effect on his mental faculties; the valuable habit of intelligent observation and keen perception develops, and his interest in linguistic studies increases. An introduction to the riches of Gaelic literature quickens the innate literary sense and the feeling for style. Instead of causing provincialism or narrowness of outlook, this new interest widens his ideas. Linguistic study becomes fascinating, and the knowledge of other European tongues grows into an ambition. The double standard of judgment he possesses through a good knowledge of English and Gaelic proves a valuable possession in the critical study of other literatures. The man who has a competent knowledge of two languages seems to me to have the advantage that the man with two eyes has over the unfortunate with only one. He has an infinitely better sense of proportion and perspective.

At Raining’s School, under the teaching of the late Dr. MacBain, whose death is such a heavy loss to our cause, this quickening intellectual influence of Gaelic on pupils in the hands of a skilful teacher was seen at its best. He was fond of using Gaelic as a stimulus in the study of philology, leading us from the known to the unknown. To many, philological science with its fascinating problems became a lifelong pursuit, because of those afternoons when the Rector would talk of Dumnorix and other Celtic names embedded like fossils of the past in such an unlooked-for place as the dry Commentaries of Julius Caesar. It was a time of intellectual awakening, of wonder and surprise. ‘After all, the Gaels had a history,’ we said to ourselves.

Many other instances occur to one, in the reminiscences of school life, of occasions when a Gaelic dictation exercise, from some masterpiece of the poets, could light up the whole day and leave a deep impression for years, when loads of other learning was forgotten. By using the native tongue, in the