WHY SCOTSMEN SUCCEED.

Wairarapa Age, 2 January 1913, Page 4

WHY SCOTSMEN SUCCEED.

An article in - the "English Review" on "Higher Education in Scotland," written by a Scotsman, concludes:— "If I might venture to sum up an estimate of the causes, immediate and approximate, tha.th.ave led to the acknowledged, and frequently envied, isuecessi of Scotsmen at Home and in the colonies, I would, of course, nnt first and foremost the perferviduni ingenium Scotorum, that peculiarly national characteristic which i.s well summarised by willing it the faculty •>f "sticking in." of not being afraid o" -.vork, of "ip'iig rcM rnsibilities of >■■■'•nig prop.if'vi for 'ippcrtunitios, if making opportunities when these do not come along, o'f never being content to lie, say, a bank clerk at £250 a year when there is the possibility of a managership at £2500. He has further the inestimable advantage of having been born in a country where cduoation is taken seriously. T "have heard many a parent smy to his «on presence of the teacher, "T cannot leave ye much money. Sandy, but I can gi'o ye a glide eddication and nut ye in the .way of gettin' mair." This sentiment, common everyfw.here, was, and b, especially strong in the 'northeastern counties, which have contributed to the higher positions in colonial administration and to the highest positions in the profession and.in commerce a quite disproportionate number of distinguished men. Higher education in Scotland has never bcvi a. preserve for the wealthy, -,. nd th' nation bias gained enormously bv exploiting for national purposes th<\ brains of those who are fit. whether they were the sons of peers or the ploughmen. The Universities themselves were open to the son of a poor man, given that he b^ l necessary brains. 'Meal Monday" is ■ptill a February holiday in Edinburgh University—an interesiinp: survival from, the times when students went. home on a week-end pilgrimage to replenish the oatmeal bag with which they had courageously begun the session in the previous October."