Dr Archibald Scott of St George's, Edinburgh, and his times . passed out ofschool at thirteen to lead bookless lives in bookless change of habits of thought and life, which primaryschool-teaching cannot by itself bring about, is necessary ifgood primary education is to bear its full fruit. Scott threw himself into the work of the School Board 1 A teacher recently admitted to me that among a hundred of the wage-earningclass probably not one-third could point out Bagdad on the map. But, hesaid, before the war you would have found it much the same with former public-school people. That ma
Dr Archibald Scott of St George's, Edinburgh, and his times . passed out ofschool at thirteen to lead bookless lives in bookless change of habits of thought and life, which primaryschool-teaching cannot by itself bring about, is necessary ifgood primary education is to bear its full fruit. Scott threw himself into the work of the School Board 1 A teacher recently admitted to me that among a hundred of the wage-earningclass probably not one-third could point out Bagdad on the map. But, hesaid, before the war you would have found it much the same with former public-school people. That may be true, but the before the war marks the differ-ence. The public-school man has retained the alertness of intelligence and capa-city for understanding maps, which the primary schoolboy has lost, so he lookedup an atlas or studied the newspaper maps when Bagdad became a place ofmilitary interest. I have often been struck by the total inability of local people,who knew eveiy inch of the ground, to understand a local map or point out placesor roads upon s Ig I GREENSIDE, EDINBURGH 47 with his usual energy, and here, as in every council board onwhich he sat, he came rapidly to the front and asserted theforce of his personahty. In 1878 he was appointed chair-man of the Board, and he held that office until 1882, whenpressure of other work compelled him to withdraw from theBoard. A colleague who sat with him on the Board, andwho still survives, tells me that Scott made an admirablechairman: he had a complete mastery of the details of thebusiness, kept everybody to the point, and without seemingto dictate generally got his own way. Meetings at whichhe presided were seldom prolonged. As a chairman he hada wonderful capacity for gauging when what might usefullybe said had been said, and a decision might be talk had no encouragement at meetings whereScott presided. His cue was Next business. 48 CHAPTER VI. ST Georges, Edinburgh. St Georges was the second of th
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