St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-03-09
"ScOTS VIVA Haze"


/ y
dent Buckham of the University of YER
mont before the Scotia Club on the eve
ming of Feb. 20.
am little in doubt just what have
undertaken to do tonight. When I was
asked to speak to the Scotia Club
thought would meet with the Club in a
very social and informal way and lust
haze crack" WI them. When it. was an
nounced that the exercises were to be
public and that other than Scotchmen
were to be invited, then did not know
whether l was to speak on Scotchmen to
Scotchmen, or whether was to speak as
a Scotchnan to the unfortunate people
who are not Scotch. And | suppose the
result of it will be that the talk I give
will be somewhat mixed.
We Scotch people have been very anx-
ious for great many years that
Some power wad the giftie gle us
To see oursePs as ithers see u.s."
Well, I am going to be one of the others
tonight in part. l have been gypsying
around among the Scotch people and /
am just going to gossip about the Scotch
and about Scotland.
First of ALL let us take look at Scot
land itself. What sort of a country is
Scotland? We are very much in the
habit in modern times of accounting for
men and events by what we call their en-
vironment, their physical conditions,
their mode of life. Now Scotland, first
of all, is a very northern country. We
think this is pretty cold climate, pretty
far north, but the southernmost part of
Scotland is nearly five hundred miles
north of where we are tonight. We
start from Montreal and sail out through
the Gulf OF St. Lawrence and through
the Strait of Belle Isle, along the bleak
coast of Labrador, which is about the
bleakest word in our geography, the
coast of Labrador, an ice bound coast,
and still we sail north and north until
we get to the southern part of Scotland,
and before we get to the northern part
of Scotland we have got up to 63 degrees
of latitude, and we are only 4S degrees
here. And yet Scotland is not the cold
est country on the globe, thanks to the
Gull Stream. 1t is a very rare thing for
the mercury to be below zero. I think
the lowest that Scotland ever has known
is 16 below and that we here in Vermont
call quite mild. And Scotland is a poor
country agriculturally considered. There
are those who say that the fact that
Scotland is a poor country accounts for
the character of the men, their robust
and hardy vigor, their great achieve
assent to that. They say the same
thing of Vermont, that the reason why
Vermont men and women are so strong
and true and brave is because they have
to contend with ply sical disadvantages,
but I am not sure but we carry that too
far. Many of the countries which have
become great in the world were physi-
cally rich. Egypt, Italy, Greece, France
and England were countries that were
agriculturally rich, and when divine
Providence selected a country to be the
abode of a people who had his great
work to do, he did not select poor
country, but a country which was rich
in vines, fig trees, promegranates and
olive oil. a land of abundance. It is not
because Scotland is poor agriculturally,
it is not because Vermont is poor agrlcul-
turally, compared with the great fields of
the west, it is because of the men and
women who have overcome the natural
disadvantages of soil and climate, and
when we consider why Vermont and
why the Scotch have done great things
and have become the great men and
women they have become, it is because
they were what they were, brave and
strong and virtuous.
But though Scotland is poor agr1cul-
turally, it is rich in beauty, rich in it's
plcturesqueness. In a certain sense,
Scotland is so beautiful that it is the
play ground of the British Empire. 1t is
not a play ground for those who live
there and make their living there, but
kind OF paradise to those who enjoy
beauty OF landscape.
Among the physical beauties of Scot
land there are two or three features that
stand out beyond all others: mountains,
of course, but the mountains we find
elsewhere, but there are two or three
features which we do not find anywhere
else. IF / should ask one who reads
Scotch poetry from outside, not as a
Scotchman, what are the features of
landscape that figure most, he would
say the straths, or valleys, the glens and
the moOrS.
The straths are wide, the glens are
smaller valleys. When Sir Donald Smith
of Montreal was made peer by the
Queen, and was allowed as usual to
select his title, he chose the title of Lord
Strathcoma, we all wondered what it
meant. 1t appears that the forbears
were the chiefs of Glencoe, but the massa-
ere of Glencoe in the time of William III,
you remember, had thrown such
horror over the name that he did not
want to be known as the Earl of
Glencoe, so he changed Glen to Strath
and heightened coe to coma and is Lord
StrathcOma.
The glory of Scotland to stranger, I
think. is the moor. To tell what moor
is. Scottish moor, to a person who has
never seen it, would be as difficult as to
describe rainbow to a person who is
blind. 1t has seemed to me that the
purple glory of the Scotch moor is as
fine an exhibition of color and beauty as
the Creator has given us anywhere in His
world. and is divine compensation for
the dull gray of the ordinary landscape
of Scotland.
Perhaps some of you will remember the
sad story of the Bronte sisters who lived
near Yorkshire moor. and when one
after another tell prey to the dreadful
disease that carried them all off, there
was longing for the moors; and ana
not surprised since have been on one of
those Scotch moors. l am not surprised
that poor Emily thought if she could
only get up to the moor she could recover
her health and live. I am not surprised