27 OCTOBER 1900, Page 13

SCOTTISH GAELIC.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"] SIR,—The question whether Gaelic, meaning by that term Scottish Gaelic, will live is so important that I venture to lay before your readers the conclusions which lead me to think that under favourable conditions it has a reasonable chance of life. It is being increasingly studied by the higher classes of Scottish society, and by others who originslly had only English. The minister of Bunessan, in Mull, tells me that whereas at the opening of his ministry he could hardly speak it at all, Gaelic has become to him so familiar that he thinks in that language, and finds some difficulty in expressing him- self adequately and easily in English. It is being taught in the schools. At Iona, for example, only English was taught of /ate. The new schoolmaster intends that in the lower standards English and Gaelic shall alike be taught. It is widely preached and spoken not only in Canada, but in the United States. There is at present residing on Iona a Mr. Morrison, who was for forty-eight years in the United States. In a town of six miles square (it is difficult to estimate the population, for I presume that large quantities of farm-land are included in this district), the population is largely con- fined to Highlanders from South Uist and Kintyre, and Gaelic is the language of ordinary talk and worship. In Canada it is said that more Gaelic is spoken than in Scotland herself. It remains for me to urge that in England some attention at least should be paid to the claims of this ancient language. It should be remembered that Gaelic was a literary language when English was still spoken by undis- ciplined savages, and that Tiree, the island from which I write, was Christian before St. Augustine landed near Canter- Tiree, by Oban.