An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Gaelic in the Highland schools

Principal MacAlister’s Address.
My grateful acknowledgements are due to the
Education Committee of An Comunn for
inviting me to preside at this Conference
on Highland Education. As a Highlander
and an Argyllshire man, it is pleasant for
me to revisit the scenes of my youth, and to
see again the kindly faces of my kindred of
the North and1 Wes^j As one who has given
the best years ofdfM'rife to English educational
administration, it is doubly pleasant to me that
my visit is associated with an effort to arouse
deeper interest in popular education among my
fellow countrymen. It will be for those experts
in the subject who will address you later to
point out in detail how Highland education can
be made more popular, more efficient, and
more elevating than it often is at present. My
part will be to learn rather than to teach. I am
confident that before we close this Conference,
I at least shall have learned much that is
valuable.
But without trenching on the province, of
those who are to read, and those who are to
discuss, the papers of to-day, I may venture to
offer you some general conclusions at which I
have arrived, partly from my owm experience
elsewhere, and partly, from my observation of
the conditions that prevail in the Highlands.
For many years I have been a spectator only, in
regard to many of the questions that concern
you “at home.” But a spectator, especially if
he is a sympathetic spectator, as I claim to be,