Blair Collection > Elements of Gaelic grammar

X INTRODUCTIOX.
entertain a different opinion. They will judge
from experience, as well as from the nature of the
case, that no measure, merely of a literary kind,
will prevail to hinder the progress of the English
language over the Highlands ; while general con-
venience and emolument, not to mention private
emulation and vanity, conspire to facilitate its in-
troduction, and prompt the natives to its acquisi-
tion. They will perceive at the same time, that
while the Gaelic continues to be the common
speech of multitudes ; while the knowledge of
many important facts, of many necessary arts, of
morals, of religion, and of the laws of the land,
can be conveyed to them only by means of this
language ; it must be of material service to pre-
serve it in such a state of cultivation and purity,
as that it may be fully adequate to these valuable
ends ; in a word, that while it is a living language,
it may answer the piu'pose of a living language.
To those who wish for an uniformity of speech
over the whole kingdom, it may not be imperti-
nent to suggest one remark. The more that the
human mind is enlightened, the more desirous it
becomes of farther acquisitions in knowledge.
The only channel through which the rudiments
of knowledge can be conveyed to the mind of a
remote Highlander, is the Gaelic language. By
learning to read and to understand what he reads,
in his native tongue, an appetite is generated for
those stores of science which are accessible to him
only