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4.

every bit as bad as the narrow English. We are a people with a rich
and varied history - a strong people made up of many diverse types -
with a generous tradition behind us containing many things which
dull folk consider contradictions. We have quixotry in our blood as
well as prudence; poetry as well as prose. The man who tries to
whittle down our heritage, to narrow our tradition, to select capriciously
from our national life, is no lover of the broad Scots. We
have a tradition to preserve, the full tradition. That is the first of
our responsibilities.

We have also a duty ·to the home of those traditions - our
birthplace or the birthplace of our fathers. I want to see Scotsmen
all over the world maintaining a lively interest in Scotland. I
do not want men of our race merely to be distinguished up and down the
face of the earth; I want Scotland herself, the home of our race, to
be healthy and prosperous and to retain its historic national character.
There are many things amiss in Scotland today. We are losing
some of the best of our people. We are losing especially some of the
best of our rural stocks. I know glens in the Borders which, in my
childhood, had half a dozen chimneys smoking, while today the only inhabitants
are a shepherd and his dog. Some of our institutions seem
to be decaying. The Scottish Bar is not what it was. The Scottish
Church, perhaps, has not its old hold over the people. Our ancient
idiomatic system of education is changing, perhaps not for the better.
Too many Scottish industries are controlled from outside. Our old habits,
our old tastes are changing, and, to take one instance, the Scottish
vernacular is no longer spoken by us as our fathers spoke it.

Some of these changes are inevitable, but many are not. We