The following article is re-printed from "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal," 16th January, 1841:

The parish school of Kemnay has been made known to us by the merest accident; we have not seen it, nor ever had the slightest intercourse or correspondence with anyone connected with it.  In now introducing it to notice, we must be considered as animated solely by a wish to make the public acquainted with something which we believe will interest them, and to present to the humbler class of rural teachers an example which seems worthy of being followed.  There are, of course, throughout the country, many seminaries of more important character, and which equally merit being celebrated.  The reader will, nevertheless, understand what it is which makes one sometimes admire the simple wild flower more than the cultivated denizens of the parterre; and he will soon see that, in the remoteness and obscurity of Kemnay, and the union of enterprise and intelligence with perseverance which has overcome these disadvantages, there is a claim upon his notice which he might be apt to dispute with regard to a much more imposing establishment.

A lady with whom we have the honour to be acquainted chanced in August last to pay a visit to a friend residing at Inverury, in Aberdeenshire. After every object within walking distance had been walked to and when ennui was beginning to steal over the mind of the stranger, her entertainer proposed that they should have a drive to a country school, five miles off, where she had a son placed for his education as a boarder with a teacher. "Kemnay School, you must know," said the Inverury lady "is no common parish school.  It is under the care of an amiable enthusiast in education, who has done wonders in the place, and is beginning to attract attention in distant quarters. He is, I assure you, respected where he is known. "By all means, then, let us visit Kemnay School," said our friend.

The particulars of the visit were communicated in a letter, from which the following is an extract:

"Our way was for some time alongside the Don.  We then left the river, and passed for some miles through a country generally barren, till at length we descended upon Kemnay, which appeared to me quite as a green spot in the wilderness. I could imagine no simple rural scene possessed of greater beauty than what was presented by the little group of cottages constituting the parish school establishment, planted as they are upon somewhat irregular ground, which for some distance around has been laid out with good taste, and exhibits a variety of fine, green shrubs.

"A few years ago, the school and schoolhouse were, as usual in Scotland, merely a couple of cottages in juxtaposition.  Mr Stevenson, the present teacher, has added one new building after another, till it is now a considerable place. His last addition was a pretty large school-room, which is constructed of timber, pitched on the top.  One must not wonder at the new buildings not being of a very lasting kind, for not only has the teacher had to do all at his own expense, but he has done it with the certainty that all will become public property when he dies or leaves his situation.  The place, nevertheless, seems sufficiently comfortable.  The new erections have been made as the views of the teacher, respecting the duties of his charge, expanded, and as his boarding pupils became more numerous.  After all, these are as yet only nineteen.

"Generally, if there is a little garden for common vegetables near a Scottish parish school, it is all that is to be expected.  Here there is a remarkably neat garden, situated on a piece of undulating ground, comprising a pretty piece of water in a serpentine form; while the ground immediately round the new school-room is laid out in shrubbery and flower-borders, with seats and arbours, the whole being in a style which might not shame a gentleman's mansion.  I have never seen finer vegetables, or eaten more delicious fruit, than I did here.  Judge my surprise when I was told that the whole is the result of the labours of the, children, who are thus taught an useful and tasteful art, and at the same time indulged in a physical recreation highly conducive to their health.  My curiosity was excited to know how their labours were conducted.  The garden and ground, I understand, are divided into compartments, and so many boys are attached to each.  These companies, as they are called, have each a separate set of tools, all of which are kept in the nicest order and arrangement in a small wooden house erected for the purpose.

"It was singular, you will allow, at a time when industrial education is only beginning to be thought of in England, to find it practised on a large scale, and under the best regulations, in a remote and barren part of the northern county of Aberdeen.  I was taken from the garden to a carpentry workshop, where the boys every day exercise themselves in the ingenious trade of the joiner.  They make part of the school furniture, seats for the garden and shrubbery, and many other useful articles.

"We were now conducted into the school­room, which I found to be a spacious apartment, fitted up with all the conveniences of black-boards, etc., as in the most improved schools in Edinburgh, with the addition of something which I had never seen in any similar place, namely, a variety of musical instruments hung upon the walls.  I found only the boarders present, for the day was the last of the week, and all the native pupils had been dismissed, at the usual early hour, to their homes.  Mr Stevenson, nevertheless, gave us a small specimen of a concert.  Some boys took flutes, others violins, and one or two violas or violoncellos; Mr Stevenson also took his instrument and assumed the office of leader.  I then heard several pieces of music, amongst which were some sacred pieces, performed, in a manner really astonishing, when the ages of the musicians were considered.  I may mention that Mr Stevenson is himself a good musician, and even a composer.  The boys are of all ages from six to nineteen, and several of them are from distant parts of the world.  Many have made considerable progress in drawing, and in the copying of maps.

"The author, as I may call him, of the extraordinary scene with which I was now so delighted, is an unmarried middle-aged man of gentle and benevolent character.  Reared in humble circumstances, in the parish where he now teaches, he bad not even the universal privilege of the Scottish peasantry, that of receiving the elements of knowledge at school.  He had, however, a natural thirst for learning, and, after experiencing considerable difficulties, he was fortunate enough to attract the regard of the amiable pastor of the parish, the late Dr Mitchell, who was so much interested in his character as to take upon himself the trouble of teaching him, which he persisted in doing; until the young man was fitted to proceed to college.  When about to take the latter step, the parish school, which had been inefficiently taught for no less than seventy years, became vacant, and he felt it as a proud moment when the place became his, with a salary of twenty six pounds.  He took home his aged parents, and commenced his duties as a teacher, with a mind eager to do its best, but hampered by the defects of his own education, to overcome which was not the least difficulty he had to contend with.  From one thing he went on to another, every improvement in education found in him one willing to try it.  He proceeded upon the monitorial plan for some time, but for carious reasons now only uses it occasionally. He was, however, and still is, a faithful adherent of the intellectual mode of teaching.  In time, he began to add to his course; drawing, being amongst the first of the new branches.  After twenty years, his little seminary has expanded to what I have described it to be.  That the prompting cause of all these exertions is neither ambition nor love of gain the whole circumstances go to prove; he is, apparently animated only by the enthusiasm of his profession.  With no family around him to claim his regard, he lives entirely amongst and for his pupils.  They are his daily friends and companions.  He seeks no other society.  Many of the poorer class of the parish children, whose parents are unable to pay even the usual school fees, small as these are, attend gratuitously, and receive all the benefits of the excellent system which good fortune has placed in their out-of-the-way locality.  The teacher remembers how precious learning was to himself, when circumstances seemed to forbid that he should ever drink at the fount of knowledge.

"We were now conducted to the eating-room, where a meal was laid out for the master, his assistant, and the pupils, all at one table.  This was a long room, composed I think, of the original school and part of 'the school-house thrown into one.  At the head of the room was a piano-forte; at the bottom, a stove.  We had tea, abundance of bread and in considerable variety, in addition to butter, were honey and jellies, the two last being in compliment to the strangers.  Observing a very little fellow being placed, at the foot of the table and who said grace, I inquired if that was his ordinary situation and duty.  I was informed that each boy takes today the place next below that which he had yesterday, so that they circulate round the table and experience each in his turn the advantages and duties of each situation.  Even in this little arrangement I could see originality and superior understanding.

The assistant, who joined us at tea, is a young man in delicate health.  I learned, in the course of a ramble through the house, that the master, in consideration of that circumstance, had lately given him, his own room, for his better accommodation.  The two gentlemen began to open their varied stores of information, and I could have willingly sat to listen to them for hours; but the evening was approaching, and we were obliged to take our leave."

Our readers will probably join us in thinking that there is something delightfully interesting, and even affecting, in this account of the doings of a good man.  Good thus done in obscurity, with modesty, and for no object beyond itself - what can have greater claims upon general sympathy or praise?  We almost fear to make it publicly known, lest, being so, it become a hackneyed object of curiosity, and so lose the freshness and beauty connected with its present seclusion - lest, also, this worthy man should dislike to be brought so prominently before the world.  If what we do is objectionable on these grounds, we would hope that the example will produce such good effects as to counterbalance all such drawbacks.

Mr Andrew Stevenson, whose talents, enterprise, and merits as a teacher are thus favourably depicted, did: not always meet with the encouragement he deserved.  Shortly after the inauguration of the Dick Bequest in 1832, he was fortunate enough to be enrolled as a participant.  Everything went well till September 1849, when intimation was made to him that the Dick Bequest Trustees were dissatisfied with his method, of teaching Scripture, Etymology, and, English Grammar, the remedy suggested being "the employment of an Assistant of good education."  The Committee of Presbytery, who were the local examiners, loyally supported Mr Stevenson; and a long and somewhat acrimonious correspondence followed.  It came out that the adverse opinion had been formed from a surprise visit of the Bequest Clerk.  He had not been at the school for five years before, and remained "not more than an hour and a half"!  The members of the Presbytery Committee, on the other hand, were educational experts and they were in the habit, of subjecting the scholars to the most rigid periodical examinations.  Their reports were always of the most favourable character.  That of 1851 bears that 119 scholars are on the roll, that a solid basis is laid for all the branches of a useful education and that in many of these branches a proficiency is attained which is not surpassed in any parochial seminary. Mr Stevenson was further vindicated by the Milne Bequest examiner, who from time to time reported upon the excellence of the education inculcated.

Mr Stevenson died 19th June, 1857, aged 63; and the obituary notice in the "Journal" describes him as having been upwards of 30 years schoolmaster of the parish. A headstone at his grave in Kemnay Churchyard records that it was "Erected by a few of his -friends as a mark of respect."

In the " Kemnay Bazaar Book " (1896), there is an article by the late Mr William Cadenhead, Aberdeen-"Recollections of Kemnay Fifty Years Ago"-in which reference is made to visits paid to Mr Stevenson, a portrait of Mr Stevenson, fiddle in hand ("from a painting by Stirling "), being prefixed to the article. Mr Cadenhead concluded his "Recollections" with a poem on "Kemnay Revisited," two verses of which may be quoted -

But alas! and dule, and dule!

The dear, sweet. bonnie skule,

That was a'thing ance to me at Kemnay,

It was levelled wi' the ground,

And nae trace was to be found

0' the cosiest and kindest hame in Kemnay.

And within the Kirkyard lone

There was graved upon a, stone

A name that had a coothie power in Kemnay;

And beneath a grassy heap

 There was mouldering in its sleep

The kindest heart that ever beat in Kemnay.