Celtic Mythology and Religion

INTRODUCTION. . Vll
had the habit of taking stock from time to time of
his attainments, his personal belongings, books, etc.,
and his physical development and appearance. He
looked upon his little world with the same appraising,
critical but kindly eye. He kept a full and careful
note of his correspondence with his father, who had
gone to better his fortune in America, and was
deeply solicitous for his son's welfare. On the
Ordnance Survey he added materially to his stock
of knowledge and became expert in the operations
of surveying, but in so far as his main purpose was
concerned, the service was a failure, for he left it
in 1873 as poor as when he entered it. He now
studied for a short time at Baldow School, and
succeeded in obtaining one of the Grammar School
Bursaries provided under the scheme of the Reverend
Dr. J. Calder Macphail. With this assistance, in
autumn of 1874 he entered the Grammar School of
Old Aberdeen, famous then, under the Rectorship
of Dr. William Dey, as a preparatory school for
Aberdeen University. Two years later he entered
King's College as second Bursar, and could at last
look forward with confidence to some realisation
of his ambition. Here he is said to have impressed
his fellow students as the ablest man of his year,
a year which included James Adam, afterwards of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, foremost Platonist
of his time. Though a good classical scholar,
MacBain read for honours in philosophy, a subject
which in after life he reckoned one of the most barren