years' training in the classics before he proceeded to the University.
Millar, his classical master, had adventured in literature. He wrote a
play, and his pupils used to act it. Acting plays was in those days a
common exercise in the higher schools of Scotland. The presbyteries
often frowned, and tried their best to stop the practice, but the town
councils, which had the management of these schools, resented the
dictation of the presbyteries, and gave the drama not only the support
of their personal presence at the performances, but sometimes built a
special stage and auditorium for the purpose. Sir James Steuart, the
economist, played the king in _Henry the Fourth_ when he was a boy at
the school of North Berwick in 1735. The pupils of Dalkeith School,
where the historian Robertson was educated, played _Julius Cæsar_ in
1734. In the same year the boys of Perth Grammar School played _Cato_
in the teeth of an explicit presbyterial anathema, and again in the
same year--in the month of August--the boys of the Burgh School of
Kirkcaldy, which Smith was at the time attending, enacted the piece
their master had written. It bore the rather unromantic and uninviting
title of "A Royal Council for Advice, or the Regular Education of Boys
the Foundation of all other Improvements." The _dramatis personæ_ were
first the master and twelve ordinary members of the council, who sat
gravely round a table like senators, and next a crowd of suitors,
standing at a little distance off, who sent representatives to the
table one by one to state their grievances--first a tradesman, then a
farmer, then a country gentleman, then a schoolmaster, a nobleman, and
so on. Each of them received advice from the council in turn, and
then, last of all, a gentleman came forward, who complimented the
council on the successful completion of their day's labours.[4] Smith
would no doubt have been present at this performance, but whether he
played an active part either as councillor or as spokesman for any
class of petitioners, or merely stood in the crowd of suitors, a