Chapman, George

, LL. D. a learned schoolmaster in Scotland, was born at Alvah in the county of Banff, in August 1723, and educated at the grammar-school of Banff, whence in 1737 he removed to King’s college, Aberdeen. During the academical vacation, which lasts from April to October, he engaged as a private tutor in the family of a gentleman, by whose interest he was appointed master of the school of Alvah, and being indulged with a substitute, he continued his academical course until April 1741, when he took the degree of master of arts. Feeling now a strong propensity to tuition, in order to qualify himself for conducting some respectable establishment of that kind, and in a situation of great publicity, he became assistant teacher in the grammar-school of Dalkeith. On the recommendation of his friend and patron Dr. George Stewart, professor of humanity in the university of Edinburgh, he was in February 1747 admitted joint master of the grammar-school of Dumfries with Mr. Robert Trotter, on whose resignation from age and infirmity, three years after, Mr. Chapman was promoted to be rector or head-master; and in this laborious office he continued with increasing reputation and success, until Martinmas 1774. A few years after he had formed and experienced the good effects of the plan of education which he adopted in this seminary, he committed it to writing, and occasionally submitted it, in the various stages of progression, to the inspection and observations of his particular friends, of whose animadversions he availed himself by subjecting them to the test of attentive experiment. In the autumn of 1774, desirous of some relief from his accumulated labours, the consequence of his extensive fame as a teacher, he resigned his office in the school, and confined himself to the instruction of a few pupils who boarded in his house, until conceiving that this limited kind of academy, which parents were often soliciting him to enlarge, might affect the interest of his successor in the school, he removed, in 1801, to Inchdrewer near Banff, a farm that had long been occupied by his father, and to the lease of which he had succeeded on his death. | On this he erected a handsome dwelling-house, capable of accommodating a considerable number of boarders for tuition, an employment he could never relinquish, and for which few men were better qualified. He afterwards received the degree of LL. D. from the Marischal college of Aberdeen, and about the same time removed to Edinburgh to superintend a printing-house for the benefit of a relation, and occasionally gave his assistance to the students of the university. He died at his house in Rose-street, Edinburgh, Feb. 22, 1806, in the‘ eighty-third year of his age, leaving a character, as a schoolmaster and a gentleman, which will not soon be forgotten by his numerous pupils and friends. His publications were; 1. “A treatise on Education,” 1773, 8vo, already noticed, and which added much to his reputation. It is now in the fifth edition. 2. “Hints on the Education of the Lower Ranks of the People, and the appointment of Parochial Schoolmasters.” 3. “Advantages of a Classical Education, c.” 4. “An abridgment of Mr. Ruddiman’s Rudiments and Latin. Grammar.” 5. “East India Tracts; viz. Collegium Bengalense, a Latin poem, Translation and Dissertation. 7 ’ This Latin poem, in Sapphic verse, and in which there is a considerable portion of fancy, with correct versification, may be considered as a very uncommon instance of vigour of mind at the advanced age of eighty-two. A new edition of his works, for the benefit of his family, was announced soon after his death, in a” Sketch of his Life," published in 1808, 8vo, and was to have been sent to press as soon as a requisite number of subscriptions were received, but we are sorry to find that this undertaking has not been so liberally patronized as might have been expected. ¹