The Collegiate School, Kingston, Jamaica

In 1858 Mr. Morrison graduated and at once commenced his career as a teacher. He first of all taught in Scotch
parish schools. Then he had two years experience in
teaching in the neighbourhood of London. He was tutor
for a year in a school in Stoke Newington, connected
with the Society of Friends, and was for another year in
the French and German College, Morton, Surrey. In all
these positions he earned a " good degree" as a kind
but strict disciplinarian, a good classical scholar, an
accomplished mathematician, and a gentlemanly,
punctual obliging, and companionable colleague.

In 1862 he joined the staff of the Collegiate as Assistant
Master, and here he has laboured, first as Assistant, and
now for many years as principal, for the long period of
thirty-nine years. During this period there have usually
been on the books of the school from 100 to 150 boys. His pupils have entered upon every available form of
employment open to them. They have left him to become clerks in stores and have risen, many of them, to be
"successful merchants." Others have become what
would be called by the fine old name of “Farmers" in the
country of Banff; we call them planters. Others have
joined the Civil Service and have got well up on that
ladder. Others have become solicitors, others surveyors.
We believe that Mr. Morrison has prepared nearly one
hundred lads for University careers, and that for many years there have usually been from ten to fifteen of his
pupils in attendance at various universities. A list of the "old boys" who are doing well, and have done well for
themselves, would be a long one. 

''Teach boys to earn a living." Is not that the very thing
Mr. Morrison has been doing? "Raise the level of general intelligence." Has Mr. Morrison through his pupils not
done a "large stroke of business" in this line? To him
and to others who have been doing like work in
Kingston and Jamaica at large owe a heavy debt that is
likely, we fear, to remain unpaid, " If," said Dr. Canon
Doyle at a public dinner in Edinburgh a few months
ago, "there is one class of men upon earth to whom Scotland owes gratitude, it is to the Scottish
schoolmaster. As far back as we can trace we find these men, scholarly, earnest, conscientious, poorly paid, with no honour in life, no ultimate reward save the recollection of duty done. We are proud of the Scottish
soldier, of the Scottish colonist, of the Scotsman in
many capacities; but these men labour unseen and
unpraised at the very root of the national greatness, and
the whole fabric of the nation is one huge monument in
their honour. They have little career themselves, and yet
how many a career have they shaped, and how much
indirect glory have they won." These eloquent words
apply to the Scotch teacher abroad as we know him in
Kingston. Thirty-nine years of such continuous labour,
in one community, in the same school, in the same
exacting profession, attest the original possession of
rare physical vigour, of great intellectual resource, and
of a force of character very far beyond the common.