Youth and Education
James Blair was born in Banffshire, Scotland as one of five children. His father, Robert Blair, was a clergyman. James Blair was educated at Marischal College, University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh.
After completing his education, in 1679 he was ordained in the national Church of Scotland (known officially at this time as the Kirk of Scotland, see kirk). During the entire seventeenth century the Kirk had been experiencing passionate internal conflicts between Presbyterians and Episcopalians (see, for example, the Bishops' Wars). The Episcopalians were in the ascendancy during this period and the Church of Scotland was briefly aligned with the Church of England during the reign of Charles II of Scotland. Charles was a strong opponent of Presbyterianism and throughout his lifetime worked to reassert the strength of the Anglican Church.
In 1681, Blair, aligned with the Episcopalians, was deprived of his parish in Edinburgh due to the conflict within the Episcopal movement between those supporting the Roman Catholic Church and those advocating a continued independent Episcopal national church. Discouraged, Blair relocated to London later that year.
Read more about this topic: James Blair (Virginia)
Famous quotes containing the words youth and, youth and/or education:
“The delicious faces of children, the beauty of school-girls, “the sweet seriousness of sixteen,” the lofty air of well-born, well-bred boys, the passionate histories in the looks and manners of youth and early manhood, and the varied power in all that well-known company that escort us through life,—we know how these forms thrill, paralyze, provoke, inspire, and enlarge us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It’s fairly obvious that American education is a cultural flop. Americans are not a well-educated people culturally, and their vocational education often has to be learned all over again after they leave school and college. On the other hand, they have open quick minds and if their education has little sharp positive value, it has not the stultifying effects of a more rigid training.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)