James Balfour Paul

“ Through his influence Adam subsequently obtained in 1768 the rectorship of the High School, after having been for three years assistant to the retiring head master. Lord Cockburn says of him: ‘He was born to teach Latin, some Greek, and all virtue. ... He had most of the usual peculiarities of a schoolmaster, but was so amiable and so artless that no sensible friend would have wished one of them to be even softened. His private industry was appalling. If one moment late at school, he would hurry in and explain that he had been detained “verifying a quotation;” ”

“ In 1757 he competed unsuccessfully for a ‘bursary’ at Aberdeen University, and soon afterwards, on the invitation of a relation of his mother who was a clergyman in Edinburgh, he removed to that city, where he had free admission to the college lectures, and in the course of a year and a half he gained the head-mastership of Watson's Hospital. ”

“ Dr. Adam married first, in 1775, Miss Munro, whose father was minister of Kinloss; and second, in 1780, Miss Cosser, a daughter of the controller of excise in Edinburgh.
Dr. Adam's other works are: ‘Geographical Index,’ Edinburgh, 1795; ‘Classical Biography,’ Edinburgh, 1800.
[Life by A. Henderson, Edinburgh, 1810; Notice in Encyclopædia Britannica, by Professor Pillans, his successor in the High School.] ”