The object of this work is to provide a compendium of
information about all significant aspects of Scottish
culture. The chief problem in compiling it was to
define the word 'culture'. The more my advisers and I
considered the problem the more widely we were
inclined to define it, and in the end it emerged that
virtually all aspects of life, work, play and imagination
were included in the definition, which embraced
subjects ranging from children's street games to
portrait painting, from eating habits to marriage
customs, from the Paisley shawl to the Scottish
Enlightenment.

The aim, then, is to cover all these varied aspects of
Scottish culture throughout history with articles on
both movements, institutions and individuals. Al-
though this is intended as a work of reference, I have
not made any attempt to impose a uniform, imper-
sonal style on contributors, who have been encour-
aged to present their material in their own natural
style and from their own point of view. Total
impersonality is neither possible nor desirable in these
matters; liveliness and a sense of coming to terms with
a living and sometimes changing subject seem to me
to be of the first importance. I hope the articles
gathered here will be read, not just 'looked up', and
that they will prove stimulating as well as informative.

I am very conscious of the gaps which are inevitably
to be found in a work with this comprehensive aim
and I can only plead that one could talk for ever (as we
very nearly did) about what to cover and that to make
sure that no gaps were left would mean the indefinite
postponement of the completion of the work. There is
also the point that those surveys of activities and
institutions that run up to the present become out of
date in their later phases with every month that passes
between the completion of the article and the publica-
tion of the book. The longer we delayed completion,
in a search for total coverage, the more acute this
problem could become.

Nevertheless this work will, I hope, fill a long-felt
want—the first reference work to cover most if not all
of the significant aspects of Scottish life, thought and
imagination throughout history.

I must express my thanks to the many scholars who
have assisted me with advice and encouragement,
especially to Professor Geoffrey Barrow on historical
matters, Professor Ian Finlay on art, Professor Derick
Thomson on Gaelic literature, Dr Donald Low on
literature in English and Scots and on the general
bibliography, Professor Roy Campbell on economic
history, Professor Frederick Rimmer and Mr Francis
Collinson on music, and the School of Scottish
Studies of Edinburgh University on a range of
subjects. If I were to add the names of all the other
colleagues, friends and well-wishers who have helped
in one way or another the list would take up many
pages, so I hope they will not mind if I simply make
this blanket acknowledgement. I must also thank the
publishers for their patience and helpfulness, and I
should like to mention especially Mr John Davey,
although he is no longer a member of the firm, for the
scheme was originally his brain-child and it was his
enthusiasm in its early stages that enabled it to get off
the ground.

David Daiches
Edinburgh,
October, 1980.