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EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
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EDUCATION IN 
 SCOTLAND 
 
 A SKETCH OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT 
 
 BY 
 
 W. J. GIBSON, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF THE NICOLSON INSTITUTE, 6T0RN0WAY 
 
 » . « » » 
 
 '•,'.'* \ I J i i » • » • » % * * • • • * • 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1912 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
LA 6 51 
 Gr5 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 In preparing this little sketch of the history of 
 education in Scotland, my hope has been that it may 
 help to inspire young Scottish teachers with a keener 
 sense of the honourableness and distinction of their 
 calling. The glimpses of the past which it tries to 
 furnish will, I hope, lead them to realise that they are 
 taking part in a great national work, of long and 
 reputable record, and so hearten them for their daily 
 labour. 
 
 Several books are available for more serious students 
 of our educational history, such as Grant's Burgh 
 Schools of Scotland, Prof. Edgar's History of Early 
 Scottish Education, Dr. Kerr's Scottish Education, and 
 Mr. Strong's recent admirable History of Secondary 
 Education in Scotland ; but there may be room for 
 this briefer and slighter account, intended to appeal 
 rather to the younger members of the teaching pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Older readers will find in the later pages a short 
 discussion of some of the educational questions of 
 to-day. 
 
 w. J. a 
 
 257725 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 TAan 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Education under the Celtic Monks ... 1 
 
 II. The Middle Ages 15 
 
 III. The Sixteenth Century and the Keformation . 39 
 
 IV. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries . 60 
 V. Education in the Highlands and Islands . 72 
 
 VI. The Nineteenth Century 91 
 
 Sunday Schools 91 
 
 Primary Schools 94 
 
 The Act of 1872 and its Kesults ... 97 
 
 Secondary Education 103 
 
 Technical Education 106 
 
 The Training of Teachers . . . .112 
 
 The Universities 115 
 
 VII. Kecent Movements and Current Questions . 119 
 
 Vll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "If we except the Athenians and Jews," says Mr. 
 Froude, " no people so few in number have scored so 
 deep a mark in the world's history as the Scots have 
 done." Why this pre-eminence of a country, small, 
 mostly barren, of harsh climate, and denied many of 
 the natural advantages found elsewhere ? 
 
 Her very difficulties of climate and soil helped her 
 people to develop; her mountains became a nursery 
 of independence and freedom, her glens and straths 
 the home of a thrifty and hardy race. 
 
 A certain seriousness of outlook and tenacity of 
 temper natural to their surroundings predisposed such 
 a people to the things of the mind and the spirit. 
 From early times they developed an interest in 
 religion and a zeal for learning. Other countries may 
 have shown a finer flower of scholarship, but in none 
 has the attitude towards education been so democratic, 
 so thoroughly imbued with the belief that learning 
 is for the whole people, so socialised as to afford the 
 spectacle of the sons of the laird, the minister, and the 
 ploughman, seated on the same bench, taught the 
 same lessons, and disciplined with the same strip of 
 leather. 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 In no other country has there been in the past 
 the same free path for ability, in whatever rank 
 produced, not only through the schools, but into all 
 the learned professions. Behind her people is a 
 lengthy tradition of humanistic learning closely as- 
 sociated with religious instruction, stretching in an 
 unbroken vista from the Magnum Monasterium of the 
 fifth century to the existing schools of the twentieth. 
 In no other land has there been through centuries the 
 same continuous recognition by the State of its duty 
 towards the education of its future citizens: four 
 hundred years ago Scotland led the van of Europe 
 by passing the first compulsory Education Act on 
 record; two centuries ago it declared for a school 
 in every parish; four decades have passed since it 
 provided machinery for a system of compulsory educa- 
 tion, universal in its distribution, popular in its 
 management, and with no " elementary " restriction in 
 its range. 
 
 To-day in our country it is almost true to say that 
 there is no boy or girl of good natural ability, however 
 poor or straitened in circumstances, however remote or 
 isolated the home, who cannot break a way into the 
 mysteries of the highest learning that the Universities 
 supply. 
 
 By what steps has such a system of national educa- 
 tion developed? Through what onrushes and eddies 
 and backwaters has its stream run? What baitings 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 and advances and retrogressions have marked its 
 onward progress? In what manner has the Scottish 
 educational ideal persisted and grown and expanded 
 with the passage of the centuries? Finally, what 
 defects are still to be removed, what work is still to be 
 done? 
 
 To answer such questions is the aim of this brief 
 history of education in Scotland. 
 
EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 EDUCATION UNDEK THE CELTIC MONKS 
 
 The first Scottish teacher whose name has come down 
 to us through the mists of the early ages is Ninian. 
 Fifteen centuries stretch between him and us ; yet 
 tradition, verified in this case by the spade of the 
 archaeologist, has preserved for us the knowledge of 
 the scene of his pioneer labours. His white church 
 of stone and lime, a wonder to the native dwellers in 
 wattled hovels, was built somewhere near Whithorn. 
 The sea cave to which he retired for meditation and 
 prayer can still be seen on the beach near Burrow 
 Head. The place is one that may well excite reverence, 
 for it is the cradle alike of Scottish Christianity and 
 of Scottish education. 
 
 Britain south of the Forth had been conquered by 
 Kome in the first and second centuries. The world 
 from the Euphrates to the Severn and from the Atlas 
 Mountains to the German forests had yielded to her 
 legions and rested secure under the wings of her 
 eagles. The provinces were relatively well governed, 
 and though it was always necessary to have the fron- 
 
2f EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 tiers patrolled by armed veterans, general peace and 
 prosperity prevailed. In Britain, as in the other con- 
 quered districts, the practical Eoman, having " warred 
 down the proud," taught them the arts of peace. 
 Towns were founded, roads were made, morasses 
 drained, and forests cleared. Trade was extended, 
 and so well did agriculture thrive that under the 
 Eomans Britain became one of the chief corn -producing 
 countries of the world. 
 
 The Britons whom the Eomans had vanquished and 
 whom they were now civilising were a Celtic race. 
 Those in the neighbourhood of the towns became 
 Eomanised. Eeadily taking to Eoman civilisation 
 and refinement, they soon became accustomed to 
 the luxurious and cultured life of the conquerors. 
 Those living outside the influence of the towns 
 were less affected; the denizens of the mountainous 
 regions of Wales, Cumberland, Galloway, and North- 
 ern Scotland remained outside the pale and unsub- 
 dued. From the second century the wild Picts of the 
 north were kept off by a garrisoned rampart running 
 across the narrow part between the Clyde and the 
 Forth. 
 
 Meanwhile the Eoman world was being leavened by 
 the spread of Christianity. Under the fierce blast of 
 persecution in the third century the Gospel torch only 
 burned the brighter. Gradually throughout the Empire 
 paganism yielded before the vital force of the new 
 religion. Imperial Eome was conquered by the law 
 of life laid down by the obscure Nazarene whom she 
 had crucified. Before the next century was old, 
 
EDUCATION UNDER THE CELTIC MONKS 3 
 
 Christianity had become the State religion, and 
 Christendom had been brought into a unity by the 
 adoption of a universal creed. 
 
 To the Eome of the latter part of the fourth century, 
 with its Christianity now general, aesthetic, and fashion- 
 able, came Ninian in his search for instruction, a wan- 
 derer from his distant home by the shores of the 
 Solway. By this time the schools of the great city 
 were famous ; their favourite study theology. Here 
 he remained, perhaps for several years. When suffi- 
 ciently trained he set out to return to his fatherland 
 by way of Gaul. At Tours he remained for some time 
 with St. Martin, one of the most remarkable of the 
 Gaulish ecclesiastics, a man of high personal character 
 and of great influence. The luxurious life of the 
 Christians of Rome had produced a reaction in church- 
 men of the ascetic temperament, and those early 
 centuries witnessed that remarkable phase of the 
 religious life that led men to seclusion. In the East 
 it produced hermits ; in the West monks. The latter 
 development was of a more social character, as the life 
 of seclusion was sought for in a community of those 
 like-minded. It is worth noticing in passing that it 
 was through the influence of St. Martin that the 
 monastic idea took root in Gaul, and it was from Gaul 
 that it was transplanted into Scotland and Ireland. 
 Ninian fell under the spell of the older man, became 
 much attached to him, and no doubt learned much 
 during his stay at Tours. But the time came when he 
 set his face westward towards his Galloway home, 
 where dwelt those to whom he hoped to carry the 
 
4 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Gospel. He had been born by the shores of Wigtown 
 Bay, and thither he now returned. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that some knowledge of Chris- 
 tianity had already penetrated to Roman Scotland 
 before Ninian's time. Ninian's own father, a chief of 
 some kind, is said by Ailred to have been a Christian. 
 The preaching of Ninian was gladly received by his 
 countrymen, and among them he founded his notable 
 church. He had already made provision while still 
 in Gaul for the erection of a worthy building and had 
 " besought from St. Martin masons " to carry out the 
 work. With their help was erected a church of stone, 
 the wonder of the countryside, unlike anything the 
 Britons of those parts had ever seen. As the Romans 
 were still in occupation of the district, it was by its 
 Latin name of Candida Casa, the White House, that 
 his church came to be known. Before the church was 
 finished Ninian learned to his sorrow that his friend 
 St. Martin had passed from his labours, and he " dedi- 
 cated the church in his honour." This fixes the date 
 of the erection of Candida Casa as a.d. 397. 
 
 It is the erection of this church at Whithorn, 
 already the place of chief importance in the region, 
 and the founding of the monastic establishment con- 
 nected with it, that bear on the subject of early Scottish 
 education, and that warrant our consideration of 
 Ninian's work. The monastic system which he had 
 seen in Gaul was adopted at Whithorn and became 
 afterwards the general type in use in the Celtic church. 
 The nature of the system itself and of the education 
 which it provided will be best seen when we come to 
 
EDUCATION UNDER THE CELTIC MONKS 5 
 
 consider the character of the monastery established 
 by Columba in lona. Of Ninian's mission to the 
 southern Picts it is necessary only to say that it was 
 successful ; the Picts listened readily to his preaching, 
 abandoned their old religion, and embraced Chris- 
 tianity. Churches were founded and presbyters (that 
 is, priests) appointed. Doubtless also monastic insti- 
 tutions, on the model of the parent establishment at 
 Whithorn, were established among them, and became 
 centres for the diffusion of learning and civilisation. 
 It was probably on this missionary journey that Ninian 
 consecrated the burying-ground on the banks of the 
 Molendinar Burn. It was on this site that Kentigern 
 afterwards founded the church which was to become 
 the nucleus of the city of Glasgow. 
 
 At or before the time when St. Martin's masons 
 were erecting Candida Casa there was born at Nem- 
 thur, somewhere near Dumbarton, one who was to do 
 much for Celtic Britain — Succat or Patricius. It is 
 unnecessary to consider his career here, even in out- 
 line, except as regards the one point of the place 
 where he got his training. One account sends him 
 to Gaul to St. Martin. But Martin was probably dead 
 years before. According to another account, the one 
 accepted by the Eoman Catholic Church, he received 
 his training in Rome itself. Neither seems the most 
 natural course for him to have followed. On Solway 
 side, near the home of his kindred, was the monastery 
 that Ninian had founded, well known by that time all 
 over the district. Within a hundred years after its 
 foundation it is known that it had developed into the 
 
6 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Magnum Monasterium, and had become an important 
 centre of religious and secular learning, at which many 
 of the early Irish saints received their training.^ What 
 more natural than that the first of them, Patricius, 
 brought up in the district and therefore familiar with 
 the work of Candida Casa, should in the earlier years 
 of the monastery have gone there for his preliminary 
 training ? 
 
 His forty-four years' work in Ireland and its results 
 are well known. The churches he founded were soon 
 known all over Christendom for their piety, their 
 learning, and their missionary zeal. Scotland's interest 
 in Patricius lies in the fact that the Dalriad Scots who 
 came over to Argyll brought with them Christianity, 
 and that the Irish church of Patricius gave to Scotland 
 Columba, the great missionary of the northern Picts. 
 It was in 563 that Columba, accompaniad by twelve 
 disciples, settled in the island of Hy (or lona, as it is 
 now mistakenly called). The choice of this island as 
 the head-quarters of his mission settlement was prob- 
 ably determined by its geographical position. The 
 Dalriad Scots, who had crossed over from Ulster and 
 were ruled by a kinsman of his own, possessed Cantyre 
 and Argyll. North of them lay the Picts, who were 
 at this time pressing the Scots so hard that it almost 
 seemed as if they must yield their footing in Scotland. 
 Hy lay close to the common boundary between the two 
 kingdoms, and its being an island, and a small one at 
 that, separated from Mull by a sound only a mile wide, 
 made it a most suitable position for Columba's pur- 
 
 1 Skene, Celtic Scotland, Vol. II, p. 46 et seq. 
 
EDUCATION UNDER THE CELTIC MONKS 7 
 
 pose. The gift of the island granted him by the King 
 of the Scots was later confirmed by the King of the 
 Picts also. With the two opposing kings both favour- 
 able to his occupation his tenure was secure. The 
 monastery of lona is of great interest as giving us 
 our first clear view of the everyday life of the Celtic 
 monk. It is true that Adamnan in writing his life 
 of Columba devotes attention rather to the saint's 
 miracles than to a description of the training aJBPorded 
 by the monastery ; but his incidental references when 
 pieced together supply a good deal of valuable in- 
 formation. 
 
 The members of the little secluded community built 
 their own huts and tiny wattled church, and for pro- 
 tection surrounded them with an earthen rampart. 
 All took part in the regular religious exercises of the 
 brotherhood. Candidates for membership were ad- 
 mitted only after probation. Notorious sinners were 
 prevented from landing at all on the island. Alms 
 were distributed to the poor and medical aid given to 
 those in suffering. The monks tilled the ground for 
 their own support, and engaged in such other forms of 
 labour on sea and land as were required by the simple 
 wants of the community. The preparation of food 
 and other forms of domestic service fell to some of the 
 brethren. Their food was simple — barley-bread, milk, 
 eggs, fish, and perhaps also seal's flesh. On occasion 
 these were probably supplemented with mutton and 
 beef. On Wednesdays and Fridays a fast was ob- 
 served until the evening. The monks wore garments 
 of undyed wool, and on a journey protected their feet 
 
8 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 with sandals. They slept on pallets in their cells, and 
 might even during the night be called together on an 
 unusual occasion for prayers. They were summoned 
 to the church by the sound of a bell. Within the 
 monastery enclosure were also the refectory, the kit- 
 chen, and the lodging-places of the monks, which were 
 probably huts made of wattles. The abbot's, a larger 
 one with joists, was at some distance from the others. 
 A carpenter's shop and a smithy were a necessity of 
 such a community. lona was probably treeless then as 
 now, and timber had to be brought from the mainland. 
 The barn, the kiln, and the mill were outside the 
 monastery enclosure, the last being on a neighbouring 
 stream, by the water of which the stones were driven 
 in the primitive method that still persists in one or 
 two of the remotest islands of the Hebrides. The 
 byre must have been at some distance from the monas- 
 tery, for the milk was carried thither by a horse. 
 
 Besides attending church services and carrying on 
 the various forms of labour indicated, the monks spent 
 part of their day in reading — chiefly the Scriptures — 
 and in committing portions, such as the book of 
 Psalms, to memory. Writing also received a share 
 of their attention, and by their labours as transcribers 
 the various churches connected with the monastery were 
 supplied with service books. Much time and skill and 
 loving care were devoted by the Celtic monks to the 
 artistic embellishment of manuscripts. Some of those 
 still in existence, dating from the seventh century, 
 are masterpieces that show what a labour of love the 
 work must have been to the scribes engaged in it. 
 
EDUCATION UNDER THE CELTIC MONKS 9 
 
 The peculiar system of decorative tracery that is the 
 special line along which Celtic art evolved had reached 
 even at this time a high stage of development. 
 
 A special feature of Hy was its hospitality. Visitors 
 were frequent and received a true Celtic welcome. If 
 expected, the brethren went to the beach to meet 
 them. They conducted them to the church, where 
 thanksgiving was offered for their safe arrival. Food 
 was set before them and a lodging prepared for them. 
 It is evidence of the kind-hearted absence of narrow- 
 ness of religious view that out of courtesy to guests 
 arriving on a day of fasting the monks broke their 
 fast. Nor did hospitality stop short with human 
 visitors ; even the birds and beasts had a share.^ 
 
 From a study of the lona community, we get 
 a fairly clear idea of the education that was available 
 in the monasteries. All the brethren were taught the 
 Scriptures and all learned to use their hands in- 
 dustriously for the general good. For some this 
 meant work in the harvest-field, the dairy, or the 
 kitchen; for others to whom the crafts came easily, 
 building, carpentering, or smith-work. Those with 
 special aptitudes were taught what was known of the 
 healing power of herbs and the simple surgery then 
 in use, or they learned the honoured art of the 
 scribe who wrote and illuminated those wonderful 
 manuscripts that are still a source of artistic delight. 
 Nor was their learning only religious. Columba 
 himself was a bard and a patron of the bards. The 
 
 ^ See Adamnan's beautiful little story of the crane that had 
 strayed to lona from Ireland. 
 
10 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 best of his disciples added to their knowledge of 
 church Latin some acquaintance with classical litera- 
 ture. 
 
 As to the kind of men produced by the training of 
 the Celtic monasteries we have ample indications. 
 Columba himself is described by Adamnan as " aspectu 
 angelicus, sermone nitidus, opere sanctus, ingenio opti- 
 mus." His finely modulated and powerful voice is also 
 commented upon. His diligence was remarkable ; there 
 was never an hour of his day that was not taken up 
 with prayer, study, writing, or other useful occupation. 
 Of his afifectionate disposition, close attachment to his 
 personal friends, his kindness, compassion, and gener- 
 osity, many instances are recorded. We can well 
 believe that these were among the characteristics that 
 were most regarded among the simple Celtic monks, 
 combined with a simple soldier-like strictness of obedi- 
 ence to their abbot's commands and an energy and zeal 
 for the preaching of the Gospel that no difficulties or 
 dangers could daunt. Wild beast and savage man 
 were alike unable to cool their ardour. At a word 
 from their abbot they would start off, without murmur 
 or delay, on the longest journey or the most trying 
 voyage. Their labours of evangelisation were most 
 successful. Churches were established and communities 
 founded in the remotest islands of the Hebrides and 
 the Orcades. Their missions reached to Gaul, even to 
 Italy itself. 
 
 Of special interest from the point of view of educa- 
 tion and learning was Aidan's mission to Northumbria. 
 It is a historical fact infrequently dwelt upon that the 
 
EDUCATION UNDER THE CELTIC MONKS 11 
 
 efforts of Columban missionaries led to the Christian- 
 isation, not only of Northumbria, but of the middle of 
 England even as far south as London; and the sus- 
 ceptibility for culture and delight in learning, which 
 were a feature of the Celtic monks, were transmitted 
 to their Northumbrian converts. It must not be for- 
 gotten that Hild's monastery of Streonshalh, which 
 produced the first English poet on English soil, was of 
 Celtic foundation, and that Caedmon himself, from his 
 name, was probably of Celtic descent. "It is the 
 personal relation of the soul to God the Father, the 
 humanity of Christ, the brotherhood of man, the 
 fellowship of saints, that the Celtic missionaries seem 
 to have preached to their converts ; and these doctrines 
 inspired the choicest passages of Old English religious 
 poetry, passages worthy of comparison with some of 
 the best work of a later, more self-conscious and intro- 
 spective age." ^ 
 
 It is interesting to reflect that this literary influence 
 was carried to the court and kingdom of Charles the 
 Great by the Englishman Alcuin on the eve of the 
 troublous times when incursions of the barbarous 
 Danes destroyed alike the Northumbrian monasteries 
 and Northumbrian learning. Though the direct in- 
 fluence of the school of Alcuin cannot be traced, there 
 is little doubt that indirectly his educational work 
 prepared the ground for that seed of Greek philosophy, 
 sown in Spain by Arabian scholars, which became in 
 
 * M. Bentinck Smith in Gamhridge History of English Literature^ 
 Vol. I, chap. IV. This aspect of the subject is also ably dealt with by 
 Mr. Stopford A. Brooke in the first chapter of his English Literature 
 from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, 
 
12 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 the twelfth century a plant of sturdy growth and bore 
 as fruit the universities of Europe. 
 
 The educational influence of the Celtic monastic 
 system continued to be very marked in Scottish educa- 
 tion even well down into the Middle Ages, but this 
 will be considered later. 
 
 While there can be no question that the monasteries 
 were the main means of diffusing religious learning, 
 there was among the Celts one other agency that 
 made for culture — the schools of the bards. The 
 ofl&ce of bard was held in high respect. It was heredi- 
 tary, and the heroic lays and more or less mythical 
 genealogies of the clan were handed on from father to 
 son. Careful attention was given to the training of 
 the young aspirant, and the bardic guilds or schools 
 had considerable power and influence. To the general 
 body of the clan, as well as more immediately to the 
 members of the chief's family, there must have been 
 great benefit in having among them these professional 
 rehearsers of old lays and makers of new songs. 
 They helped to keep alive among all classes an interest 
 in music and in poetry, in something beyond the mere 
 necessities of the daily life and the mere adventurous 
 pleasure of raiding and fighting. In the Highlands 
 of Scotland, as in Ireland, the bardic tradition long 
 survived. Even at the present day in some of the 
 remoter districts there are still found belated repre- 
 sentatives of the ancient art who throughout their 
 own region have a fame as makers of Gaelic verse. 
 
EDUCATION UNDER THE CELTIC MONKS 13 
 
 Another kind of learning that among the Celts was 
 passed on in hereditary succession was the lore of the 
 healing art. From very early times there were fami- 
 lies who devoted themselves to medicine; the 
 Macbeaths, for example, were for some centuries 
 hereditary physicians to the Lords of the Isles and 
 the Kings of Scotland.^ From comparatively early 
 times this Celtic medical lore was wonderfully ad- 
 vanced, not only in a knowledge of native simples, 
 but also in acquaintance with the European literature 
 of the subject. This continued to be the case through 
 several centuries. Martin, in his visit to the Western 
 Isles towards the end of the seventeenth century, 
 found that Fergus Beaton, one of these hereditary 
 mediciners, had in his possession " ancient Irish manu- 
 scripts in the Irish character " of the more important 
 works of the most notable writers on medicine.^ 
 
 In the ancient Irish laws one gets glimpses of the 
 training in the everyday arts of life that must have 
 taken up most of the time and energy of the young. 
 Boys of lowly estate learned to herd lambs, calves, 
 kids, and young pigs ; they also became skilled in kiln- 
 drying, combing, and wood-cutting. Girls learned to 
 use the quern, the kneading-trough, and the sieve. 
 The sons of chieftains were taught horsemanship, 
 swimming, archery, and chess-playing, and the 
 daughters sewing, cutting-out, and embroidery.^ 
 
 ^ An account of this remarkable family is given in Dr. H. 
 Cameron Gillies' Introduction to Regimen, Sanitatis, a Gaelic medical 
 manuscript of the early sixteenth century. 
 
 2 Martin Martin, A Visit to the Western Islands of Scotland. 
 
 ' Senchus Mor : the laws relating to fosterage. 
 
14 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 To complete our picture of the daily life of the old 
 Celtic world we must add the acquirement of these 
 arts to the moral and religious instruction that the 
 young received from the monks, and the glamour of 
 heroic deeds and glory of clan-heroes that came to 
 them through the song of the bards and the melody 
 of harp-strings. 
 
II 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The decay of the Celtic monastic system need not be 
 traced in detail. The Koman method of the tonsure 
 and the dating of Easter were adopted in Pictland 
 early in the eighth century.^ This was followed by 
 the expulsion of such of the Columban monks as were 
 unwilling to conform. The monastic institutions, with 
 their lands and privileges, seem to have passed in 
 many cases into the hands of laymen. It is the same 
 process as Bede complains of in Northumbria: "Though 
 they are themselves laics and neither habituated to 
 nor actuated by the love of a regular life, yet, by 
 pecuniary payments to the kings, and under pretext 
 of founding monasteries, they purchase for themselves 
 territories in which they may have freer scope." ^ 
 
 In the circumstances of such a transition period 
 it was natural that the cause of secular and religious 
 learning should suffer. Some time must have elapsed 
 before the new ecclesiastical establishments under the 
 secular clergy could become the centres of culture 
 
 ^ "The coronal tonsure is received by the community of Hi." 
 A.D. 714. Chronicum Seotorum. 
 
 ^ Baedae epistola ad Ecgberetum, cited by Skene, Celtic Scotland, 
 Vol. II, p. 269. 
 
 15 
 
16 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 which the Columban monasteries had undoubtedly 
 been. 
 
 Another cause of the decay of the old social 
 monastic life was the widespread desire among the 
 ecclesiastics of the time for the solitary life of the 
 anchorite in preference to the ccenobitical life of 
 the monk. The man who turns hermit is no longer 
 an educational asset for the community. 
 
 Still another serious blow was dealt to the Celtic 
 monasteries by the incursions of the heathen Norse- 
 men. In the last decade of the eighth century these 
 warriors from "over the weltering waters" harried 
 the western islands with fire and sword; "vastatio 
 omnium insularum Britanniae a gentibus " is the Irish 
 annalist's terse description of their raid. It was 
 natural that the marauders should be attracted by 
 the easily won spoils of the richer monasteries. lona 
 itself was sacked on several occasions, and the un- 
 resisting monks butchered by the northern barbarians. 
 
 When it is remembered that every monastery so 
 raided involved the permanent or temporary destruc- 
 tion of a centre of educational effort the evil effects 
 on the country are readily understood. The heathen 
 marauders not only hated the Christian religion ; they 
 despised the monkish learning. " No scholars, no 
 clerics, no books, no holy relics were left in church or 
 monastery through dread of them. Neither bard, nor 
 philosopher, nor musician pursued his wonted profes- 
 sion in the land."^ 
 
 Soon the flying raids of the Northmen became per- 
 
 ^ Keating, cited by Maclean, The Literature of the Celts, p. 101. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 17 
 
 manent settlements. To these came many accessions 
 of hard-handed and high-willed Vikings anxious to 
 escape from the firm rule of Harald Harfagr after his 
 great naval victory in Hafurs Fjord in 875. In time 
 most of the west coast, with Sutherland, Caithness, 
 and the Orkneys and Shetlands, became part of the 
 Norwegian realm. 
 
 Immediately prior to the union of the Picts and 
 Scots, brought about by the accession of Kenneth 
 Macalpine, the country was divided into five distinct 
 and hostile kingdoms. The Picts occupied what is 
 now the main portion of the Highlands, the Scots 
 Dalriada, the Angles the Lothians of the south-east, 
 the Brythons the kingdom of Strathclyde in the 
 south-west, and the Norsemen the northern peninsula 
 and the northern and western islands. 
 
 It seems likely that Kenneth's favour brought 
 about some restoration of the Columban church in 
 Pictland. At any rate there is no doubt that the 
 influence of the Celtic tradition was felt for centuries 
 after the transfer of the centre of religious thought 
 from lona to Dunkeld. Eor the Scottish church, as 
 it came gradually into line with continental usage, 
 would retain a memory of the old ideal of learning 
 and culture that had been set up by the Columban 
 monasteries. 
 
 In 908 a meeting was held at Scone, at which King 
 Constantine and Cellach, first Bishop of St. Andrews, 
 bound themselves " to protect the laws and discipline 
 of the faith and the rights of the churches and of the 
 Gospel." This is supposed to mark the organisation 
 
18 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 of the church of Alban under the government of one 
 bishop. One little hint of the instruction given at 
 the time to the youth comes to us from the life of 
 St. Cadroe. He crossed from Armagh {circa 920), 
 and " scattered seeds of wisdom throughout the whole 
 of Scotland. ... He here trained them in the know- 
 ledge of the arts, whence, because he instructed many 
 with his lips, he had no associates. The old man 
 rejoiced to possess the youth, and had not his equal 
 in anything which he tried." ^ In the middle of the 
 tenth century we find pilgrims from Ireland ^ visiting 
 St. Andrews, to which the primacy seems to have 
 been transferred about the beginning of the century. 
 The process of the secularisation of the monasteries 
 that was now going on is illustrated by the history 
 of that of Dunkeld. A number of its abbots were 
 obviously laymen in possession of the wide district 
 which had formerly belonged to the monastery: 
 several of them are slain in battle; in the eleventh 
 century one of them marries the King's daughter. 
 It was, of course, to be expected that abbots who 
 were churchmen would have received an education 
 in the monastery, but these laymen also from their 
 close connection with the monastery would be men 
 of more or less education. It is specially recorded of 
 certain Irish lay abbots of this period that they were 
 literates. Malcolm Canmore's son, Ethelred, while 
 still a boy, was lay abbot of Dunkeld. It is in con- 
 nection with a gift of land from him to the Culdees 
 
 1 Skene, Celtic Scotland, Vol. II, p. 325. 
 
 ^ Chronicum Scotorum, p. 217, a.d. 963: "Aedh, son of Mael- 
 mithidh, dies in pilgrimage, viz. at Cinn-rimonaidh [St. Andrews]." 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 19 
 
 of Lochleven that an interesting educational refer- 
 ence is made; one of the witnesses to the gift is 
 Berbeadh, rector of the schools of Abernethy.^ This 
 furnishes direct evidence of the schools in connection 
 with ecclesiastical establishments which may be safely 
 postulated as having been in existence throughout the 
 whole period ; it is also an indication of the dignity 
 of the rectorial office that Berbeadh is on this occasion 
 associated with such witnesses as Constantin, Earl of 
 Fife. 
 
 The influence of Queen Margaret was felt not only 
 in the court and social life of the subjects of Malcolm 
 Canmore, but in a marked degree in ecclesiastical 
 affairs. Her piety and devotion to the form of church 
 worship with which she was familiar were shocked to 
 observe the differences in ceremonial and observance 
 that existed between the native church and that of 
 Rome. She did her best to have the peculiarities of 
 the old Celtic church, as regarded the duration 
 of certain feasts, the method of celebrating mass, and 
 the manner of observing the Lord's Day, brought into 
 harmony with the practice of the continental church. 
 The movement thus set on foot was greatly accelerated 
 during the reign of her son Alexander. The old tribal 
 organisation of the Celtic church was replaced by one 
 on a territorial basis, Alexander's dominions being 
 divided into three dioceses — St. Andrews, Dunkeld, 
 and Moray. Earl David in the same way recon- 
 stituted the diocese of Glasgow. Both took steps to 
 introduce the Eoman orders of monks. Alexander 
 
 ^ Grant, History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, p. 3. 
 
20 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 established a priory of the Augustinians at Scone, and 
 David a Benedictine monastery at Selkirk. In 1203 
 a Benedictine monastery and nunnery were founded by 
 the Lord of the Isles in lona; and in 1219 the Earl 
 of Buchan founded a Cistercian monastery at Deer 
 which may have taken the place of the ancient Celtic 
 monastery which had so long survived there. This 
 may be regarded as the end of the old Celtic church. 
 
 In the twelfth century, in connection with the lands 
 belonging to abbeys and convents, there are various 
 references to schools and " their pertinents," belonging 
 to, or transferred to, these abbeys. It is clear that 
 the abbeys of the new orders had fallen heir to the 
 close relation with education that had marked the 
 Celtic monasteries. The abbot and canons of Dry- 
 burgh are confirmed in their possessions by Pope 
 Lucius, and it is forbidden that anyone should interfere 
 with the masters in the parish of Lanark in regulating 
 the studies of their schools.^ 
 
 Similar grants to the schools, and references to their 
 rectors, occur throughout the thirteenth century. 
 Schools in connection with churches and abbeys are 
 taken for granted in the casual notices that are found. 
 The inference is that such arrangements for the in- 
 struction of the young were usual. 
 
 The first educational duty of the monastery was to 
 provide for the instruction of those who were to 
 become monks. This duty would be undertaken by 
 such of the brethren as were learned and had shown 
 special gifts as instructors. Doubtless the abbot was 
 
 * Liber de Dryhurghy cited by Grant, p. 5. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 21 
 
 in most cases a man who to business ability and 
 organising power added scholarship. He was often a 
 man of affairs whose training had been partly obtained 
 on the Continent. For the novices certain hours of 
 the day would be told off for instruction, and for most 
 of them this would confine itself to the Scriptures 
 and the church services, but those showing special 
 intellectual aptitude, or the special skill of hand 
 required from the scribe, would be duly regarded, for 
 such gifts were valuable to the monastery possessing 
 them. Considerable attention would also be given to 
 the training of those who had musical endowments 
 that could be devoted to the use of the church. 
 Doubtless many of the less apt would do little more 
 than get up by rote the Latin versions of the prayers 
 and Psalms needed in the ordinary religious services. 
 But the better pupils would acquire a knowledge of 
 the Latin tongue through a study of the grammar of 
 Donatus, a work which seems to have held a place of 
 high importance as a text-book in the schools of the 
 Middle Ages. Everyone with any pretence to scholar- 
 ship had to be able to use Latin, the universal language 
 of educated Europe and the ordinary medium through 
 which instruction was conveyed. In the scarcity of 
 copies of text-books, much of the matter of the texts, 
 as well as the teacher's comments, must have been 
 taken down from the lecturer's dictation. The Scottish 
 Universities still retain quaint survivals of this old 
 custom. 
 
 Little material remains from which to discover the 
 nature of the instruction or the range of reading. 
 
22 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Those boys who were intended for the monastic life 
 would be under the rigorous monastic discipline, but 
 some portion of the instruction provided would be 
 available also for those who intended to enter the 
 priesthood, and for laymen. As far as literary train- 
 ing was concerned, the teaching of reading, with in- 
 struction in the Scriptures, and singing, would take 
 the first place, to be followed, for such as might profit, 
 by the elements of the writing art, and by some 
 modicum of arithmetic to be used mainly in connec- 
 tion with the computation of the dates in the church 
 calendar. Next would follow the well-known trivium 
 of the curriculum of the Middle Ages, viz. grammar, 
 logic, and rhetoric. The larger monastery and cathe- 
 dral schools would in addition give instruction in civil 
 and canon law, in mathematics and astronomy, and in 
 philosophy and theology. But the catalogue of the 
 books constituting the priory library at Lochleven in 
 the middle of the twelfth century gives little indica- 
 tion of such studies ; it is made up of portions of the 
 Bible, church service books, and some works on 
 theology. 
 
 Besides the provision of instruction for those who 
 proposed entering on the monastic life, the greater 
 monasteries would naturally be expected to provide 
 for the wants of those who were to become secular 
 clergy. While provision was made in outlying regions 
 that the district churches should undertake educational 
 work, it is proper to believe that the wealthy abbeys, 
 to which the churches and schools alike belonged, 
 usually undertook the preparation of the future clerics. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 23 
 
 On the question of whether instruction was given in 
 those early times to lay pupils little evidence exists, 
 but what there is points in the direction of such pro- 
 vision having been, in many cases, made. Such in- 
 struction was certainly contemplated in the educa- 
 tional system which Alcuin set up in Frankland, and 
 it does not seem likely that the native monasteries 
 which produced scholars of the type of Alcuin would 
 be behind the Continent in their desire to instruct the 
 mass of the people. Towards the end of the eighth 
 century, Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, had addressed to 
 his priests instructions of an unusually modern kind : 
 " Presbyteri per villas et vicos scholas habeant et si 
 quilibet fidelium suos parvulos ad discendas literas eis 
 commendare vult, eos suscipere ac docere non renuant, 
 sed cum summa caritate eos doceant. . . . Cum ergo 
 eos decent, nihil ab eis pretii pro hac re exigant, ex- 
 cepto quod eis parentes caritatis studio sua voluntate 
 obtulerint."^ We may believe that in Scotland also the 
 natural desire of the church to instruct both priest 
 and layman in a knowledge of the Scriptures, the 
 Creed, and the prayers, would be strong enough to 
 keep its servants from placing any obstacles in the 
 way of parents who, themselves faithful servants of 
 the church, desired their children to receive such 
 learning. 
 
 In the middle of the thirteenth century a lady 
 hands over her dowry to the monastery of Kelso in 
 return for an undertaking on the part of the -abbot 
 
 1 Migne—Fatrologia Latina, CV, cited by West — Alcuin and th^ 
 Rise of the Christian Schools, p. 56. 
 
24 EDUCATIOI^ IN SCOTLAND 
 
 that her son will be boarded " with the worthier and 
 better scholars of the house." ^ In another case in the 
 fourteenth century the State Treasurer pays by the 
 King's command a considerable sum of money for the 
 board and the clothing of a " poor scholar kinsman of 
 our lord the King." Various gifts of a similar nature 
 are recorded. 
 
 The general tendency indeed, as has been said, 
 would be to make the religious and secular instruc- 
 tion, provided primarily for monks and clerics, avail- 
 able also for lay youths whose parents wished them to 
 take advantage of it. It seems likely that the non- 
 education in the Middle Ages of the masses of the 
 people and of the gentry has been greatly exaggerated. 
 Far too much has been made of 
 
 " Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, 
 Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line." 
 
 It is clear that the demand for copies of favourite 
 books could only co-exist with a fairly widespread 
 power of reading them. The appeal of Scottish 
 writers, both in Latin and in the vernacular, was to a 
 wider audience than the popular conception of medi- 
 aeval ignorance would allow. The power to read was 
 limited neither to clerics nor to the male sex. The 
 Chevalier Geoffrey de la Tour Landry, writing in the 
 latter part of the fourteenth century, probably ex- 
 presses the ordinary enlightened view of his own time 
 when he writes : " And by cause somme folk sayen 
 that they wold not that theyr wyves ne also theyr 
 
 * Grant, p. 12. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 25 
 
 doughters wyst ony thynge of clergye ne of wrytynge, 
 therfor I say, answerynge to them, that as for 
 wrytyng, it is no force yf a woman can nought of it ; 
 but as for redynge, I say that good and prouffytable is 
 it to al wymen."^ Chaucer's description of his four- 
 teenth-century Canterbury pilgrims does not leave on 
 the mind the impression of an uneducated people; and it 
 furnishes us for all time with a worthy type of the 
 student who loves learning for its own sake : 
 
 " For him was lever have at his beddes heed 
 Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed, 
 Of Aristotle and his philosophye, 
 Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye. 
 
 " But al that he mighte of his freendes hente, 
 On bokes and on lerninge he it spente, 
 And bisily gan for the soules preye 
 Of hem that yaf him wher-with to scoleye." 
 
 " And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche." ^ 
 
 The national desire in Scotland in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury for higher schools of learning, and the outburst of 
 enthusiasm with which the foundation of the three 
 Universities was received, did not come from an un- 
 educated people or one devoid of the love of learning. 
 
 The provision for the secular and religious instruc- 
 tion of the Scottish people that is found in the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries may be here summed 
 
 ^ The Booke of Thenseygnements and Techynge tJiat the Knyght of the 
 Towre made to his Doughters, by the Chevalier Geoffrey de la Tour 
 Landry, 1371 ; Caxton's Translation, 1484. 
 
 2 Chaucer, The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, v. 263 et seq. 
 
26 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 up. (1) Each monastery was an educational centre 
 where, under the authority of the abbot, one or more 
 learned monks gave, in addition to training in religion 
 and in the music required for the church services, 
 instruction in certain of the Latin classics, in logic, 
 and, doubtless to selected pupils, in canon and civil 
 law. (2) To each cathedral was attached a school or 
 schools which provided similar instruction, the ap- 
 pointment of the rector of the schools vesting in the 
 chancellor, whose duty it was to see that the master 
 knew " how to teach the boys in grammar as well as 
 in logic." ^ The masters appointed would as a rule be 
 churchmen. (3) In the collegiate churches, which 
 were founded between 1350 and the Eeformation, 
 the same close connection with education was main- 
 tained. Schools were attached to them for the in- 
 struction of the youth in grammar and church music, 
 and in some cases at least a special endowment was 
 provided for the upkeep of the school. (4) In districts 
 removed from such centres of educational activity as 
 those described, some instruction was provided by the 
 clergy of the parish churches. Sometimes the church 
 itself was used as a schoolhouse.^ It is likely that 
 the instruction was of an elementary kind, but it 
 would certainly provide what was necessary for the 
 
 ^ Begistrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, 1256, cited by Grant, p. 18. 
 
 ^ An allusion to this practice of keeping school in the church as 
 a usual one (more nunc solito) is contained in the oft-quoted story 
 from Reginald of Durham of the lad of Norham who attempted to 
 escape at once punishment for idleness and any further continuance 
 of the slavery of learning by locking the church door and flinging 
 the key into a pool in the river. Boys are wonderfully alike through- 
 out the ages. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 27 
 
 carrying on of the church services, including music. 
 The latter was undoubtedly often a special feature 
 of the instruction, and the "sang schule" remained 
 an institution in rural Scotland down to living 
 memory. The sang schools prior to the Keformation 
 seem to have confined their instruction to "music, 
 manners, and virtue." 
 
 The contract entered into by the master of the 
 sang school of Aberdeen at the close of the fifteenth 
 century may be taken as illustrative. He "obliges 
 himself by the faith of his body, all the days of his 
 life, to remain with the community of the burgh, 
 singing, keeping, and upholding mass, matins, even- 
 songs, completories, psalms, responses, antiphonies, 
 and hymns in the parish kirk on festival and feral 
 days, for a salary of 24 merks Scots annually. The 
 town council further appoints him master of their 
 sang school to instruct burgesses' sons in singing and 
 playing on the organs, for the upholding of God's 
 service in the choir, they paying him his scolage and 
 dues."i 
 
 Keference has already been made to the scanty 
 indications of the material of instruction in the 
 abbey and cathedral schools. In the period now 
 dealt with the evidence is clearer. The library of 
 the cathedral of Glasgow in the early part of the 
 fifteenth century contained 165 books, consisting of 
 various service books, texts on canon and civil law, 
 books of theology and philosophy, and a few of the 
 Latin classics, including such authors as Ovid, Sallust, 
 
 1 Grant, p, 66. 1 merk = ls. Hd. 
 
28 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 and Seneca. The list also includes a Latin dictionary, 
 "valde preciosum," but no work by a Greek writer 
 appears. To the same period belongs the list of 
 authors on whom Ferrerius lectured, publicly or 
 privately, to his students in the abbey of Kinloss. 
 In it are included several of the works of Aristotle, 
 Cicero, Virgil, and Terence, together with treatises on 
 theology, logic, grammar, rhetoric, and mathematics. 
 Mention has already been made of the high status 
 that belonged to the rector of the schools. Additional 
 illustrations of the dignity of the ofi&ce are furnished 
 by the records of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
 fifteenth centuries. Of three arbitrators chosen by 
 the Pope to decide a dispute concerning lands claimed 
 by the abbey of Paisley, two are the deans of Carrick 
 and Cunningham, the third is the master of the 
 schools of Ayr. A similar arbitration for the abbey 
 of Kelso is taken part in by the rector of the schools 
 of South Berwick. When the Three Estates of the 
 Kealm gave, in the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 an undertaking to pay to England the ransom for 
 David II, one of the representative burgesses is the 
 rector of the school of Cupar.^ 
 
 The instruction given in the abbeys was not con- 
 fined to what we may call literary learning. A 
 considerable part of the time of the monks was spent 
 in manual labour of a useful sort ; so that, as was the 
 case in the Columban monasteries, a considerable 
 
 1 Acts of Farliamcni of Scotland, I, 515-18, cited by Grant, p. 11. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 29 
 
 variety of technical instruction was provided. This 
 was connected in the first instance with the tillage of 
 the soil, but associated with this were the crafts of 
 the carpenter and the smith, and of necessity, for the 
 comfort of the community, those of the tailor and 
 leather-worker. 
 
 Nor was art neglected. The painter's brush and 
 the mason's chisel were alike pressed into the service 
 of the church. The troops of masons who, with the 
 piety of good churchmen and the conscientiousness of 
 faithful craftsmen, erected all over Scotland the abbeys 
 and churches which mark the period under review 
 must have done much to cultivate the artistic taste of 
 the general mass of the people. No one who visits 
 the remains of our Scottish churches, beautiful even 
 in ruins, can doubt the educative influence of the 
 erection of such buildings on the people for whose 
 use they were designed. And we have to add to the 
 lesson of the beautiful fabrics in which the people 
 met for worship the civilising efifect of an orderly 
 service, and the mellowing influence of the vocal and 
 instrumental music in which the church, as we have 
 seen, took pains to train her people. 
 
 It is clear that these so-called barren centuries were 
 rich in educative influences. The people's fight for 
 freedom — and it was theirs and not that of the nobles 
 — cannot have failed to raise the nation's ideal and to 
 provide the people with a wider outlook. Sacrifice 
 in the pursuit of national duty always bears fruit in 
 the development of national character. The close 
 contact with France, involving as it did the service 
 
30 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 of so many Scottish men-at-arms and soldiers of 
 fortune in continental armies, and the residence of 
 the more intellectually inclined Scots for long periods 
 at continental Universities, must also have widened 
 the mental horizon and brought some national advance 
 towards a higher degree of culture and civilisation. 
 If proof be needed, compare the literary activity of the 
 Scotland of the fifteenth century with the sluggishness 
 of the England that was wearing itself out in the Wars 
 of the Roses. One cannot read Dunbar's list of the 
 Makkars without realising that such literary pro- 
 ductiveness as is there indicated argues a widespread 
 literary appreciativeness on the part of the people for 
 whose reading it was intendeds 
 
 The democratic nature of Scottish education, the 
 desire to make scholastic instruction available for all 
 who show intellectual ability whatever the grade of 
 society from which they have sprung, has its roots 
 very deep in the past. It was a part of the strength 
 of both Celtic and Roman church that the ecclesiastical 
 life afforded an open avenue to distinction for the 
 child of the poorest, if he showed conspicuous ability. 
 The gown of the monk and of the priest cloaked all 
 social distinctions. The church offered freely a career 
 of unlimited possibilities to the boy of high mental 
 endowment and studious habits. It is true that the 
 educational training of the Middle Ages, limited chiefly 
 as it was to the mechanical reasoning and verbal dex- 
 terity of the formal syllogism, was of a somewhat barren 
 character as far as the production of the finest fruits 
 of thought was concerned, and that the Christianity 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 31 
 
 of the Middle Ages, with the Aristotelianism which 
 it had absorbed, tended to round off human knowledge 
 too completely, and to subordinate too thoroughly all 
 other forms of it to the theological ; yet these features 
 were tempered in the Scottish monastery by the 
 practical bent that was needed for the carrying on of 
 the worldly business of a great abbey, and, in the case 
 of the secular clergy, by constant contact with men 
 and their human needs. In saying this one is not for- 
 getting the abuses of the church and the unworthiness 
 of many of its servants that led in the fourteenth 
 century to the propagation of LoUardism, a movement 
 in which Scotland shared,^ and in the sixteenth to the 
 Eeformation. But if the fourteenth century produced 
 ecclesiastics of the type of Chaucer's worldly Monk, 
 dissolute Summoner, and lying Pardoner, it also 
 brought forth priests like his Parson and peasants like 
 his Plowman ; nor has the literature of any age of our 
 history finer types than these to offer. 
 
 The vigorous criticism of church abuses, and the 
 free handling of the defects of worldly churchmen by 
 English and Scottish poets, are themselves a proof 
 that neither society nor the church had lost, among 
 its rank and file, the moral standard which alone could 
 cause such criticism to be tolerated. 
 
 Already the strivings of the new spirit of inquiry 
 and criticism that produced the Eevival of Learning 
 were beginning. The desire in Scotland for higher 
 
 ^ A. Lang, History of Scotland, Vol. I, p. 365. 
 
32 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 schools of learning, and the leading part taken by the 
 Universities at a later stage in the great rehgious 
 upheaval, were indications that Scotland was ready to 
 share in the great movement which caused European 
 thought to seek with backward glance fresh inspira- 
 tion from the poets, sculptors, and philosophers of 
 Greece; whilst at the same time it strove, with for- 
 ward effort, towards that "moral freedom which im- 
 plies individual insight and conviction." ^ Pagan 
 Renaissance and Eeformation Puritanism were both 
 stirring in the gloom. The love of beauty and the 
 zeal for righteousness were both claiming men. But 
 the heritage of Hellenism that lay open to the Scot 
 of the sixteenth century was soon obscured by the 
 legacy of Hebraism that also awaited him. The 
 Greek artist's message of beauty was less prized by 
 him than the Hebrew prophet's call to righteousness. 
 How this came about, and its effect on the educational 
 aims and efforts of the country, fall to be considered 
 later. 
 
 The most striking feature of Scottish education in 
 the fifteenth century was the rise, already alluded to, 
 of the Universities. 
 
 The cathedral school of Notre Dame developed in 
 the twelfth century into the University of Paris. The 
 teaching of the young churchman whom Dr. Sandys 
 has characterised as "the eloquent, brilliant, vain, 
 impulsive, and self-confident disputant, Abelard," ^ 
 
 1 Thomas Davidson, The Educatim of the Greek People, p. 222. 
 
 2 The Cambridge History of English Literature^ Vol I, p. 183. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 33 
 
 had drawn to Paris many students and masters, and 
 so prepared the way for the foundation of the Uni- 
 versity. Thither during the next three centuries 
 went such of the Scottish youth as desired to carry 
 on their studies. But their passage to France had 
 to be made in face of such risks as that which threw 
 young James the First a prisoner into the hands of 
 the English. In the fourteenth century the founding 
 of the Scots College in Paris is evidence of the steady 
 stream of Scottish students that flowed thither. Nor 
 were the scholars of Scotland wanting in distinction 
 in foreign lands. We find Scotsmen as professors of 
 mathematics, of philosophy, of theology and of law, 
 in various Universities — Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, 
 Louvain, Leipsic, Copenhagen ; not infrequently we 
 find foreign Universities with Scotsmen as their 
 rectors. ^ In later times such Scots as Andrew Mel- 
 ville and George Buchanan had a European reputation 
 as being among the first scholars of their time. Many 
 found their way to the two English Universities, 
 spite of rivalries, national and ecclesiastical. The 
 inconvenience of having to pass from the realm of 
 Scotland, and the growing demand for higher educa- 
 tion, led Bishop Wardlaw, of St. Andrews, to seek from 
 Benedict III a bull of foundation for a Studium 
 Generale, so that those " desirous of being instructed 
 in theology, in canon and civil law, medicine, and the 
 liberal arts " might no longer have to face the " dangers 
 by sea and land, the wars, captivities and obstructions, 
 in passing to and from foreign universities." The 
 
 ^ Edgar, History of Early Scottish Education^ p. 138 et seq. 
 D 
 
34 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 bull was granted, and its reception was made the 
 occasion of great rejoicing on the part of the people 
 of St. Andrews, both clerics and burghers. In this 
 way Scotland secured its first University, a place of 
 learning with the power of conferring on its alumni 
 rights and privileges that would be recognised by 
 every other European Studium Generale; for all owned 
 a common head, the Pope, and wrote and spoke a 
 common tongue, Latin. 
 
 The new University started on its career but ill- 
 provided with the world's goods; it had neither en- 
 dowment nor a local habitation. A tenement, the gift 
 of a kindly donor, was later provided for the masters 
 and regents. Although similar donations came from 
 other friends, the fees of the students formed the main 
 support of the teachers. The students either belonged 
 to the town or lodged there. On the return from 
 England of King James the University was shown 
 much royal favour. Among other privileges its mem- 
 bers were exempted from all kinds of taxes. Within 
 rather more than a century three colleges were 
 founded. One of these, St. Leonard's, received the 
 property of the hospital which had for long existed 
 for the benefit of pilgrims visiting St. Andrew's shrine. 
 It had special provision in its statutes for the admission 
 of "children of the nobility and others who wish 
 to acquire knowledge." ^ But such were not to have 
 fashionable clothes, nor bright-coloured caps, nor wear 
 their hair long. A rigid monastic rule of life was 
 closely associated in these colleges with the pursuance 
 
 ^ Dr. Kerr, Scottish Education, p. 47. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 35 
 
 of University studies. Specific regulations were laid 
 down as to hours for the reading of the Scriptures, and 
 the amount of food and drink to be allowed. 
 
 In 1450 Pope Nicholas V issued a bull to found in 
 Glasgow a " Studium Generale . . . tarn in theologia 
 ac jure canonico et civili, quam in artibus, et quavis 
 alia licita facultate." The petition from James II and 
 Bishop TurnbuU mentioned among the advantages of 
 Glasgow as a centre for the higher learning that the 
 climate was salubrious and provisions abundant. The 
 Bishop of Glasgow was appointed Chancellor, and in 
 this case again the King exempted the members from 
 taxation. There were masters, doctors, and students, 
 but, as in the case of St. Andrews, no property, 
 except a University purse, which, it may be believed, 
 was somewhat light. Through the kindness of Sir 
 Gavin Hamilton they soon became possessed of a 
 tenement in the High Street and four acres of land, 
 and this remained the site of the University for four 
 hundred years. 
 
 The bull under which the University of Aberdeen 
 was established was granted to James IV and Bishop 
 Elphinstone by Pope Alexander VI in 1494. In the 
 King's petition for this grant the geographical dis- 
 abilities of the Highland districts of his dominion are 
 dwelt on, their remoteness from seats of learning, and 
 the difficulty of providing for them religious ordinances; 
 and it is urged that if a University were established 
 in the city of Aberdeen, " very many men, as well as 
 ecclesiastics and laymen, would readily apply them- 
 selves to such study of letters, and acquire that most 
 
36 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 precious pearl of knowledge." ^ Of particular interest 
 is this early expression of a deliberate intention to 
 provide the higher learning for laymen. Another 
 noteworthy feature is the inclusion of medicine as one 
 of the subjects to be taught. Elphinstone, having 
 benefited by his experience as Rector of Glasgow 
 University, was able to arrange that Aberdeen should 
 begin its work with a sufficient endowment for the 
 payment of the salaries of its teachers. As a result 
 Aberdeen University started under more favourable 
 auspices than her two older sisters. It was fortunate 
 also in its early officials ; and for a time its teachers 
 and students were zealous and its progress rapid. 
 
 By the end of the fifteenth century, then, the time 
 at which we have now arrived, Scotland was com- 
 paratively well equipped educationally. The schools 
 were widely distributed, and although managed by the 
 church in the first instance for the instruction of its 
 own sons, we have seen that the likelihood is that the 
 benefits of education were not denied to the laity. 
 All classes of society also were interested in the 
 work, from the King downwards. From the earliest 
 times, also, the respect for the rights of the poor which 
 has always been a feature of the Scottish people ^ was 
 seen in the educational arrangements. 
 
 ^ Nat. MSS. of Scotland, cited by Grant, p. 17. 
 
 2 A good illustration of this is found in the story of the poor 
 woman of Musselburgh who, injured by the Earl of Carrick, one of the 
 royal princes, received in compensation ten bolls of meal. History of 
 Scotland, A. Lang, Vol. I, p. 179, quoted from the Exchequer Rolls. 
 Another is that of the two poor women whom James IV compensated 
 because his horse had trodden down their corn. Tbid., p. 362. 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES 37 
 
 In the burghs great interest was shown in the 
 welfare of the grammar schools. In some cases the 
 town councils were already claiming a voice in 
 the appointment of the masters, and were suppressing 
 any adventure schools that, by offering more than the 
 rudiments, threatened to interfere with the educational 
 monopoly of the authorised institutions. The schools 
 enjoyed a share of the church revenues, but their 
 fabrics in many cases were erected and kept in repair 
 by the town councils. Besides this interest in the 
 provision and maintenance of schools, the church, 
 aided by the kings, had secured the foundation of 
 three Universities, on the model of those of the 
 Continent, where Scottish students, without leaving 
 their native country, could have access to the higher 
 learning. 
 
 If further proof were needed of the high educational 
 level to which the country had attained, it is furnished 
 by the remarkable legislative enactment of James IV 
 by which for the first time in a European country 
 education was made compulsory. An Act of the 
 Parliament of 1496 decreed : " It is statute and 
 ordanit throw all the realme that all barronis and 
 frehaldaris that ar of substance put thair eldest sonnis 
 and airis to the sculis fra thai be aucht or nyne yeiris 
 of age and till remane at the grammer sculis quhill 
 thai be competentlie foundit and have perfite latyne. 
 And therefter to remane thre yeris at the sculis of 
 Art and Jure sua that thai may have knawledge and 
 understanding of the lawis. Throw the quhilkis 
 Justice may reigne universalie throw all the realme. 
 
38 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Sua that thai that ar Shereffis or Jugeis Ordinaris 
 under the kingis hienes, may have knawledge to do 
 Justice, that the pure pepill suld have na neid to seik 
 our soverane lordis principale auditoris for ilk small 
 Injure. And quhat baroun or frehaldar of substance, 
 that haldis nocht his sone at the sculis, as said is, 
 haifand na lauchfuU essonye,^ bot failyeis heirin, fra 
 knawledge may be gottin thairof, he sail pay to the 
 king the soum of xx li." ^ 
 
 The purpose of the Act is worthy of notice. Though 
 the compulsion is restricted to the well-to-do classes, 
 the intention is to benefit the general mass of the 
 people by the spread of justice and equity throughout 
 the whole realm. 
 
 1 Excuse. ■ Pounds. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND THE 
 EEFOKMATION 
 
 The first half of the sixteenth century is marked by 
 the gradual passing of burgh schools into the control 
 of the town councils, by the decadence of the Universi- 
 ties, by a revival of zeal on the part of the old church 
 in education, and by the introduction of printing into 
 Scotland. The native tongue as a vehicle of instruc- 
 tion is of growing importance, and in the literature of 
 the period there is a fine handling of the vernacular 
 by such writers as Lyndsay in his satires on the 
 abuses of the times. 
 
 In the Universities the impetus given by the zeal 
 of the founders and the efforts of the masters soon 
 exhausted itself, and by the time of the Eeformation 
 the same sad tale is to be told for each of the three 
 centres of the higher learning, of negligence on the 
 part of officials, of the paucity of numbers and lax 
 discipline of the students, of financial difficulties and 
 general decay. In the time of ecclesiastical storm 
 and stress at which Scotland had now arrived it could 
 not be that institutions so closely connected with the 
 church as the Universities were would be otherwise 
 than affected to their detriment. 
 
40 JEDUCATIOV Dl SCOTLAHD 
 
 The iaeieiied inientt •hanni b)r town ooundli In 
 the gemmuur idioolf of tbebr tran^g^ nuiy in soma 
 CMOS luira ftriion llrom the Inereuie of kxitj that ha4 
 loriometiniechjmu^terlfedthechtifich. ItwainAttmil 
 that hi snch dfenniftoneef the oonndl^ whidi had 
 ftlteadf in nuuif omos chatged iteelf with the pro- 
 iriffion and tefMitf of the fdiool boildtng, and with the 
 •ttppretiion of tmaothofiaed riral jeminariea, ahonld 
 aitttme the upkeep of the idiool and daim Ihe right 
 to appoint the teacher. In a nnmber of caaet 1^ 
 cUim wae stontljr reflated hy the dinrch and led to 
 a vigorooa contest hetweea the conndl and the 
 chancel]ororthej.hhot a« theciaeni%hthe« Speak- 
 ing generallj^ tlie offset of the Beformation wae to 
 haeten the prooeas by which the conndli obtained 
 control of their adioola As a rule the comidla were 
 ghid to hare the co-operation and advice of the chnrdi^ 
 bat iJiere are not wantbig inatancee in whi^ town 
 coondla JealooaljT reaiated anj interference with tiieir 
 appointment of the burgh teadieni In the caae of 
 the pariah achoola the control and management which 
 had been in the haada of ^ old church naturallj 
 after the Beformation reated in the new. 
 
 But the religioaa awakening of the time waa not 
 confined to thoae who were deairous of leaving the old 
 churdL Within the church itaelf there aroae a deaire 
 for reform^ and the need for thia waa felt in the region 
 of education. The Provincial Council at various meet- 
 ingif at which were preaent aome of the beat repre- 
 aentativea of the conaervative t^iought of the time, 
 made effinrta to atom the recogniacd ignorance of the 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 41 
 
 clergy, and to make provision for tho bettor instruc- 
 tion of tho people. The nobles and the burghers were 
 encouraged to restore the schools where they had 
 decayed and to found new ones where needed. Tho 
 monasteries and cathedral churches were asked to 
 make better provision for preaching, for exposition of 
 the Scriptures, and for instruction in theology. An 
 attempt was made to correlate the work of the schools 
 with tho studies of tho Universities ; no students were 
 to be allowed to enter the latter who were unable to 
 speak Latin correctly. Instructions were given for 
 the drawing up of a people's catechism in the Scots 
 tongue, from which public readings were to be given 
 by the clergy on Sundays.^ Tlie catechism was 
 printed and issued in 1552 under the authority of 
 Archbishop Hamilton. Prof. Hume Brown charac- 
 terises its language as "the purest Scots of the 
 time." 2 
 
 The art of printing was introduced into Scotland at 
 a most appropriate moment. There is no doubt that 
 the old costly method of hand-copying of books was 
 restrictive of tho spread of knowledge among the 
 general mass of the people, and to realise the re- 
 formers' ideal of an educated democracy the help of 
 the printing-press was essential. The same King who 
 was the first in Europe to enact compulsory education 
 had the satisfaction of granting the first licence for 
 printing in the Scottish realm. The year in which 
 Chapman and Myllar received their licence from 
 
 ^ statutes of the Scottish Church, 1551-2, \u 144 (Scot. Hist. Soc). 
 ' The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. Ill, p. 163. 
 
42 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 James IV was 1507. So great was the demand for 
 books that within two years resort was had to the law 
 to put down those who were issuing without per- 
 mission " mess-books, manuals, and donats." It is of 
 educational interest to notice that part at least of the 
 activity of the first Scottish printing-press was devoted 
 to the issue of school text-books. Even during the 
 sixteenth century, however, much of the printing 
 needed for Scotland had to be done abroad. John 
 Vans, the grammarian, complains of the difficulties he 
 had to meet in getting his grammar issued — "per 
 maxima terrarum et marium discrimina, piratarumque 
 qui injustissimi sunt latrocinia."^ 
 
 The increasing use of the vernacular, in place of 
 Latin, as the medium of instruction and of discussion, 
 was hastened by the desire of controversialists to 
 appeal to all classes whether learned or simple. 
 Prof. Hume Brown describes The Gude and Godlie 
 BallatiSy the work largely of the brothers Wedderburn, 
 as being, next to Knox's Historie of the Reformation, 
 the " most memorable literary monument of the period 
 in vernacular Scots." ^ In it there was collected a 
 metrical version of the Psalms, and songs intended to 
 convey instruction in the reformed doctrine, and to 
 make manifest the errors of the unreformed faith. 
 These ballads were set to popular airs, and made use 
 of the choruses of the secular songs from which the 
 airs were borrowed. The method was one that we 
 have seen employed in our own time by the Salvation 
 
 * Fasti Aherdonenses, p. xxi, cited by Grant, p. 71. 
 
 * Hu Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. Ill, p. 141. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 43 
 
 Army. Knox's Historie is of note as being " the first 
 original work in prose which Scotland had yet pro- 
 duced."^ Ninian Winzet, the distinguished school- 
 master of Linlithgow, conservative in linguistic usages 
 as he was in matters of doctrine, scoffs at Knox's 
 anglicised style of writing : " Gif you throw curiositie 
 of novations has forget our auld plane Scottis quhilk 
 your mother lerit you : in tymes cuming I sail write 
 to you my mynd in Latin ; for I am not acquynted 
 with your Southeroun." ^ 
 
 Among the school-books for the printing of which 
 William Nudrye received a licence in 1559 are certain 
 intended for the instruction " of thame that are de- 
 sirous to reid and write the Scottis toung."^ Lyndsay 
 not only used the common speech for his satires, but 
 is constant in his demand for instruction in the ver- 
 nacular : 
 
 " I wald all bukis necessare 
 For our faith were in tyll our toung vulgare." 
 
 " Let us half the Bukis necessare 
 To commoun weill and our Salvatioun 
 Justlye translatit in our toung vulgare." * 
 
 In 1543 an Act was passed to allow the people to 
 read the Bible in their own tongue. The permission 
 was largely taken advantage of, but the copies used 
 
 * Prof. Hume Brown in Cambridge History of English Literature, 
 Vol. Ill, p. 147. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 154. 
 
 3 JRegistrum Secreti Sigilli, cited by Grant, p. 56. 
 
 ^ Lyndsay, Ane Dialog betwix Experience and ane Courteoicr of 
 the Miserabyll Estait of the World, 
 
44 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 were not issued from the Scottish printing-presses, but 
 from those of the Continent. Some of them were 
 imported direct, and others brought in from England. 
 Part of the credit of introducing the Bible into Scotland 
 probably belongs to Elizabeth's soldiers. One cannot 
 fail to regard as an event of first importance this 
 bringing of the fruits of Tyndale's labours within reach 
 of the Scottish people. 
 
 It is to this period of increased activity in the use 
 of the mother tongue as an instrument 'of learning 
 that we must also date the introduction of the study 
 of Greek into Scotland. As early as 1534 it was 
 introduced into the grammar school of Montrose. In 
 that school Andrew Melville was taught Greek by 
 a Frenchman, Pierre de Marsiliers, and on enter- 
 ing the University of St. Andrews astonished the 
 masters there by his ability to read Aristotle in the 
 original. At Aberdeen also Greek must have been 
 taught about the same time, for James V, on visiting 
 the northern city, was entertained by the scholars 
 with " orationes in Graeca Latinaque lingua." ^ Hebrew 
 also seems to have been taught in a few schools before 
 the Keformation. 
 
 With regard to French, so many of the young Scots 
 had for generations found scope for their activities in 
 France, whether as students or as soldiers, and the two 
 countries were so continuously in alliance and friend- 
 ship, that there must have been a considerable number 
 of persons in Scotland who could speak the language. 
 It was one of the foreign languages that the Aberdeen 
 
 ^ Bishop Leslie, quoted by Grant, p. 47. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 45 
 
 scholars were by the school regulations of 1553 allowed 
 to speak among themselves. There is evidence that 
 about this time in several of the Scottish schools the 
 language was taught. Shortly after the Reformation 
 there is a record of a schoolmaster specially licensed 
 by the town council of Edinburgh to hold a school for 
 the teaching of French. 
 
 The middle of the sixteenth century has left us one 
 interesting picture of the actual school life of the pre- 
 Reformation period. In the grammar of John Vans, 
 the printing of which in Paris, in 1553, has already 
 been alluded to, were inserted the regulations of the 
 grammar school of Aberdeen.^ 
 
 Pupils on entering school in the morning knelt 
 down and repeated a short Latin prayer. At seven 
 o'clock they were set to study a prescribed lesson. 
 When this was done the master tested their knowledge 
 and punished those who failed to answer to his satisfac- 
 tion. At eight o'clock the master held a public pre- 
 lection, after which the boys were released for breakfast. 
 At ten o'clock came private prelection by the assistant 
 masters, and at eleven the poor scholars were allowed 
 to go to the town, and a little later the town boys were 
 allowed to follow. At half-past eleven the head- 
 master gave a prelection to certain of the pupils on 
 Cicero, Terence, or Virgil. The stroke of noon set the 
 boys free for dinner. By two o'clock they were ex- 
 
 * The Laws are given in detail by Grant, p. 60 et seq. , from The 
 Miscellany of the Spalding Club. 
 
46 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 pected to be again in attendance for class prelections, 
 which were supervised by the assistant masters in 
 turn. It was their duty to take note of errors made 
 by the scholars in their Latin, and of any who did not 
 give due diligence to their studies. At four o'clock 
 the boys rehearsed to their tutors the work of the day. 
 From the fifth to the sixth hour they were occupied 
 with evening disputations, which were concluded by 
 the singing of evening prayers. 
 
 Beginners were expected to keep silence for a year. 
 They were to memorise the table of confession, to 
 acquire the art of counting, and doubtless also the 
 rudiments of Latin grammar. Pupils were not allowed 
 to use among themselves the vernacular until they 
 had a knowledge of Latin, but could use in their speech 
 Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, or Gaelic. Each scholar 
 was to carry his own rod — a grim regulation. There 
 was an exclusiveness of learning : none of the class of 
 grammarians was allowed to have dealings with the 
 dialecticians. Bartering, without a master's sanction, 
 was not allowed ; gambling for things of value, as one's 
 dinner, books, or clothes, was forbidden. Other punish- 
 able offences were much like those of our own day — 
 inattention, want of punctuality, non-preparation of 
 lessons, restlessness, and mischievousness. In the re- 
 cords of another burgh ^ is noted another offence that 
 has quite a modern flavour : if bairns break " glasen 
 windows" repairs are to be at the expense of the 
 parents. School routine and the failings of school- 
 boys in the sixteenth century do not seem to have 
 
 ^ Burgh Records of Dundee, cited by Grant, p. 63. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 47 
 
 differed so greatly as might have been expected from 
 those of the early twentieth century. 
 
 Before discussing the Reformation in Scotland and 
 its effect on education, the attitude on this question 
 of the two churches which by this time had split 
 Europe may be briefly considered. Luther may be 
 taken as a type of the Protestant reformers, ancl 
 Loyola as a representative leader of the Catholic 
 reaction. The extremely democratic nature of Luther's 
 educational demands is noteworthy : " The safety and 
 strength of a city," he says, " reside above all in a 
 good education, which furnishes it with reasonable, 
 honourable, and well-trained citizens." i And he 
 would have education compulsory. " If the authorities 
 can oblige their able-bodied subjects to carry the 
 lance and the arquebuse, to mount the ramparts, and 
 to do complete military service, for a much better 
 reason may they, and ought they, to force their sub- 
 jects to send their children to school, for here it is the 
 question of a much more terrible war with the devil." ^ 
 Luther's idea was that a part of the child's time was 
 sufficient for the instruction required : " My opinion is 
 that we must send the boys to a school one or two 
 hours a day, and have them learn a trade at home for 
 the rest of the time. . . . And so the girls can equally 
 well devote nearly the same time to school, without 
 neglecting their home duties." s The subjects Luther 
 
 ^ Cited by Compayre, History of Pedagogy, p. 115. 
 
 2 Cited by Payne, Compayr^'s History of Pedagogy, p. 116. 
 
 « lUd., p. 118. 
 
48 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 desired to see taught were the languages, history, 
 mathematics, nature-study, physical exercises, and 
 music. He pleads for a different atmosphere in the 
 schools, so that the young may have more happiness 
 and more freedom. It must be admitted that this is 
 a liberal conception of what was needed for the 
 people's education, both in the subjects taught and in 
 the method of teaching. He goes far towards antici- 
 pating the modern ideas on education that a century 
 after were to be inaugurated by Comenius. 
 
 Turning now to Loyola, we find that the order of 
 the Jesuits which he founded, and which did much to 
 help forward the Catholic reaction on the Continent, 
 directed a great part of its energy to the control of 
 education. His propaganda was extraordinarily 
 successful. But Compayr6 notes a great distinction 
 between the Jesuit ideal of education and that of the 
 reformers. " The Jesuits, during the whole course of 
 their history, have deliberately neglected and dis- 
 dained primary instruction. . . . They administer 
 only the aristocratic education of the ruling classes, 
 whom they hope to retain under their control." ^ In 
 the Jesuit scheme religion and Latin, studied mainly 
 for its style, were the outstanding subjects of instruc- 
 tion. As regards method, the leading principles were 
 repetition and thorough mastery. A defect of the 
 system, besides that pointed out by Compayr^ of con- 
 fining its attention to secondary and higher education, 
 is found in its separation of the child from the influ- 
 ences of the home, the desire to keep him, while in a 
 
 ^ Compayre, p. 142. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 49 
 
 state of pupilage, entirely under its own influence. 
 This contrasts both with Luther's plan of using only 
 a small part of the child's time, and, as we shall see 
 later, with Knox's desire to have the school easily 
 accessible to the child residing at home. 
 
 In the great Humanist movement which preceded 
 the Reformation, the Revival of Learning, Scotland 
 had only a meagre share. Professor Hume Brown 
 attributes this in part to the scanty population of the 
 country — about half a million — and in part to the 
 check that its poverty put on " the development of a 
 rich and various national life."^ Probably a good deal 
 of weight should also be given to the fact that the 
 Renaissance, reaching Scotland later than the conti- 
 nental centres, was followed so closely by the stress 
 of the Reformation that Humanism was checked in its 
 birth. It is true that in England also the growth of 
 Puritanism did much to check the Revival of Learning, 
 but only after a great part of its work of widening 
 the horizon of life and clearing its sky had already 
 been accomplished. 
 
 Further, as Prof. Hume Brown points out, the 
 Reformation in Scotland was achieved in opposition 
 to the Crown, and only at the cost of civil war.^ A 
 time of civil strife is not one for the burgeoning of 
 literature or the blossoming of the humanities. 
 When the soldier holds the stage the artist retires. 
 
 * Cambridge History of Literature, Vol. Ill, p. 139. 
 2 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 140. 
 £ 
 
50 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 In most respects, then, it must be admitted that Scot- 
 land failed to share in the great outburst of intellec- 
 tual life and in the reawakening of artistic appreciation 
 that marked the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in 
 most of the countries of Europe. 
 
 It is to be remembered, however, that while the 
 nation missed the spring-time of the Eenaissance 
 there were conspicuous cases of individuals who 
 shared in the movement fully and assimilated all that 
 was best of the new learning. 
 
 From the point of view of national education the 
 interesting feature of the Scottish Eeformation was 
 the attitude towards the instruction of the people 
 taken up by the leaders of the movement. This has 
 fortunately been clearly set forth in one of the 
 chapters of The First Booh of Discipline^ in the fram- 
 ing of which it is understood that Knox, Wynram, 
 and Douglas had a large share. In the preamble the 
 reason for giving an important place to education is 
 set forth : " Of necessity it is that your Honours be 
 most careful for the virtuous education, and godly up- 
 bringing of the youth of the realm ... for as the 
 youth must succeed to us, so ought we to be careful 
 that they have the knowledge and erudition to profit 
 and comfort that which ought to be most dear to us, 
 to wit, the Church and spouse of the Lord Jesus." 
 Knox and his fellows clearly believed that no church 
 could remain pure and free which was based on ignor- 
 ance. Hence the desire to spread learning among the 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 51 
 
 mass of the people. For this purpose a clearly 
 defined plan was formulated: in sparsely peopled 
 districts the local reader or minister was to be charged 
 with the duty of instructing the young in the first 
 rudiments, and especially in the catechism ; every 
 town church was to appoint a schoolmaster to teach 
 grammar and Latin; larger towns were to maintain 
 colleges (that is, central secondary schools), in which 
 languages, logic, and rhetoric were to be taught, staffed 
 with competent masters for whom " honest stipendis " 
 were to be provided. Boys of ability whose friends 
 were too poor to maintain them, especially such as 
 were from the landward parts, were to have their 
 needs provided for. Boys found apt at learning were 
 to pass to the Universities. Of these there were to 
 be three, in St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, 
 reorganised by faculties, each constituting a separate 
 college— law, divinity, and, in St. Andrews, medicine 
 also. Each student was to begin with a three years' 
 course in Arts — dialectic, mathematics, physics — and 
 afterwards proceed to his professional training in the 
 faculty selected. As a condition of matriculation each 
 boy was to bring with him from his school a leaving 
 certificate signed by his schoolmaster and minister. 
 On entry, his knowledge of dialectics was to be tested 
 by a preliminary examination. The whole system was 
 thoroughly well thought out and the parts dove-tailed. 
 Nor was the compulsion that Luther desiderated 
 wanting. Rich and poor were to educate their sons, 
 the former at their own expense, the latter at the cost 
 of the church : two years spent in learning to read. 
 
52 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 acquiring the catechism, and beginning grammar ; and 
 three or four years in the acquisition of Latin. If 
 aptness of learning had by this time been shown, the 
 boy was passed on to a centre school where he spent 
 four years at Greek, logic, and rhetoric; he then 
 entered the University. If it was clear from a boy's 
 record in any of the courses that he had reached a limit 
 beyond which he was not likely to profit by continued 
 Hterary study, he was not allowed to proceed to the 
 next course. Instead, he was to be sent to some handi- 
 craft or "other profitable exercise." There is a robust 
 practical common sense about it all that we cannot but 
 admire. Arrangements were to be made for testing the 
 scholar's progress and his fitness for promotion. The 
 minister and elders, with other learned persons in the 
 town whom they were to co-opt, formed a board of 
 inspectors who were to visit the school quarterly. 
 
 At whatever stage a boy's school career stopped, he 
 was to leave school equipped with the essentials of 
 religious instruction, so that every man might possess 
 the knowledge required by one who was to become a 
 member of the Christian church. 
 
 The scheme is wonderfully comprehensive. Its 
 democratic character, its careful gradation, from the 
 provision of the rudiments in the remotest and most 
 sparsely peopled district to the systematic University 
 training for the learned professions, its general cohe- 
 rence, and the sensible fashion in which the existing 
 machinery of the church and the State was to be 
 utilised in this great social crusade for the production 
 of an educated people, and the free up-draught for 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 53 
 
 ability, whatever the rank of society in which it dis- 
 covers itself, are features that make the bold concep- 
 tions of The First Booh of Discipline a landmark in the 
 history of educational ideas and ideals. 
 
 The practical nature of the scheme is seen also 
 in its proposed financial arrangements. Part of the 
 patrimony of the ancient church, which in her time 
 had charged herself with the provision of education, 
 was to be allotted to the cause of learning, and set 
 apart for the maintenance of schools, schoolmasters, 
 and University professors. Nothing could be fairer. 
 But unfortunately the proposal had against it the 
 rapacious greed of those of the Scottish nobles who 
 had already seized (or hoped to seize) the church 
 lands, and had no intention of yielding up their spoils. 
 
 The scheme pointed the way to a national advance 
 of a kind undreamt of at the time in any other Euro- 
 pean country. It formed an educational conception so 
 far ahead of the times and of existing educational facili- 
 ties that all progress in Scottish education (apart from 
 the question of curricula) made from then till now 
 has consisted largely of halting advances towards the 
 reformers' scheme. During the last score of years the 
 rate forward has been rapid, but even yet we have only 
 approximated towards, we have not completely realised, 
 Knox's ideal. All readers of Scottish history must agree 
 with Dr. Kerr that by the diversion of the funds into 
 private hands the country was " shamelessly robbed," 
 and that its consequent falling short of a complete 
 realisation of the scheme was " a national misfortune."^ 
 ^ Dr. Kerr, Scottish Education, p. 97. 
 
54 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 While it is true that the main intention of the 
 authors of this admirable scheme was religious, there is 
 one statement of their aim that is noteworthy for its 
 width of view. It is worth quoting as a grand thought 
 to have found utterance in the midst of religious con- 
 troversy and political strife : " Yf thei be fund apt to 
 letteris and learning, then may thei not (we meane 
 neathir the sonis of the riche nor yit the sonis of the 
 porre), be permittit to reject learnyng ; but must be 
 chargeit to continew their studie, sa that the common- 
 wealthe may have sonu comfort hy them."^ 
 
 Though the reformers' scheme of educational organ- 
 isation could not be realised for want of funds, they 
 did their best to set the system a-going. The church, 
 itself a victim of the rapacity of the nobles, gave from 
 
 ^ With this compare Aristotle's view : " It is wrong for any citizen 
 to think that he belongs to himself. All must be regarded as belong- 
 ing to the state : for each man is a part of the state, and the treat- 
 ment of the part is naturally determined by that of the whole. This 
 is a thing for which the Lacedaemonians deserve all praise ; they are 
 thoroughly in earnest about their children, and that as a community." 
 — Aristotle, Politics, viii., translated by Prof. Burnet. Compare also 
 recent statements of this aspect of the purpose of education : — " The 
 universal aim of all education should be to correlate the child with 
 the civilisation of his time ; to lead him to acquire those experiences 
 which will in after-life enable him to perform ably and rightly his 
 duties as a worker, as a citizen, and as a member of an ethical and 
 spiritual community organised for the securing of the well-being of the 
 individual." — Prof. Darroch, The Children, p. 25. "Upon each in- 
 dividual life the community and the nation have in times of stress and 
 danger their paramount claims ; and it is the business of a good educa- 
 tion to make boys and girls sensitive to those claims, in order that 
 when they come to man's and woman's estate they may be ready with 
 intelligent and large-minded unselfishness to sacrifice, when necessary, 
 narrow, personal interests to those which are social and national." 
 — Prof. Sadler, Report on Education in HvMersfieU, p. 8. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 55 
 
 its own slender resources what it could to support 
 education. A few schools, fortunate beyond their 
 neighbours, did receive some share of the old church 
 endowments — from the sovereign, however, not the 
 nobles. In the burghs the town councils made a 
 praiseworthy effort to support their schools, and there 
 is no doubt that the poverty of the church helped to 
 hasten the work of school-municipalisation. Though 
 the councils in most cases sustained the schools and 
 appointed the masters, they seem as a rule to have 
 done so with the advice and assistance of the local 
 clergymen. In practice, the average bailie or town 
 councillor would be glad to have the greater learning 
 of the minister to lean on in testing the fitness of 
 candidates for the office of schoolmaster. The Act of 
 1567 decreed that all schoolmasters were to be tried 
 by the kirk superintendents or visitors, who were to 
 satisfy themselves as to their character, religion, and 
 skill in teaching. The same Parliament enacted that 
 sufficient religious instruction should be given to the 
 young, declaring that, without this, other learning was 
 " tinsell baith to thair bodyis and saulis." ^ The cate- 
 chism was taught on Saturday afternoons — to the 
 younger pupils in Scots, to the elder in Latin. Nor 
 were the teachers free from responsibilities on Sunday. 
 Scripture teaching, catechising, and examination of the 
 children on the sermon took up a considerable part of 
 the day. 
 
 The schools were not always kept clear of the actual 
 ecclesiastical struggle that was going on. The most 
 ^ Acts of Parliament, 1567, c. 11, cited by Grant, p. 416. 
 
56 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 notable schoolmaster who continued in the old faith 
 was Ninian Winzet, who seems to have been both a 
 worthy and an able man. In argument he proved 
 a match (more than a match, according to Mr. Lang) 
 for John Knox himself. He drew up a manual of the 
 points at issue in the theological controversy, and 
 from this he set Latin themes to his boys. When the 
 Reformation was consummated he refused to sign the 
 Confession of Faith, and in consequence was dismissed 
 from his appointment as master of the grammar 
 school of Linlithgow ; as he himself vividly describes 
 it, he was " expellet and schott out." Numbers of the 
 teachers suffered similar expulsions from their schools 
 on account of their unwillingness to conform.^ Even 
 the scholars were expected by the General Assembly 
 of 1587 to accept the established religion as a condition 
 of admission to the schools. 
 
 More difi&cult to suppress, however, than the religious 
 nonconformity of certain schoolmasters was the wide- 
 spread refusal of schoolboys to give up the holidays 
 that had been recognised under the old regime. Especi- 
 ally bitter was the warfare waged over the " supersti- 
 tious time of Yule." For over a century, in spite of 
 all the efforts of masters, town councils, and presby- 
 teries, in spite even of the fulminations of the General 
 Assembly itself, the boys clung to their ancient vaca- 
 tion rights, and maintained them stoutly, in some 
 cases even with the unscholarly aid of "horrid dis- 
 orders," in which we find them resisting the authorities 
 " with hagbuts, pistols, swords, and long weapons." It 
 
 1 Grant, p. 265. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 57 
 
 is of the irony of things that it was an easier task for 
 the Estates to reform the religion of a nation, for the 
 nobles to steal the endowments of an ancient church, 
 for ministers and kirk sessions to establish a grim 
 censorship of morals and conduct over all classes of the 
 community, than for all the powers combined to de- 
 prive the schoolboys of their holidays. 
 
 The Course of a lad's education in the period imme- 
 diately succeeding the Reformation may be gathered 
 from the account James Melville has left us of his 
 own schooling. At five years (that is, in the year 
 1561) his instruction began at home with the "grace 
 book." At seven he entered the school at Logie- 
 Montrose, where he spent the next five years in learn- 
 ing the catechism, prayers. Scripture, Latin grammar, 
 and spoken French, and in reading such Latin works 
 as the Colloquies of Erasmus, Virgil's Eclogues, and 
 certain of the epistles of Cicero and Horace. Nor was 
 the training of the body neglected. In their playing- 
 fields the boys were taught by their master archery, 
 golf, and fencing, and were practised in running, 
 leaping, swimming, and wrestling. He was next en- 
 rolled in the school at Montrose, where he revised his 
 Latin grammar, did composition exercises, and read, 
 among other books, Terence's Fhormio and Virgil's 
 Georgics. He notes that at this time one of his friends 
 in Montrose, the sister of his former schoolmaster, 
 kept a dame's school " for lasses." A similar indica- 
 tion as to the education of girls — which at the time 
 
58 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 included at least reading, writing, music, and needle- 
 work — is supplied by his reference to his sister as 
 reading Lyndsay to him. When between fourteen and 
 fifteen years of age he proceeded to the University 
 of St. Andrews and took the usual course in logic and 
 rhetoric, mathematics and physics. He devoted some 
 time to music, and would gladly have studied Greek, 
 but only the elements of that language were available. 
 The completion of his education was taken in hand by 
 his erudite uncle, Andrew Melville, who by this time 
 had, as Principal, reorganised the curriculum of Glasgow 
 University by establishing a four years' course in Arts 
 that provided a wide range of studies in Latin and 
 Greek literature, mathematics and astronomy, natural 
 philosophy, history, and moral philosophy. This was 
 followed by a two years' course in Divinity, which 
 included careful instruction in Hebrew. The St. 
 Andrews curriculum and that of Glasgow may be 
 taken as representing the old and the new — the tradi- 
 tional training in scholasticism that belonged to the 
 Middle Ages, and the new Humanistic learning of the 
 Kenaissance that was displacing it. 
 
 The curriculum of Glasgow grammar school at the 
 same period has come down to us. There was a five 
 years' course of Latin, which included grammatical 
 study, and the reading and translation of Cicero, 
 Ovid, Horace, Terence, Sallust, and Caesar. Consider- 
 able attention was given to composition in Latin prose 
 and verse. There are glimpses of very sound methods. 
 A Scots translation of a passage from Cicero, for 
 example, was given to be translated into good Latin. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND REFORMATION 59 
 
 Each boy then read his theme aloud in class, and had 
 his errors corrected by the master, who finally com- 
 pleted the exercise by reading to the boys Cicero's 
 version, which was then committed to memory. Part 
 of the time of the last year was given to the study 
 of the rudiments of Greek grammar. 
 
 The schools were regularly visited and inspected. 
 In the case of the smaller schools this was done by 
 the ministers, elders, and others whom they associated 
 with them. The " visitation " of city schools was un- 
 dertaken by the town council, the presbytery, and 
 representatives of the University, who told off certain 
 of their number to conduct the examination. The dis- 
 cipline as well as the academic proficiency of the school 
 came under review. In Glasgow the Scots school was 
 examined on the day following that given to the grammar 
 school, and for this purpose the master of the grammar 
 school was associated with the delegates. One of the 
 purposes of this visitation was to find out the boys fit 
 to be promoted to the grammar school, to hold, in short, 
 a " qualifying examination " (Scotch Code, Art. 29). 
 
 The general impression produced by a study of the 
 latter part of the sixteenth century is that of an honest 
 and earnest attempt by the church authorities and the 
 general body of citizens to carry out, as far as crippled 
 financial resources would allow, the recommendations 
 of The First Book of Discipline. While doing so they do 
 not cease to protest vigorously to sovereign and Parlia- 
 ment against the nobles for their " wrangous using of 
 the patrimony of the kirk to the great hurt of senilis."^ 
 1 Cited by Grant, p. 80. 
 
IV 
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTUKIES 
 
 There are no striking developments within the schools 
 to mark the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries. There is a gradual, if slow, extension of 
 educational facilities, some slight improvement in the 
 emoluments of schoolmasters, a steady reduction in 
 the length of the school day, and a considerable widen- 
 ing, especially during the eighteenth century, of the 
 curriculum 
 
 The burgh schools continued to be managed by 
 the town councils and the clergy ; the parish schools 
 by the ministers and the heritors. Appointments 
 of teachers were made in the burghs by the councils, 
 but these usually depended on the church for the trials 
 of the rival candidates; in the parish schools the 
 presbytery charged itself with the duty of appoint- 
 ment. Vacancies were often advertised and the master 
 selected either by a competitive examination of the 
 candidates or by consideration of the recommendations 
 they brought. When a test was set, it was, in the 
 earlier part of the period, confined to classics ; but 
 later, mathematics, natural philosophy, history, and 
 
 60 
 
SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 61 
 
 geography find a place. The periodical visits of inspec- 
 tion were continued, but the eighteenth century shows 
 on the whole some diminution of educational zeal on 
 the part of the municipalities. Schoolmasters were 
 supported by endowments where these existed, and by 
 grants from the " common good " of the burghs. 
 Where the " common good " had decreased or dis- 
 appeared a voluntary assessment was levied for the 
 upkeep of the school. The interest of the councils 
 in the welfare of education, and their desire to provide 
 facilities for the young, are constant features through- 
 out the two centuries. In the case of the parish 
 schools the church gave financial aid. The main 
 source of the teacher's income, however, was the fees 
 paid by parents whose children were at the schools. 
 These fees were paid quarterly and in advance, and 
 payment was rigidly enforced ; but poor children might 
 have their fee reduced or might be taught free, the 
 council making up for the loss. 
 
 The income from fees was added to by gifts made 
 by the parents at special periods. The most important 
 of these was Candlemas, when in all schools a free 
 gift was made to the master, the amount being in pro- 
 portion to the parent's means. Another curious 
 custom was the paying of the " bent silver." In olden 
 times the floor of the schoolroom was covered 
 with a layer of rushes or bent, and this was periodi- 
 cally renewed. On these occasions a holiday was 
 allowed to enable the children to cut and gather the 
 bent. Later on, a money payment was made instead, 
 but the children continued to get their prescriptive 
 
62 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 holiday once a quarter when the " bent silver " was 
 handed over to the master. 
 
 An even more curious source of income was that 
 furnished by a yearly cock-fight in the school. This 
 was held on Shrove Tuesday and was attended by all 
 the boys, who as a rule furnished the cocks, paying to 
 the master a small sum of money for the privilege. 
 Those not bringing cocks, however, paid double. In 
 some cases the master also obtained as part of his 
 spoils all cocks that failed to show fight or fled during 
 the combat.^ This barbarous custom began to fall into 
 disuse about the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 though in some schools it persisted into the early 
 nineteenth. 
 
 In addition to the money payments enumerated, 
 most schoolmasters were provided with a dwelling- 
 house, and various additional grants were made to 
 enable them to live in greater comfort. Often fuel 
 was provided, either by the town council supplying 
 peat or coal, or by each parent sending a cart of peats 
 to the schoolhouse. Later, a money payment was made 
 in lieu of the supply of fuel. 
 
 Various cases are recorded'^ in which grants were 
 made to the master " to support him in his claythis." 
 On one occasion a town council gives the assistant 
 master a donation of " half-a-guinea in gold, to buy 
 him ane new hatt." One wonders into what extreme 
 state of dilapidation the old one had fallen to produce 
 this public beneficence. Food was often supplied for 
 the under-teachers, and frequently these boarded 
 
 1 Grant, p. 478. ^ Ibid,, p. 490. 
 
SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 63 
 
 with various parents in town. There is a slight 
 survival of the old custom in the present method 
 followed in some very remote districts of- having 
 a junior teacher board with outlying families while 
 teaching their children, the School Board giving a 
 small grant to the parent to help him to pay the 
 salary. 
 
 The teachers' emoluments were undoubtedly small, 
 and we are not surprised that many of them were in 
 the habit of eking out a livelihood by the performance 
 of other duties, such as those of precentor, reader, 
 session-clerk, collector of poor-rate, even town-clerk 
 and notary public.^ 
 
 On special occasions of ceremonial the teacher's 
 gifts of erudition were often pressed into the public 
 service. He was a kind of official maker of public 
 orations, congratulatory speeches in Ciceronian periods, 
 and commemorative Latin verses. In some cases, 
 indeed, the schoolmaster held a definite appointment 
 of this kind from the magistrates and council.^ 
 
 Occasionally the minister was also the schoolmaster, 
 a practice that has held even in recent times in lone 
 St. Kilda. It was natural also that the school should 
 often be a stepping-stone to the ministry. This was 
 especially the case in the parish school. Young men 
 studying for the church found it a convenient pausing 
 place in which to make up their minds, or a recruiting 
 ground of scanty financial resources. This practice 
 had many drawbacks, but it must have helped to keep 
 up the teaching of the higher subjects in remote schools. 
 1 Grant, p. 300. « jj^,^ p, 303. 
 
64 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Throughout the two centuries the main features to 
 be remembered are that a general provision was made 
 of education for all ranks and classes, and that both in 
 the burgh school and in the parish school this educa- 
 tion, by the lowness of the fees and by special help 
 for the poorer children, was kept open to all; that 
 provision was made for the instruction in higher sub- 
 jects of those who showed ability, poverty being no 
 disqualification, and that this instruction led to the 
 Universities; and lastly, that a compulsory element 
 was always present, supplied by the general demand 
 of the community, the pressure exercised by the 
 church, and by the more definite enactments, with 
 penalties attached, of councils and magistrates. " We 
 have discovered no other place," says James Grant, 
 " so small, barren, and poor as old Scotland, which had 
 devised and maintained a system of education in 
 burghs and parishes so free and enlarged, that parents 
 of small or moderate means, or no means at all, were 
 enabled to give to their children the highest form of 
 instruction in the country ; and it is our opinion that in 
 no other country did the poorer classes, including the 
 small farmers, crofters, artisans, and labourers, prize 
 a liberal education to the same extent as those 
 classes have done in our own country." ^ 
 
 Part of the English instruction during the two 
 centuries was given in adventure schools, which were 
 sometimes authorised by the local authorities, with 
 the condition attached of due attention to prayers, 
 and a stipulation as to the amount of fees to be 
 
 1 Grant, p. 335. 
 
SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTUKIES 65 
 
 charged. In the smaller burghs the grammar school 
 itself undertook the earlier stages of instruction in 
 English; but the larger grammar schools expected 
 their pupils to be able to read and write before enter- 
 ing. We have found that their fitness to enter upon 
 the grammar-school course was tested at the periodical 
 visitation of the English school, and that this consti- 
 tuted in effect a " qualifying examination," such as is 
 at the present day revived in Article 29 of the Scotch 
 Code. About the middle of the eighteenth century 
 a fresh interest began to be taken in English : there 
 are numerous references in the records to a "new 
 method" of teaching the subject, and a new branch, 
 English grammar, was introduced. The study of 
 geography also seems to have been introduced for the 
 first time early in the eighteenth century. 
 
 While some instruction in counting was given from 
 an early time, little progress was made in arithmetical 
 teaching before 1700. The study of pure mathematics 
 begins to gain ground about the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, and by the end of the eighteenth 
 has attained to considerable prominence and is widely 
 spread. It seems, on some occasions at least, to have 
 had quite a practical bent, as we hear of schools pro- 
 vided with azimuth compass and theodolite. From 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century book-keeping 
 begins to receive some slight attention, and in the 
 schools of seaport towns considerable care was given 
 to the teaching of navigation. Before the end of 
 the century something must have been done in the 
 way of teaching science, for we hear of a school 
 
 F 
 
66 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 being equipped with an air-pump, an " electroUsing 
 machine," and apparatus to illustrate dynamical 
 principles. Drawing was taught in some schools in 
 the seventeenth century, and by the end of the 
 eighteenth a number of schools were provided with 
 drawing masters. 
 
 Dancing was not forbidden, and some councils 
 encouraged it by appointing dancing masters. Dra- 
 matic representation in schools had been made use of 
 from a very early time, and had received encourage- 
 ment and monetary support; but in the eighteenth 
 century both dancing and acting of plays came under 
 the ban of the church, and in many districts the evil 
 odour into which these arts then fell still clings to 
 them. 
 
 The decay of music which followed upon the Ee- 
 formation soon became the subject of public attention, 
 and attempts were made in various burghs to revive 
 music schools. The General Assembly of 1713 re- 
 quired schoolmasters to teach to their scholars the 
 psalm tunes that were used in church, and the atten- 
 tion of presbyteries was directed to the need for 
 encouraging the teaching of music in the schools. 
 Some burgh schools had specialist masters on their 
 staffs for teaching the subject. 
 
 Of modern languages the only one taught was 
 French. The chief language teaching of the grammar 
 schools was, of course, devoted to Latin, which was not 
 only a language for grammatical study, but also for 
 practical use, as it continued to be the medium of 
 communication in all schools and colleges down to the 
 
SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 67 
 
 latter part of the seventeenth century. Some schools, 
 indeed, used it into the eighteenth century. The usual 
 grammar-school course extended to five years, and was 
 uniform for all pupils. Various efforts were made to 
 secure the adoption of a national Latin grammar and 
 uniformity of teaching, but these failed. It was 
 regarded as a question of high public importance, 
 for we find the Convention of Eoyal Burghs, the Privy 
 Council, and the Parliament all taking the matter into 
 their serious consideration. This furnishes another 
 proof, if any were needed, of the interest which in 
 Scotland has always been taken by the State in ques- 
 tions of education. At the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century Euddiman's Budiments supplanted all other 
 grammars. It had its text both in Latin and English, 
 so that it may be regarded as marking a movement 
 towards modern methods of teaching. In the latter 
 half of the eighteenth century, when the question of 
 methods of teach^'ng seems in Scotland to have re- 
 ceived some attention, various easy grammars appeared, 
 which were intended to smooth for the feet of young 
 learners the path to Parnassus. It was usual for 
 each of the assistant masters to carry his pupils 
 through the whole course until they entered the 
 rector's class. 
 
 A much longer school day was demanded from 
 scholars and teachers then than now. About 1600, 
 Glasgow boys began their school day at 5 a.m. ; those 
 of Stirling were in school from 6 to 9, 10 to 12, and 
 1 to 6. In the eighteenth century the usual hours 
 were, in summer, from 7 to 9, 10 to 12, and 2 to 4 ; 
 
68 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 in winter, 9 to 12, and 2 to 4. Succeeding genera- 
 tions have become either more humane or more loth 
 to rise in the mornings. 
 
 The instruction provided for the girls during the 
 period under review was mainly given in " dame " or 
 adventure schools, and was confined to English sub- 
 jects, a little arithmetic, and much needlework. In 
 some cases cookery, and in others music, was added. 
 Sometimes provision was made for a more elaborate 
 industrial training, and such subjects as embroidery, 
 lace-working, and the washing and dressing of linen 
 were included. The interest in methods in the latter 
 half of the eighteenth century already alluded to ex- 
 tended to the education of girls, and some encourage- 
 ment was given by town councils to an extension of 
 their curriculum. As a result, to their English and in- 
 dustrial work was added some instruction in arith- 
 metic, geography, drawing, music, and French. In 
 smaller schools it was, of course, natural that girls 
 should receive their English instruction along with 
 the boys. This occasionally occurred even in the 
 grammar schools; for in the case of one burgh we 
 find the council early in the seventeenth century 
 ordering that the girls shall leave the grammar school 
 and go to the sang school, as it was " not seemly that 
 sic lasses should be among the lads."^ 
 
 To complete this discussion of the subjects of study, 
 it remains to consider the provision made for religious 
 instruction during these two centuries. For adults 
 * Burgh JRecords of Ayr, 1602, cited by Grant, p. 535. 
 
SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 69 
 
 there was the regular preaching of the ministry, and 
 the catechising which accompanied the ministerial 
 visits to the homes of the parishioners. Presbyterial 
 visitations also helped to stir up heads of families to 
 their duties regarding family observance of worship 
 and the reading of the Word. Sometimes the services 
 of the young were utilised for the instruction of the 
 old. Two boys of the grammar school of Leith said 
 over each Sunday their " caritches openlie in the kirk, 
 for the instruction of the commones."^ In 1700 
 Aberdeen council arranged that two boys from the 
 grammar school should go to the two churches each 
 Sabbath day and repeat prescribed portions of the 
 Shorter Catechism.^ 
 
 Schoolmasters all over the country gave lessons, 
 once a week or oftener, on the Scriptures and cate- 
 chism. Frequently the Saturday forenoon was de- 
 voted to this work; occasionally on the Saturday 
 portions of Buchanan's Psalms or of the Latin Bible 
 were prescribed to be memorised, and the adequate 
 preparation of the lesson was tested on Monday morn- 
 ing. Councils, ministers, and parents alike regarded 
 as of first importance the religious instruction of the 
 scholars, and much time and pains were spent upon 
 it. On Sunday the masters were still in many cases 
 expected to accompany the boys to church, where 
 certain pews were set apart for their use. Later in 
 the day the master examined his scholars on the 
 sermon. It was not till near the end of the eighteenth 
 
 1 1616. Grant, p. 433. 
 
 ^ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, cited by Grant, p. 434. 
 
70 EDUCATION 11^ SCOTLAND 
 
 century that this marching of the scholars to church 
 in procession was discontinued. 
 
 In the seventeenth and earlier part of the eighteenth 
 century there is little progress in connection with the 
 Universities to chronicle. The faculty of Arts took 
 chief place. The impetus of Eenaissance vigour which 
 we have seen in connection with Melville's reorgan- 
 isation had exhausted itself, and had been followed 
 by a lapse into dreary scholasticism and medisevalism. 
 The system by which the regents each carried a class 
 through a four years' course in all subjects itself 
 barred educational advance. The disappearance of 
 this regenting and the introduction of professors who 
 became responsible for single subjects, the substitu- 
 tion of English for Latm as the medium of com- 
 munication between lecturers and students, the 
 gradual abolition of residence and with it the dis- 
 appearance of efforts at meticulous surveillance, had 
 brought about by the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury a more satisfactory state of University life and 
 brighter prospects of intellectual advance. 
 
 Edinburgh University, a municipal growth, had con- 
 ferred degrees before the end of the sixteenth century; 
 but it was not till 1621 that full privileges were con- 
 ferred on the College by Act of Parliament. The 
 seventeenth century saw the rise of the Eoyal College 
 of Surgeons and later of the College of Physicians. In 
 the eighteenth century Edinburgh became known for 
 mathematical scholarship. The University medical 
 
SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 71 
 
 school which in modern times has attained to such 
 eminence dates from the early part of the eighteenth 
 century. A number of new Chairs were added towards 
 the end of the century. 
 
 In Aberdeen Marischal and King's College had been 
 united in 1641, but remained rivals. It was Marischal 
 College that had most of the spirit of progress, and 
 gave the first indication of a wish to make its work 
 practical. A century later at St. Andrews, St. Leonard's 
 and St. Salvator's were also united. 
 
 The latter part of the eighteenth century was 
 marked by an increase of activity in the Universities, 
 by the introduction of new subjects and Chairs, par- 
 ticularly in the department of medicine, and by 
 an increase in the number of students and of those 
 who completed their course by graduating, a proceeding 
 which had rather fallen out of favour earlier in the 
 century, and in some of the Universities did not again 
 become the rule until after the Act of 1858. 
 
EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS 
 AND ISLANDS 
 
 It is a somewhat general belief that during the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries the Highlands and 
 Islands lay outside the general educational movement 
 of the rest of the country, that the various Education 
 Acts were there inoperative, and that educationally 
 these districts were in the gross darkness of ignorance.^ 
 Let us consider whether the facts warrant such a 
 belief.2 
 
 In 1545, of the Highland chiefs who leagued with 
 Henry VIII none could write.^ With the leaders 
 illiterate the outlook for educational progress in their 
 dominions was certainly not hopeful. Further, the 
 districts now to be considered were so remote, and so 
 far removed from change, that national movements 
 might easily pass them by. This applied even to 
 
 ^ Sir Henry Craik quotes Dr. Norman Macleod as saying, "Till 
 a very late period there was no school in the Highlands, and in the 
 few schools that were English alone was taught." — Sir Henry Craik, 
 TJie State and Udiccation, p. 129. 
 
 ^ To show how far the view in question exaggerates the undoubted 
 educational deficiencies of the Highland area, it has seemed advisable 
 to deal in greater detail with this part of the subject than would be 
 warranted if the history of education in the Highlands and Islands 
 were better known than it is. 
 
 ' A. Lang, History of Scotland, Vol. I, p. 483. 
 72 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 73 
 
 religious movements. Certain parts of the Highlands 
 and Islands were, for example, never reached by the 
 Eeformation, and remain Catholic to this day. The 
 Episcopal form of church government, introduced into 
 Glencoe, Appin, and Lochaber during James VI's 
 reign, still prevails there. Nor was the remoteness 
 the only bar to change. The clan feuds and frequent 
 fights kept the country in a ferment, and hindered 
 every form of social advancement. 
 
 In 1609 the Bishop of the Isles convened a meet- 
 ing of the Island chiefs at lona. Unlike those of 
 Henry VIII's time, these were able to read and write. 
 They attended rather unwillingly, and agreed in the 
 Band of Icolmkill to bring about in their territories 
 certain improvements in religion, loyalty, law-abiding- 
 ness, morals, and manners. Of most immediate in- 
 terest is the sixth of the statutes, that relating to 
 education : 
 
 "The quhilk day it being understand that the 
 ignorance and incivilitie of the saidis His hes daylie 
 incressit be the negligence of gaid education and in- 
 struction of the youth in the knowledge of God and 
 good lettres: For remeid quhairof it is enactit that 
 every gentilman or yeaman within the saidis Ilandis 
 or ony of thame having children, maill or famell, and 
 being in goodis worth thriescoir ky, sail putt at the 
 leist thair eldest sone, or having no childrene maill, 
 thair eldest dochtir, to the scuillis in the lawland and 
 interteny and bring thame up thair quhill thay may be 
 found sufficientlie to speik, reid, and write Inglische."^ 
 
 * Sixth of the Statutes of Icolmkill, 23rd August, 1609. 
 
74 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Either the chiefs were slow to give effect to the 
 Band or the Privy Council was impatient to see the 
 fruits of their effort, for seven years later it is 
 decreed : 
 
 "Forasmekle as the Lordis of Secrete Counsall, 
 vnderstanding that the cheif and principall causs quhilk 
 hes procuirit and procuiris the continewance of bar- 
 baritie, impietie, and inciuilitie within the Yllis of this 
 Kingdome, hes proceidit from the small cair that the 
 chiftanes and principall clannit of the Yllis hes haid 
 of the education and vpbringing of thair childrene 
 in vertew and learning : who, being cairles of thair 
 dewteis in that point and keeping thair childrene still 
 at home with thame, whair they sie nothing in thair 
 tender yeiris bot the barbarous and inciuile formes of 
 the countrie, thay are thairby maid to apprehend that 
 thair is no vther formes and dewteis of ciuilitie keept 
 in ony vther pairt of the countrie, sua that quhen thay 
 come to the yeiris of maturitie hardlie can thay be 
 reclaimed frome these barbarous rud and inciuile 
 formes quhilkis for laik of instruction war bred and 
 satled in thame in thair youth : whairas if thay had 
 bene sent to the inland in thair youthe and traynit vp 
 in vertew, learnyng, and the Inglis tunge, thay wald 
 haif bene the bettir preparit to reforme thair countreis, 
 and to reduce the same to godlines, obedience, and 
 ciuilitie : Thairfor the saidis Lordis ordanes and com- 
 mandis the haill chiftanes and principall clanit men of 
 the Yllis that thay and euery ane of thame send thair 
 baimis being past nyne yeiris of age to the scooUis in 
 the inland to be trayned vp in vertew, learnyng, and the 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 75 
 
 Inglish tunge; and ordanes that no person quhatsomevir 
 in the Ylis sal be seruit air to thair father or vtheris 
 predicessouris nor ressauit nor acknawlegeit as ten- 
 nentis to His Maiestie vnles thay can write, reid, and 
 speake Inglische." ^ 
 
 The opening sentence of the Education Act of 1616 
 shows the same attitude towards the Gaelic language : 
 
 "That the vulgar Inglish toung be vniversallie 
 plantit, and the Irishe language, which Is one of the 
 cheif and principall causis of the continewance of 
 barbaritie and incivilitie amongis the inhabitantis of 
 the His and Heylandis, may be abolisheit and re- 
 moveit." ^ 
 
 This had not always been the way in which the 
 Gaelic tongue was regarded. We have seen that in 
 the middle of the sixteenth century it was one of the 
 languages allowed to be used for colloquial purposes by 
 the boys of Aberdeen grammar school, whilst a similar 
 use of English as a substitute for Latin was dis- 
 couraged. In 1574 Allan Mclntosche was "exhorter 
 and reader " at Cawdor " in the Irische toung." 
 
 It is not to be imagined from these Privy Council 
 and Parliamentary expressions of opinion that all 
 Highlanders were devoid of a desire to learn ; on the 
 contrary, even so early as 1597 there was a sufificient 
 number of them in attendance at the grammar school 
 of Glasgow to cause the church authorities to direct the 
 master to catechise " his Irische scholleris" in religion.^ 
 
 ^ Register of the Privy Council, 26th July, 1616. 
 
 2 Ibid.f 10th December, 1616. 
 
 ' Presbytery Records of Glasgow j cited by Grant, p. 417. 
 
76 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 During the seventeenth century several Education 
 Acts, Episcopal and Presbyterian, were passed. That 
 of 1633 authorised the establishment of parish schools 
 under the charge of the bishops ; that of 1646 enacted 
 that in every parish a school should be founded with 
 the advice of the Presbyteries ; and this in turn was 
 repealed at the Restoration. 
 
 In the latter half of the century schools in various 
 parts of the Highlands are recorded. In 1650 a 
 schoolmaster was appointed to the school at Alness, 
 and in the same year a Presbytery minute shows a 
 similar provision at Kilmorack : ^ " Compeared Hew 
 Ross from the paroch of Kilmorack, and the Presbyterie 
 being certified of his good education and conversation, 
 and finding upon tryall his ability for instructing of 
 children and fitting them for grammar schooles doe 
 therefore admitt him to the said charge." In 1664 
 a Mr. John Macrae became schoolmaster at Dingwall. 
 In 1677 the schoolmaster of Kiltarlity receives "a large 
 applaus for his painefullness and diligent attendance 
 on schoole and sessione." ^ The teacher at Kirkhill 
 was also " precentor and clerk, and read the Scriptures 
 publickly every Lord's Day, in the Irish, betwixt the 
 second and third bell." His remuneration consisted 
 of "a chalder of victuall with £20 Scots out of the 
 box, and also the baptisme and marriage money." ^ 
 Care was taken to have the masters prove their com- 
 petency. In 1673, for example, the schoolmaster about 
 to be appointed to Inverness was first " examined in 
 
 ^ William Mackay, Education in the Highlands in the Olden TimeSf 
 p. 6. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 8. 3 Ibid. ; 1 Pound Scots = 1/8. 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 77 
 
 the third book of Horace, delivered a Latin oration 
 Be vanitate humanae scientiae, and passed through all 
 other tryalls usuall in the like case." ^ 
 
 The educational needs of the remoter Highlands 
 did not escape the notice of King William, and in 
 1690 it was enacted that all vacant stipends within the 
 bounds of the synod of Argyll were to be applied 
 " for the setting up and maintaining of schools." But 
 William's most notable contribution to the cause of 
 education in Scotland was the important Act of 1696 
 for the establishment of a school in each parish. It 
 is entitled an Act for Settling of Schools, and ordains : 
 "That there be a School settled and a Schoolmaster 
 appointed in every Parish not already provided, by 
 advice of the Heritors and Minister of the Parish ; 
 And for that Effect, That the Heritors in every Parish 
 meet, and provide a commodious House for a School, 
 and settle and modify a Sallary to a Schoolmaster, 
 which shall not be under One hundred Merks, nor 
 above Two hundred Merks, to be paid Yearly at two 
 Terms. ... As also, it is declared, That the providing 
 of the said Schools and Schoolmasters, is a Pious Use 
 within the Parish, to which it shall be lawful and 
 leisume to Patrons to employ the Vacant Stipends as 
 they shall see cause." ^ 
 
 It was not only in such accessible parts of the 
 Highlands as Easter Eoss and the north of Inverness- 
 shire that schools were being established and main- 
 tained. The outlying regions showed similar educational 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 17. 
 
 2 Laws and Acts of the First Parliament of William III, c. xxvi. 
 
78 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 efforts. The case of Lewis may be taken as illustrative 
 of what was being attempted in the most unlikely 
 places. As the largest and most remote of the Outer 
 Isles it was not likely to be ahead of other parts of 
 the Highland area in its provision of educational 
 facilities. The character of the islesmen is vigorously 
 and picturesquely described by the Privy Council of 
 1605 : "Forasmekill as the King's Majestic remember- 
 ing the barbarous and deteastable murthers, slauchters, 
 and uther insolencies committit be the wicked and 
 rebellious thieves and lymmaris, violent possessors and 
 inhabitants of the Lewis . . . quhair thai live most 
 lasciviously and insolentlie, without fear of God or 
 reverence of his Majesties author itie, and, besydes 
 thair barbarous and godless forme of living, and the 
 beastlie cruelties quhich every ane of thaim commits 
 upon ane uther, thai are professit and avowit enemies 
 to aU his Majesties guid subjects, and to all strangers 
 quha aither in thair lawfull trade of fishing or be 
 contrairious winds are set upon thair coist . . . and 
 his Majestic knawing that it cannot stand with his 
 Hienes honour and princely dignitie that sic an un- 
 famous byke of lawles lymmaris salbe sufferit in ony 
 pairt of his Majesties dominions " gives orders " to 
 extirpat and root thaim out." ^ The lurid colouring 
 will be better understood if it is remembered that 
 James had autocratically confiscated the estate and 
 was trying to plant colonists from Fife in the island, 
 to which the natives were, not unnaturally, objecting. 
 These colonists were first planted in the Island in 
 ^ Register of the Privy Council (1605), p. 89. 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 79 
 
 1598. The men of Fife in their preliminary plans made 
 arrangement for the establishment of a school whose 
 benefits, however, were to be entirely restricted to the 
 immigrants.^ After various ups and downs, raids, 
 surprises, and throat-cuttings, the colonisation scheme 
 was finally abandoned and the Island was handed 
 over by the King to Mackenzie of Kintail, who took 
 possession in 1610. He brought over the vicar of 
 Gairloch to minister to the inhabitants of the Island, 
 who had seemingly been left outside the sphere of 
 church activity during the half-century succeeding the 
 Reformation. In spite of Parliament having decided 
 that the Islanders were "void of all religion and 
 humanitie," they welcomed the religious ministrations 
 now offered, and met half-way these novel efforts to 
 amend their morals. Kintail, or one of his immediate 
 successors, seems also to have taken steps to establish 
 a school; for in a description of Lewis written about 
 1680 occurs the following: "Onlie for the tyme the 
 countrie is possessed and safelie governed by the Earle 
 of Seaforth, by whose industrious care and benevolence, 
 the people formerly inclined to rudeness and barbarity 
 are reduced to civilitie, much understanding and know- 
 ledge, by the flourishing school planted and maintained 
 by the said Earls all the tyme in the toun of Stornu- 
 way. And not onlie the people of the Lews but also 
 those of the nixt adjacent Isles. The gentlemen's 
 sons and daughters are bred in that schooU to the 
 great good and comfort of the people; so that there 
 are few families but at least the maister can read and 
 
 ^ W. C. Mackenzie, History of the Outer Hebrides, p. 530. 
 
80 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 write." ^ Martin also, who visited the Hebrides some 
 years later, writes : " There is a village called Storn- 
 bay, at the head of the bay of that name ; it consists 
 of about sixty families ; there are some houses of enter- 
 tainment in it, as also a church and a school, in which 
 Latin and English are taught." ^ Later references to 
 this school show that it had a considerable career of 
 prosperity and usefulness, being aided by a small 
 annual endowment which had been settled upon it by 
 the Superior of the Island. 
 
 About this time a number of nobles and gentlemen, 
 impressed by the need for the provision of greater 
 educational facilities in the Highlands and Islands, 
 formed themselves into a Society for the Propagation 
 of Christian Knowledge. Funds were collected, and 
 in 1709 a Patent was obtained from Queen Anne. The 
 work of establishing schools was vigorously entered 
 upon. The General Assembly was sympathetic, and 
 urged the Highland presbyteries to lend their aid. Of 
 the first dozen schools established one was in remote 
 St. Kilda. 
 
 In George I's reign an Act was passed dealing with 
 the estates forfeited after " the Fifteen." In this Act 
 £20,000 was set aside " toward Erecting and Main- 
 taining Schools in the Highlands of Scotland."^ But 
 of this considerable sum voted, a grant of £2000, which 
 was paid over to the S.P.C.K., seems to have been the 
 only part that was ever actually disbursed for educa- 
 
 ^ Macfarlane^s Geographical Collections, Yol. II, p. 215 (S. H. S., 
 Vol. 52). 
 
 2 Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland. 
 » Act 4 George I (1718). 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 81 
 
 tion.^ The King himself, however, gave an annual 
 grant of £1000 to help the work in the Highlands. 
 
 Both the S.P.C.K. and the Committee appointed to 
 administer the Eoyal Bounty early recognised the 
 educational needs of Lewis. In 1745, in connection 
 with the transfer of the schoolmaster and catechist 
 from the parish of Lochs to that of Barvas, it is noted 
 that he receives four pounds from the Society and 
 four pounds from the Committee. Meanwhile Lord 
 Fortrose had deprived the Stornoway School of " the 
 hunder pound Scots formerly allowed by his predeces- 
 sors for some ages,"^ and the school had been closed. 
 For the next sixteen years the Presbytery makes 
 efforts, with the help of the church authorities, to re- 
 cover the endowment, evidently without success. But, 
 with the aid of the S.P.C.K. and the Eoyal Bounty, 
 schools continued to be taught in Stornoway and in at 
 least two other centres in the island. These schools 
 were periodically examined and reported on by the 
 Presbytery. Almost invariably after their examination 
 the comforting formula appears in their minutes that 
 the brethren " found cause to be satisfied with the 
 diligence of the master and the progress of the 
 scholars."^ 
 
 The Society and Committee evidently did not pro- 
 pose to have any masters with Jacobite leanings 
 among the ranks of their teachers, for in the year of 
 CuUoden they instruct that before the salaries of the 
 
 ^ Report on Fwnds of the Forfeited Estates (1806), Scottish History 
 Society, Vol. 57. 
 
 2 Records of the Presbytery of Lewis (1743). 
 
 3 Ibid. (1746). 
 
82 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 schoolmasters are paid they must be certified as "not 
 only useful to be continued, but also if they be persons 
 of loyalty and good affection to the present Govern- 
 ment/' ^ 
 
 In 1750 the Presbytery contributes £4 to the 
 repairing of the schoolhouse in Stornoway. Three 
 years after, the parishes of Lochs, Barvas, and Uig 
 agree to pay 10s. each out of their mulcts " to Mr. 
 William Mackenzie, schoolmaster of Stornoway, for 
 the space of one year," whilst Stornoway church pays 
 20s.2 The interesting feature about this is that the 
 school was evidently regarded as a " centre school " 
 which was performing a service for the country 
 parishes, and that these, in giving a grant, recognised 
 their indebtedness to it. It is noted on the appoint- 
 ment of a new schoolmaster that he " was examined 
 and approven by the Presbytery to be master of the 
 Grammar School of Stornoway, and he declares his 
 willingness to sign the formula of the Church accord- 
 ing to law and Acts of the General Assembly."^ Two 
 years after, the schoolmaster and catechist of Storno- 
 way is recommended " to employ such part of his time 
 as he can spare from his business as catechist in teach- 
 ing such parts of literature as may be useful to prepare 
 such persons for the University as have a view to be 
 students of divinity."* 
 
 A spinning school was established in Stornoway in 
 1763, the spinning mistress having been imported 
 from Fife. At first the women of Lewis would not 
 
 1 Records of the Presbytery of Lewis. * Ibid. (1753). 
 
 3 Ibid. (1759). * Ibid. (1761). 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 83 
 
 come to the school, a rumour having gone abroad that 
 there was a design to send them to the Planta- 
 tions. When they were reassured the school at once 
 filled, and they proved themselves very apt and 
 capable learners. It was expected that three years 
 would be needed to train 150, but the work was 
 accomplished within a year of the opening. About 
 three months was found to be sufficient time to enable 
 a batch of learners, fifty in number, and of ages 
 ranging from nine to twenty-five, to acquire sufficient 
 dexterity.^ 
 
 A Presbytery minute of 1774 gives an account of 
 the hours, subjects of study, and other details of the 
 Stornoway school. It explains that as the new master 
 was "a young man without much experience of the 
 world," the Presbytery thought it proper to form the 
 following regulations by which the schoolmaster and 
 scholars were to conduct themselves : 
 
 1. To train up the youth in the principles of 
 religion and morality, being the most essential part of 
 education, it is recommended to the master to labour 
 diligently therein in his teaching, discipline, and by 
 his example. For this purpose he is every day to 
 begin and dismiss the meeting of his school with 
 prayer. 
 
 2. He is to set apart two afternoons every week 
 for catechising his scholars in the principles of 
 Christianity, and for repeating and explaining such 
 forms of prayer as may be best suited to the age and 
 capacity of the scholars. 
 
 ^ Dr. John Walker, CEconomical History of the Hebrides (1766). 
 
84 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 3. The master is to inspect the morals of the 
 scholars not only during the time they are in the 
 school, but also while they are abroad at their diver- 
 sions, particularly that they abstain from lying, 
 cursing, swearing, pilfering, and profanation of the 
 Lord's Day. For this purpose he is to appoint 
 censors, who are to report whatever they see their 
 fellow-scholars do amiss, either in or out of school. 
 
 4. If any scholar shall continue vicious and ob- 
 stinate after all habile methods are used for reclaiming 
 him, he shall be extruded, lest his bad example should 
 debauch the morals of the rest. 
 
 5. It is recommended to the master to use all mild 
 methods his prudence will suggest for the due exercise 
 of his office, before he proceed to correction ; but if he 
 find that mild methods are ineffectual, he is to correct 
 with temper and moderation, and he is inhibited from 
 receiving any scholar to his school whom his parents 
 or guardians will not put in his power to correct if 
 it be necessary. 
 
 6. From the first of October to the first of February 
 the scholars are to convene at eight o'clock, to be 
 dismissed at ten forenoon, to convene again at eleven, 
 and to be dismissed at three. During the rest of the 
 year they are to convene at seven in the morning, to 
 be dismissed at nine forenoon, to convene at ten, to be 
 dismissed at twelve, to convene again at two o'clock, 
 and to be dismissed at five afternoon. 
 
 7. On such Sundays as there is a sermon at Storno- 
 way the scholars are to convene in the school at 
 eleven o'clock, to repeat such questions as were 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 85 
 
 prescribed the evening before, and then to walk along 
 with the master to church. When the length of 
 the day admits, they are again to convene at six 
 o'clock afternoon, to give notes of the sermon, or 
 for such other exercises as the master shall direct, 
 and to be dismissed at seven. On such Sundays 
 as there is no sermon at Stornoway, the scholars 
 are to convene at twelve o'clock and to remain till two 
 o'clock in such exercises as the master shall judge 
 expedient. 
 
 8. The scholars are to be arranged into classes. 
 The first class of English scholars to read Mason's 
 spelling book, the second the New Testament and 
 
 's Dictionary, the third the Bible, and the fourth 
 
 the (Economy of Human Life, Milton's Paradise Lost, 
 and [an English Grammar]. The Latin and Greek 
 classes will be recommended to the master as they are 
 needed. 
 
 9. Every scholar must be possessed of a copy of the 
 book read by the class he belongs to, otherwise he is 
 not to be received. 
 
 10. The school fees are eighteen pence for teaching 
 English and writing, two shillings for writing and 
 arithmetic, and half a crown for Latin and Greek — all 
 by the quarter. The master is to give at school hours 
 such a number of lessons in church music in the week 
 to his scholars as he shall judge proper, or if between 
 or after school hours he shall attend other persons for 
 that purpose, his scholars shall also attend and be 
 taught gratis.^ 
 
 ^ Records of the Presbytery of Lewis (1774). 
 
86 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 In 1781, on the recommendation of the local Presby- 
 tery, a missionary was appointed to Stornoway on the 
 Koyal Bounty instead of a catechist, and four years 
 after the Committee arrange that the missionary 
 appointed to Stornoway shall teach in the school 
 " besides English and the principles of religion, arith- 
 metic, Latin, and Greek." ^ 
 
 Of special interest is the attempt made to provide 
 instruction in Greek ; for it was just about this time 
 that tentative efforts were being made to intro- 
 duce the study of Greek into the High School of 
 Edinburgh.2 
 
 This attention to higher subjects was found in other 
 parts of the Highlands. Among the papers connected 
 with the Lovat estates after their forfeiture is a 
 petition by the schoolmaster, dated 1764, "anent 
 building a schoolhouse, instead of the one then in use, 
 made of earth and drystone, neither windtight nor 
 watertight, and the poor people thereby much dis- 
 couraged to send their children to it . . . where not 
 only Latin and Greek, but Eeading, Writing, Church 
 Music, Cyphering, and Book-keeping are taught."^ 
 
 In 1797 the Statistical Account says that the two 
 schools in Stornoway were provided with "able 
 teachers, good accommodation, and good salaries." In 
 
 1 Ihid., 1781. 
 
 2 But some Greek had been taught in the High School early in the 
 seventeenth century. — Steven's Edinburgh High School^ p. 48. It is 
 to be remembered that the Privy Council in 1672, to protect the 
 University monopoly, had forbidden the schools to teach Greek. — 
 Dr. Kerr, Scottish Education, p. 260. 
 
 3 Forfeited EstaUs Papers, p. 99. (S. H. S., Vol. 67.) 
 
EDUCATION IN HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 87 
 
 the parish school the subjects taught were English, 
 writing, arithmetic, Latin, geography, navigation, and 
 book-keeping.^ In the first year of the nineteenth 
 century there were in Lewis altogether three parish 
 schools and four Society schools.^ In 1810 the 
 Presbytery select from three candidates a master for 
 the Grammar School of Stornoway by examining them 
 "in Latin, Greek, and the branches of education 
 necessary to be taught by them." ^ 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow further the details of 
 one district. Enough has been given to show that 
 even in the remotest regions of the Highlands an 
 earnest attempt was being made to supply schools for 
 the use of the people, and that in some at least of 
 these higher instruction was given. It is true that 
 the need was greater than the supply, and that even 
 at the end of the eighteenth century not a few High- 
 land parishes were still without the school to which 
 the Act of 1696 entitled them. In particular little 
 had been done for the education of girls. 
 
 The S.P.C.K. at first confined itself to the pro- 
 vision in its schools of reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 and instruction in the Scriptures. They also had 
 certain books translated into Gaelic, including the 
 New Testament, for use in their schools. Later they 
 obtained a further Patent to enable them to apprentice 
 boys to trades and to train girls in sewing, knitting, 
 and spinning. Eaining's School was founded by the 
 Society in Inverness in 1757, and continued until quite 
 
 1 The Statistical Account of 1797. 
 
 2 Records of the Presbytery of Lewis ^ 1800. » Ihid.t 1810. 
 
88 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 recent times to draw secondary pupils from the 
 remoter parts of the Highlands and Islands. 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century other bodies, 
 desiring to help, entered the Highland field — the 
 Gaelic Societies of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Inver- 
 ness. At the opening meeting of the Edinburgh 
 Society it was stated that although the S.P.C.K. 
 was maintaining 290 schools at which nearly 16,000 
 young people were being taught, yet many of the 
 inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands could not 
 read in any language. The Society proposed to estab- 
 lish circulating schools that would teach Gaelic read- 
 ing only. Classes were held during the day for boys 
 and girls, and in the evening for older people. The 
 teacher availed himself of the assistance of the more 
 able boys as monitors. The principle laid down by 
 the Society for the teacher's guidance was that "any 
 boy can teach as much as he knows." ^ The order of 
 study was : The alphabet, syllables, a Gaelic reading 
 book, New Testament and Psalm Book, and, lastly, 
 the Bible in general. Careful directions were pro- 
 vided by the Society for a system of rewards and 
 punishments, with cards of merit or of disgrace which 
 were ceremonially hung round the neck of the well- 
 doers or the delinquents. They also declare that " as 
 beating is the worst, so it is the last means to be 
 used in the correction of a child." ^ The Societies of 
 Glasgow and Inverness had English taught as well as 
 Gaelic, and some writing and arithmetic. 
 
 ^ The Teacher's Guide in condiicHng the Gaelic Circulating SchoolSf 
 1815. 2 2j^, 
 
EDUCATION m HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS 89 
 
 There is no doubt that the work of the three societies 
 did much for the education of the people of the High- 
 lands, half of whom in 1822 could not read, and many 
 of whom had no school within convenient reach. 
 
 A special committee of the General Assembly had 
 also been charged with the work of increasing " the 
 means of education and religious instruction." The 
 church answered generously to an appeal for funds. 
 The schools established in this way were intended to 
 be rather of the type of the parish schools, and the 
 teacher, where qualified, was encouraged to give in- 
 struction in higher subjects. In this case a higher 
 rate of salary was paid. Though the schools were 
 under the control of the Church of Scotland they were 
 open to all denominations. By the time of the Dis- 
 ruption there were 146 schools and 13,000 scholars. 
 The S.P.C.K.^ in the same year had 150 schools of 
 the ordinary type and 102 spinning schools. But 
 before this time the Committee had extended its 
 sphere by the erection of schools in the poorer districts 
 of the Lowland towns. 
 
 At the Disruption the Free Church at once set 
 itself to work to supply the teachers who had " come 
 out," with schools. Within four years over five 
 hundred were in operation. The Ladies' Associations 
 are still gratefully remembered in the Highlands. 
 They helped the people of the most difficult districts 
 
 ^ The S. P. O.K. still continues its educational work as the Trust 
 for Education in the Highlands and Islands. It manages a Bursary 
 Scheme and holds examinations in connection with it. But the 
 administration of these bursary funds could now with obvious advan- 
 tage be transferred to the County Committees of the Highland area. 
 
90 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 to get a chance of learning to read the Gaelic Bible, 
 by supplying to them as temporary teachers young 
 students who intended to enter the ministry. The 
 work still survives, and is now helpful in strengthen- 
 ing in some cases the staffs of rural schools so as to 
 make possible some instruction in higher subjects for 
 the more promising among the older scholars. 
 
 A detailed report presented in 1866 to the Eoyal Com- 
 mission on Education in Scotland gave a full account of 
 the nature of the education then being given in that 
 portion of the Highland area. BrieJfly put, the Special 
 Commissioner found 226 schools " supported from no 
 less than thirteen different sources, under ten different 
 forms of government (or no government), and employ- 
 ing a staff of 286 teachers, male and female, pupil- 
 teachers, and monitors." ^ The number of scholars on 
 the roll was over 12,000, being almost one-sixth of the 
 population. Not more than half of the school build- 
 ings were of a satisfactory nature. One hundred new 
 schools were regarded as necessary to complete the 
 equipment for the Island area, and another hundred 
 for the mainland part of the north-west Highlands. 
 The attendance was irregular, the number of adults un- 
 able to read and write disappointingly large, and in par- 
 ticular, the education of the women "sadly neglected." 
 The Commissioner urged earnestly the need of public 
 interposition. This followed a few years later when 
 the Highlands and Islands came to share in the opera- 
 tion of the Education Act of 1872. 
 
 ^ Report on the State of Edtication in the Eeh^ides, Alexander 
 Nicolson, 1866. 
 
VI 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The nineteenth century saw many new forms of educa- 
 tional effort. Sunday Schools were born. Scientific 
 research was developed and scientific ideas diffused 
 among the people. Technical education grew rapidly. 
 The Universities renewed their activities, and women 
 at length forced their way into the sacred precincts of 
 the higher learning. Improved methods of primary 
 instruction followed on the institution of a system of 
 professional training for teachers, and a universal pro- 
 vision of schools was taken vigorously in hand by the 
 State. Before the century closed order began to emerge 
 from the chaos of secondary education. 
 
 So multifarious are the activities, so varied the lines 
 of effort, that it is necessary to disentangle a few of 
 the more striking for separate and brief discussion. 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOLS 
 The general wave of human feeling that characterised 
 the end of the eighteenth century took many forms : 
 Howard pled that prisoners should be treated humanely, 
 Wilberforce that slaves should be set free. Eobert 
 Eaikes, in pity of the forlorn condition of the waifs and 
 strays of Gloucester, opened for them on Sunday after- 
 
 91 
 
92 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 noons a place of shelter and hired " two or three women 
 at a shilling a day to take care of them and teach them 
 to read the New Testament." ^ Such was the simple 
 beginning of what became the world-wide Sunday- 
 School movement. 
 
 A year after Raikes had shown the way, a small 
 Sunday School was established by some ladies in Edin- 
 burgh and a Sunday School Society was founded there 
 before the century closed. It was in connection with 
 Sabbath School work in the early part of the nineteenth 
 century in the slums of Glasgow that David Stow first 
 had his interest excited in teaching method, and so 
 was led into his great work of developing model schools 
 and establishing a system by which teachers would be 
 trained for their profession. 
 
 The provision of Sunday Schools soon became 
 general. We have seen that the practice of having 
 the boys of the ordinary schools march to church and 
 receive religious instruction during part of the day 
 from their masters was discontinued about the same 
 time as Sabbath Schools proper took their rise. But 
 there are signs of a transition time, for in some cases 
 Sunday Schools were under the management of town 
 councils and remained so until recent times.^ At the 
 end of the eighteenth century the Town Council of 
 Greenock paid the salary of a Sunday School teacher. 
 Such an arrangement, however, was exceptional. 
 From the beginning of the movement a feature of 
 
 ^ Sir Joshua Fitch, " The Sunday School of the Future," in Educa- 
 tional Aims and. Methods, p. 366. 
 2 Grant, Burgh Schools, p. 435. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 93 
 
 Sunday School work was the voluntary character of 
 the teaching. At the start efforts were specially 
 directed towards meeting the needs of the ill-cared- 
 for children of the slums of the larger towns, and 
 instruction in religious knowledge was supplemented 
 by the teaching of reading, so that the scholars might 
 be able to read the Bible for themselves. As ordinary 
 school facilities increased, however, this educational 
 aspect of Sunday School work fell into the background, 
 and as the religious part of the aim became predomi- 
 nant, the benefits of the schools were extended to 
 children of all classes. 
 
 There can be no doubt that a movement of this 
 kind, which ultimately brought within its scope half- 
 a-million of Scottish children, must have had profound 
 results. The voluntary work of the great army of 
 earnest men and women who constitute the Sabbath 
 School staff of the country is a great moral and religi- 
 ous asset. They come into close contact with the boys 
 and girls who form their classes, and are thus able to 
 bring to bear upon them their direct personal influence. 
 The falling off in Sunday School attendance that has 
 been reported in recent years by various churches is 
 to be regretted. It arises from a variety of causes, 
 among which may be mentioned the greater interest 
 and variety that now mark the method of spending the 
 Sabbath ; the better education of the children in the 
 day schools, which with immature minds of a certain 
 type may develop an unfortunate form of intellectual 
 conceit that believes itself to be too advanced for the 
 Sabbath School ; and possibly also a readiness to con- 
 
94 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 trast the teaching methods of the Sunday School with 
 those that are familiar in the day school, to the dis- 
 advantage of the former. Whatever the cause, the 
 result is to be deplored. If the homes were taking 
 upon themselves the work of the Sunday Schools, then 
 a falling away of the latter would not be a matter of 
 regret. But can we say that this is so ? Particularly 
 necessary is the work in city areas and in the remote 
 rural districts where old restrictions and conventions 
 are rapidly slackening, and other restraining influences 
 are not taking their place as readily as they should. 
 It is possible — the suggestion is made with diiB&dence — 
 that the Sabbath School is not realising with sufficient 
 clearness the changed conditions of the time, nor quite 
 understanding what its proper function is. It cannot 
 be better put than in Sir Joshua Fitch's words : " It 
 should be the office of the Sunday School to act as a 
 substitute — even though an imperfect one — for a 
 Christian home, rather than as a supplement to the 
 day school," 1 It is the personal and distinctively 
 religious influence exercised by the teachers that con- 
 stitutes the strength of the Sunday School. 
 
 PRIMARY SCHOOLS 
 
 The nineteenth century showed considerable activity 
 in school legislation even previous to the passing of the 
 great Act of 1872. The scanty salary provided for the 
 schoolmaster by the law of 1696 was increased, and 
 masters enjoyed in addition a free house and garden. 
 The teacher still looked to the presbytery for his recog- 
 
 ^ Sir Joshua Fitch, The Sunday School of the FiUure. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 95 
 
 nition, and the supervision of the school fell naturally 
 into the hands of the local parish minister. The 
 signing of the Church of Scotland formula was still 
 an essential preliminary to appointment. Large 
 parishes had an additional school provided. It has 
 been already noted how deficient the provision of 
 schools remained in the remote districts, and the steps 
 taken by the General Assembly and by various volun- 
 tary agencies to increase the supply have been already 
 described. Much was achieved in this way, but much 
 still remained to be overtaken. In 1839 inspection 
 commenced, and " grants in aid," when the school was 
 taught efficiently by a recognised teacher, began to be 
 paid. Then came the Disruption of 1843, and the Free 
 Church set to work to provide schools in which its 
 own schoolmasters might teach the children of its own 
 adherents. Unfortunately this duplication of schools 
 came where a school already existed, with the result 
 that the evil of overlapping was introduced, although 
 the dearth of schools in certain districts remained. 
 
 Next came the Act of 1861, which again raised the 
 modest salaries of the schoolmasters, and — most im- 
 portant departure — placed the examination of teachers 
 in the hands of the Universities, instead of in those 
 of the Presbyteries. At the same time the signing of 
 the Confession of Faith was replaced by a declaration 
 that nothing would be taught adverse to the faith and 
 doctrine of the Church of Scotland. 
 
 The application of Mr. Lowe's Eevised Code to 
 Scotland for purposes of inspection did something to 
 improve the teaching given to the general mass of the 
 
96 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 children. In the parish schools it had been the 
 practice for the master to concentrate a good deal of 
 his energy and attention on a few of the more able 
 scholars to whom he taught Latin and other higher 
 subjects. Himself often a University man, he found 
 the chief pleasure of his office in sending others of 
 good ability to follow on the road he had trodden. 
 Such a system had many good points, but the defect 
 of it lay in the comparative neglect in many cases of 
 the educational needs of the rank and file of those who 
 sat on the school benches. 
 
 Let us see what was the actual result of the ordinary 
 school-teaching provided in the middle of the century. 
 Dr. Wilson, an Inspector with many years' experience 
 of the West of Scotland and the Islands, has left a 
 summary of his impressions for the period mentioned : 
 " The general state of the schools was at the time to 
 which I refer far from satisfactory. The premises 
 were often insufficient, and in many cases quite un- 
 suitable for the purposes of a school. Some in the 
 Western Isles had no desks of any kind ; deal boards 
 supported on stones not unfrequently forming the 
 benches, and a rude table the only desk. The supply 
 of suitable books was limited and their condition 
 generally defective ; apparatus, properly so-called, was 
 quite unknown in many schools ; a few tattered maps, 
 dingy and imbrowned with smoke, and the smallest of 
 blackboards, doing duty when occasion required. The 
 attainments of many of the teachers were slender, and 
 their knowledge of many of the principles of teaching 
 nil. In these circumstances the extent of the in- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 97 
 
 struction was necessarily limited and its general 
 character unsatisfactory. But to this there was one 
 exception even in the humblest school. I mean the 
 religious instruction. Every child, at all able to read, 
 had a Bible and a Shorter Catechism, and a chapter 
 was read daily by the pupils and carefully explained 
 by the master, while a question in the Catechism was 
 committed to memory. In this way, the children 
 came in time to possess a creditable acquaintance with 
 the historical, if not always the doctrinal, parts of the 
 Holy Scriptures ; while, from the sheer force of repeti- 
 tion, the text of the Shorter Catechism was thoroughly, 
 but not always intelligently, committed to memory." ^ 
 The secular instruction was almost entirely confined 
 to the three R.'s ; reading, whilst fluent in the older 
 classes, was seldom expressive; writing was fairly 
 taught; arithmetic was well taught in some schools, 
 but in others neatly written books of solutions lacked 
 the support of intelligent power to solve simple prob- 
 lems at the inspector's visit. 
 
 THE ACT OF 1872 AND ITS RESULTS 
 
 The insufficient supply of school accommodation in 
 outlying districts was only too faithfully reproduced in 
 the growing towns of Central Scotland. In Glasgow, 
 for example, many children whose parents sought 
 education for them could not be admitted to any 
 school. In some of the crowded schools the classes 
 had to be let out to play in turn so that room could 
 
 ^ Dr. Charles E. Wilson on the state of schools in 1852, as given in 
 his General Report for the Year 1872. 
 
98 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 be found to take the lessons of those remaining. The 
 younger children, if admitted at all, had to be left 
 largely to their own devices, not from any wish on the 
 master's part to neglect them, but simply from his 
 inability to get at all through the work of his con- 
 gested classes. 
 
 The defects both of accommodation and of teaching 
 were made clear by the Education Commission in their 
 report of 1867. It was evident that the State must 
 take upon itself, more definitely than it had yet done, 
 the provision of education for the people of Scotland. 
 A Bill was introduced in 1869 and again in 1871 ; 
 both failed to pass through the House. At last a Bill 
 by Lord-Advocate Young was successfully piloted 
 through Parliament and became law under the title of 
 The Education (Scotland) Act, 1872. It was an Act 
 "to amend and extend the provisions of the law of 
 Scotland on the subject of education, in such manner 
 that the means of procuring efficient education for their 
 children may be furnished and made available to the 
 whole people of Scotland." ^ 
 
 Its specially Scottish features will be seen if the 
 points wherein it differed from the corresponding 
 English Act be noted. The titles of the Acts differed 
 significantly: the Scottish was an "Education Act," 
 the English one an "Elementary Education Act." 
 From the beginning the educational activities and 
 responsibilities of School Boards in Scotland included 
 Secondary education. The provision in the Scottish 
 Act was for "the whole people of Scotland." There 
 ^ Preamble of the Act. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 99 
 
 was no thought of the education provided being, as 
 was indicated in the English Eevised Code, for the 
 children of *'the class who support themselves by 
 manual labour." In Scotland both School Boards and 
 compulsion were universal, while in England they 
 depended on the absence of sufficient voluntary pro- 
 vision and on local by-laws. With three ideas, un- 
 known to England, Scotland had long been familiar in 
 the educational field — compulsion, general assessment 
 for school purposes, and a conscience clause. The new 
 idea of popular control was not difficult of assimila- 
 tion, for the democratic form of government was well 
 developed in Scotland, extending even into her church 
 courts. 
 
 As a result of the Act, 984 School Boards were 
 elected. An interim Board of Education with five 
 members sat in Edinburgh for six years. After making 
 arrangement for the first elections its main function 
 was to see that the Boards provided the additional 
 accommodation required in their districts. It was the 
 first business of the new Boards to find out the number 
 of children of school age within their districts and to 
 estimate the school provision required. Then they 
 had to apply for building-grants in proportion to the 
 school places required. The Board of Education exer- 
 cised a rigid, and occasionally, one must add, a non- 
 intelligent censorship over the number of school places 
 to be provided. Many of the School Boards in dis- 
 tricts with increasing population were in this way 
 prevented from building with a view to future in- 
 crease, and were in consequence within a few years 
 
100 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 saddled with the burden of enlarging schools. In 
 particular, some of the districts since scheduled as 
 "congested" were badly handicapped in this respect 
 in spite of their earnest representations of the need 
 of provision for the future. As building-grants were 
 provided only at first, the cost of later enlargements 
 had to be met from local resources. 
 
 A special branch of the Privy Council Office was 
 created to administer the Parliamentary grants for 
 education in Scotland, and the conditions on which 
 grants could be earned were to be embodied in an 
 annual Code submitted to Parliament. It is this right 
 of formulating annually the conditions on which 
 grants are to be awarded that has given the Scotch 
 Education Department its power to shape the 
 framework and mould the details of the school 
 system. 
 
 There can be no question that the education of the 
 mass of children made a leap forward as a result of 
 the Act. In the first ten years three million pounds 
 was expended in building new schools, and seven 
 millions in maintenance.^ As regards the internal 
 work of the schools, for a time "cent per cent" 
 dominated the horizon. On it the Department, 
 through its inspectors, based its judgment of a school's 
 standing; on it Managers based their opinion of a 
 teacher's efficiency. "Payment by results'* — every 
 cross so much money gained, every cipher so much 
 money lost — was a wonderfully simple solution of 
 educational assessment. It could be so easily stated, 
 1 Sir Henry Craik, The State and Education, p. 162. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENJURY.,. . . ,10,1. 
 
 J > > » • ''1*3* 
 
 and could appeal so readily to the meanest intelli- 
 gence ! Higher subjects, where taught, were paid on 
 in the same way— so long as they were restricted to 
 the third stage or under. After the third stage was 
 passed there was nothing for it, if grant were desired — 
 and what School Board did not desire grant ? — but to 
 start another fresh subject. 
 
 In course of time payment by results with its 
 individual examination, and accompanying crosses and 
 ciphers, disappeared, and block grants depending on 
 average attendance took its place. The weaker pupil, 
 who had been monopolising most of the teacher's 
 attention began again, to his own comfort, to receive 
 only a little more than his fair share, and the brighter 
 pupils once more began to take their proper place in 
 the teacher's perspective. Perhaps the grim mechani- 
 cal methods of the Seventies and Eighties were a 
 necessary phase of progress towards other and better 
 ways. One can only hope that it was so ; for other- 
 wise much unjustifiable vexation of soul for teacher 
 and taught was inflicted. 
 
 Amending Acts of various kinds followed up the 
 Act of 1872. Those of 1878 and 1883 improved the 
 compulsory powers of Boards and those which dealt 
 with the employment of children. The old security 
 of ad vitam aut culpam that had belonged to the 
 teaching profession and had added to its dignity was 
 no longer offered as an inducement in the Act of 1872. 
 It w^as found necessary in 1883 to protect teachers by 
 a new Act from hasty and careless procedure in dis- 
 missals. The recent Act of 1908 has gone farther, 
 
102 EPUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 and in effect has given the dismissed teacher an appeal 
 to the Education Department. 
 
 After 1861, as we have'seen, teachers were examined 
 by the Universities. In 1872 their examination and 
 certification passed into the hands of the Education 
 Department. This was a retrograde step profession- 
 ally. Two other courses were open: certification, as 
 formerly, by the Universities, or a register might 
 have been formed on the analogy of the Medical 
 Kegister, guarded by a council of teachers that would 
 have formed the counterpart of tlie General Medical 
 Council. Interestingly enough, the examination and 
 certification of teachers was one of the functions 
 allowed to the association of teachers — the Educational 
 Institute of Scotland — by its charter of 1851.^ It 
 hardly looks now as if teachers were likely ever to 
 come to the full right of holding the keys to their 
 own profession. There remains the other certifying 
 body — the Universities. Some educationists are hope- 
 ful of seeing yet a Faculty of Education, and the 
 affixing of the hall-mark of the teaching profession, 
 as of those of law and medicine and divinity, a recog- 
 nised part of the function of the University. Is it 
 not strange that there should be degrees in Engineer- 
 ing and in Agriculture, but no degree in Education, 
 though the old teaching right of Magistri Artium has 
 now been lost ? 
 
 ^ *' To ascertain and certify the qualifications of persons engaged, 
 or desiring to be engaged, in the Education of Youth." — Warrant of 
 Hoyal Charter, 1851. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 103 
 
 SECONDARY EDUCATION 
 
 About the beginning of the nineteenth century a 
 number of new schools were founded to provide a 
 type of secondary education in which modern subjects 
 would bulk more largely than they did in the burgh 
 schools. These schools were known as academies, 
 and many of those then founded still survive and are 
 doing good work. They gave greater attention than 
 had been usual to mathematics and science, often also 
 to drawing and French ; in many cases they provided 
 instruction in subjects of practical application, such 
 as book-keeping and navigation. In fact, what strikes 
 one most in looking at their programmes is often the 
 extraordinary range of subjects offered, a contrast to 
 the narrow curriculum of the old grammar school. 
 But the payment of fees by separate subjects prob- 
 ably helped to preserve the scholars from over- 
 pressure. 
 
 An interesting effort was made from 1832 to en- 
 courage the teaching of higher subjects in the rural 
 schools of the north-east of Scotland by the ad- 
 ministration of the Dick Bequest. The trust was 
 used to secure a supply of University men as parish 
 schoolmasters by ofifering an addition to the usual 
 salary. The masters were appointed after a stringent 
 examination, and the efficiency of their teaching was 
 tested by periodical inspection. From time to time 
 as the general progress of school provision and of 
 State grants necessitated it, changes were made in the 
 scheme, and its useful purpose of retaining good men 
 
104 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 in rural schools by supplementing their salaries was 
 still carried out. 
 
 It is agreed on all hands that the operations of the 
 Bequest had an excellent effect not only on the 
 quality of the elementary education provided, but 
 also in the steady supply of lads of ability as Univer- 
 sity entrants. Much attention was from the first 
 given to higher subjects; the picked pupils of the 
 school received instruction in Latin, Greek, and 
 mathematics. "To the poorest and most neglected," 
 says Professor Laurie, for many years the official 
 Visitor of the schools, "this education is offered. Is 
 there any visitor of schools in the world who is able to 
 say, as your Visitor can say, that he has examined in 
 Virgil and in Greek boys on the pauper roll ? "^ 
 
 The first effect on these schools, as on those of 
 Scotland generally, of the Act of 1872 was a slacken- 
 ing in the teaching of higher subjects. After the lapse 
 of a few years, however, partly owing to the changes 
 in the regulations of the Bequest and partly to a 
 recovery of the teachers from the first effects of the 
 Act, the old traditions were re-established with happy 
 results. 
 
 For Scotland as a whole in the region of Secondary 
 education the Eighties can only be described as a 
 period of chaos : the Higher Class schools taken over 
 under the Act felt the need of funds, and the Acade- 
 mies under trustees similarly languished. The cities, 
 notably Edinburgh, owing to a wealth of educational 
 endowments, had a good provision of Secondary in- 
 
 1 Prof. S. S. Laurie, Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest, 1890. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 105 
 
 struction. In rural schools, outside the north-eastern 
 counties, Secondary work depended on the qualifica- 
 tions and individual tastes of the masters. The diffi- 
 cult work of bringing system out of this chaos began 
 when the Education Department was reorganised in 
 1885 and Mr. Craik made Secretary. The work so 
 happily set agoing by Sir Henry Craik is being carried 
 on vigorously by his successor, Sir John Struthers. 
 Since that time the inspection of Secondary schools 
 has been systematised and annual written examina- 
 tions of an elaborate kind instituted, leading to the 
 issue to fit pupils of a Leaving Certificate. The passes 
 at this examination now serve as the entrance quali- 
 fication to the Universities for two-thirds of their 
 students. The examination is shared in not only by 
 the old Higher Class schools and endowed schools, but 
 also by the Higher Grade schools which are doing 
 Secondary work, whilst participating in the ordinary 
 Code grants. The gradual steps in the development 
 of this national examination, carrying with it a State 
 certificate, need not be detailed here ; but this written 
 test, combined with independent inspection, has had 
 an effect in raising the standard of our Secondary 
 schools that can hardly be overestimated. As it has 
 been accompanied by increasing assistance from the 
 State in the form of grants, the defects revealed have 
 had a reasonable chance of being remedied. Buildings 
 have been altered and enlarged, equipment improved, 
 the staffs increased, and teachers' salaries raised, with 
 admirable effects on school efficiency. 
 
106 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 TECHNICAL EDUCATION 
 
 The common arts and handicrafts of everyday life 
 have always been learned outside the schools. The 
 apprenticeship to a skilled artisan in the olden days 
 gave, and in our times the period of training spent in 
 workshop or factory continues to give, to young 
 learners the necessary skill of hand and practical 
 knowledge of the processes of the craft to be learned. 
 It is not this that is connoted by " technical education," 
 though the term is often used loosely in that sense. In 
 its correct use it is meant to indicate the study of the 
 scientific principles that underlie the industrial arts, a 
 study which will enable the operative to do his work 
 with understanding, to see the reasons for the tradi- 
 tional, or the new, methods of the processes he applies. 
 
 Technical instruction in this sense is little more 
 than a century old. This is difficult to realise when 
 we consider its present development, with its provision 
 everywhere of schools and colleges, and its large ex- 
 penditure of public and private funds. To Glasgow 
 belongs the honour of having made the first effort 
 to give technical education. Anderson's Institution, 
 founded in 1796, is the mother of all Technical Col- 
 leges. It was not only the first institution to provide 
 instruction in the scientific principles underlying in- 
 dustrial applications, but it was the first ^ to make pro- 
 vision for the systematic instruction of artisans in 
 evening classes — the germ of all future Mechanics' 
 Institutions — and the first to admit women on equal 
 
 * The honour is shared by the " Birmingham Brotherly Society." 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 107 
 
 terms to all the privileges that were open to men.^ It 
 is interesting to note that such a new departure origi- 
 nated with a University Professor, though it must also 
 be mentioned that it was done in spite of the hostility 
 of his colleagues, and that the Institution was founded 
 at his own expense. 
 
 It is also of interest to remember that while Ander- 
 son was Professor of Natural Philosophy, James Watt, 
 in the teeth of the opposition of the Guild of Hammer- 
 men, was finding shelter within the University work- 
 shop, and it was as University mechanician that he 
 received from Professor Anderson the model of New- 
 comen's engine which, with Watt's addition of the 
 separate condenser, has revolutionised the industries 
 of the world. 
 
 It is not necessary to trace throughout the century 
 the remarkable career of the institution which Ander- 
 son founded, the provision of popular lectures on 
 science, the succession of remarkable men who were 
 associated with it, and the honourable place it was 
 able to take in the development of the science of 
 chemistry. Most important is it that it has never 
 lost the close contact with industries and artisans that 
 marked its earliest conception. The present great 
 teaching institution, the Technical College of Glasgow, 
 which represents the old Andersonian, preserves what 
 was best in the old tradition, and though it has large 
 Day Classes its greatest honour even now is that it 
 instructs in its Evening Classes — many of them in 
 work of University level — five thousand men and 
 ^ Prof. A. H. Sexton, The First Technical College, p. 12. 
 
108 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 women who during the day are engaged in the prac- 
 tical work of the great industries of the city. Notice- 
 able also is the benefit it receives from those who 
 direct these industries, in the form of advice and 
 management, particularly of the various classes in 
 Chemistry, Metallurgy, Naval Architecture, and En- 
 gineering — Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Mining. 
 It is matter of congratulation to find that the College 
 is now housed in buildings worthy of the work it has 
 done and is doing. 
 
 For the south-east of Scotland similar work is being 
 accomplished by the Heriot-Watt College in Edin- 
 burgh. The evening department here also is a large 
 one, having some three thousand students. Aberdeen 
 and Dundee are also following suit, the latter appro- 
 priately giving much attention to the textile industries 
 in which so many of its people are engaged. 
 
 In all four centres a praiseworthy effort has been 
 made to correlate the work of evening continuation 
 classes with that of the central institution, and so to 
 provide that the course of instruction shall be con- 
 tinuous and properly graded. A hopeful feature, also, 
 of the work is the increasing willingness of those at 
 the head of large industrial concerns to encourage 
 their workers to take advantage of these technical 
 classes, and to make special arrangements to facilitate 
 their attendance. 
 
 Even a slight consideration will show that the 
 artisan's need of such technical training becomes in- 
 creasingly greater with the changing conditions of 
 industry. In the early days of handicraft each appren- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 109 
 
 tice, trained under a skilled craftsman, acquired the 
 power of turning out a completed article. The intro- 
 duction of manufacture caused the complete article 
 to be produced by a number of workmen who each 
 did a part. In the present conditions of industry, 
 where the whole process is the work of machinery, 
 which requires from the worker only supervision and 
 occasional correction, there is obviously great need 
 for supplementary instruction that will enable the 
 workman to get hold of the underlying principles and 
 let him have a general view of the whole process. 
 "Unless the apprentice exerts himself and studies 
 privately or takes advantage of evening classes, as 
 a rule he grows up an uninstructed man and an in- 
 different workman."^ Here, then, is the function of 
 technical education — to remedy this defect, to fill up 
 this gap, in the training of the youthful artisan, to 
 save him in his daily work from lop-sided develop- 
 ment and unintelligent outlook. 
 
 It is necessary to turn shortly to what was a 
 marked feature of the second half of the century — 
 the increase of opportunities for the study of science 
 by the general mass of the people. Their awakening 
 interest in science and scientific thought was met by 
 a provision of scientific instruction. In 1836 a national 
 school of design was established in London ; in 1841 
 assistance was given in the establishment of schools 
 of design in various manufacturing centres throughout 
 the kingdom, with annual grants towards their main- 
 1 Professor Henry Dyer, The Evolution of Industry, p. 189. 
 
110 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 tenance. Within ten years seventeen branch schools 
 had been formed in, among other places, Glasgow and 
 Paisley. In 1853 the scope was extended from art to 
 science, and three years later the work was trans- 
 ferred from the control of the Board of Trade to that 
 of the newly constituted Education Department. 
 Various experiments followed in establishing and 
 conducting classes and in giving help by grants. The 
 Whitworth Scholarships to aid young men in acquiring 
 the knowledge requisite in mechanical engineering 
 were founded in 1868. Grants towards practical 
 laboratory training were begun in 1870. 
 
 The operations of the Science and Art Department 
 soon produced throughout the country a network of 
 evening classes for instruction in science. These were 
 formed not only in towns, but in most outlying 
 villages and country districts. The teachers were 
 remunerated by the grants paid in proportion to the 
 number of passes, the class of these, and the grade 
 taken. In towns, laboratory instruction in such sub- 
 jects as chemistry and, in a manufacturing centre like 
 Glasgow, in mineralogy and metallurgy, was provided. 
 The range of subjects was large ; there was sufficient 
 variety to satisfy the most inquiring minds or the 
 most diverse tastes. A first-class pass in the Advanced 
 Stage of a subject constituted a teaching qualification 
 for the elementary stage, so that the supply of teachers 
 was readily kept up. 
 
 It has been the custom in certain quarters to sneer 
 at the work of these science classes. Doubtless they 
 had many defects, not the least being the predominance 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 111 
 
 of grants and examinations, and the want of any 
 organised grouping of the subjects, yet it is not to be 
 denied that these classes did more than any other 
 agency to diffuse a knowledge of scientific facts and 
 theories among the mass of the people, and this know- 
 ledge was brought within reach of their own homes. 
 Nor was the solitary student whose only teacher was 
 the text-book excluded : he was able to take the ex- 
 aminations and secure certificates and prizes in the 
 same way as the internal student, though no grant 
 was paid on his behalf. Instruction in science and 
 drawing, in connection with the South Kensington 
 Department, was also given to the pupils of day schools 
 and corresponding grants paid. Like benefits were 
 extended also to the students in training colleges. 
 
 In 1898 Scotland's share of the Science and Art 
 grant was transferred to the Scotch Education De- 
 partment. Drawing and nature-study are now an 
 essential part of the instruction in primary schools. 
 Science and drawing have also become an integral part 
 of the curriculum of secondary schools. In the towns, 
 for the " heterogeneous collection " of evening classes, 
 the Department has substituted under the Continua- 
 tion Scheme "a completely organised system framed 
 on broad and simple lines and adapted to the needs 
 of all sorts of students."^ The defect of the system 
 lies in its practically complete failure to provide con- 
 tinuation work in the remoter rural districts. The old 
 evening schools and the old science classes which, in 
 
 ^ Explanatory Memorandum to A Selection of Circular Letters of 
 the Scotch Education Departinentf 1898-1904, p. 1 4, 
 
112 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 spite of all their defects of " farming out " and the 
 rest, still kept alive some kind of intellectual efifort 
 on the part of adolescents, have disappeared over entire 
 counties, and nothing whatever has taken their place. 
 Here is one of the most serious gaps in our present 
 educational system, one already too long in existence, 
 which calls clamantly for remedy. 
 
 THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS 
 
 It might be supposed that the analogy of ap- 
 prenticeship to trades and crafts would have suggested 
 at an early stage of educational history that teachers 
 ought to undergo some systematic training for the work 
 of their profession. Such does not seem to have been 
 the case. The training of teachers is less than a cen- 
 tury old. Glasgow seems again, as in the case of 
 technical education, to have led the van. David Stow's 
 Sabbath School in the Salt Market paved the way for 
 the establishment in 1824 of " a week-day normal 
 training school." Older pupils were soon added, and 
 arrangements were made for training students who 
 wished to acquire Stow's system. " This was in effect 
 the first normal college in the kingdom."^ The interest 
 of the Glasgow Educational Society in the movement 
 led to the provision in 1836 of new and larger premises 
 at Dundas Vale. 
 
 Stow's model schools were graded, as the Scotch 
 primary schools are still, into Infants (five to seven 
 years), Juniors (seven to ten), and Seniors (ten to 
 
 ^ Sir Joshua Fitch, Article "Stow" in Dictionary of National 
 Biography. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 113 
 
 thirteen). Boys and girls were taught together, as 
 Stow thought that the presence of either sex had a 
 good effect on the other. Attention was given to 
 training the child on all sides of his nature — mental, 
 moral, physical. The use of the gallery with its 
 simultaneous answering, and of the playground, were 
 also features of his system. But the part of his sys- 
 tem on which he laid most stress was the moral and 
 Scripture lessons which formed a regular feature of 
 the work. 
 
 The intention of Stow and the founders of the 
 Normal School was that it should be national and un- 
 denominational, but at a later stage the condition was 
 attached to certain Privy Council grants that were 
 necessary for its maintenance, that it should be handed 
 over to the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland. 
 
 In Edinburgh the idea of training was suggested in 
 1826, and was partially carried out in one of the 
 Assembly's schools. A Sub-Committee was appointed 
 to consider the matter. It reported that teachers 
 should be " trained both to a knowledge of the 
 branches taught and to the actual business of 
 teaching."^ The Privy Council promised the same 
 amount of assistance as had been given to Glasgow, 
 and the Committee was able to report to the Assembly 
 of 1845 that the building was completed and occupied. 
 The first Eector appointed was a clergyman. The 
 
 * Report of the General Assembly's Education Committee^ 1845, 
 p. 12. 
 
 I 
 
114 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Glasgow Normal School was taken over by the church 
 in the same year.^ 
 
 Meanwhile the Disruption had taken place, and Stow 
 and most of his colleagues were obliged to leave the 
 Dundas Vale school. To receive them and their 
 students the Free Church erected new premises in the 
 Cowcaddens, and over this Stow presided until his 
 death in 1864. He is a man to whom Scottish educa- 
 tion owes much. 
 
 The same duplication of Normal colleges took place 
 in Edinburgh. In that city there was also founded in 
 1850 an Episcopal Training College. At first intended 
 for men-students, it was in 1867 converted into a 
 college for women, and in 1877 transferred to Dairy 
 House. Later two training colleges in Aberdeen, and 
 still later one for Catholic students in Glasgow, com- 
 pleted the provision. All were denominational as far 
 as the appointments to their staffs were concerned, but 
 in later years there was practically no denominational 
 feeling of preference on the students' part, as be- 
 tween Church of Scotland and Free Church colleges. 
 St. George's, a Training College for Secondary teachers, 
 has been at work in ICdinburgh since 1886, but it has 
 been in the habit of seeking certificates of practical 
 skill for its students from the University of Cambridge. 
 
 The Pupil-Teacher system in England grew out of 
 the monitorial systems of Bell and Lancaster. As a 
 recognised method of staffing it dates from 1846. In 
 Scotland the Pupil-Teacher had a five years' apprentice- 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 15. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 115 
 
 ship. Later it was reduced to four, and still later a 
 shortened period of two years was allowed. The 
 Pupil-Teacher then underwent an Entrance Examina- 
 tion, and if he passed high enough he was allowed to 
 enter the Training College. If not, he went on teach- 
 ing. The illogicality of, in effect, dubbing a candidate 
 as too bad to be trained, but good enough to teach, was 
 continued until a few years ago. The Pupil-Teacher 
 system probably turned out better teachers than 
 students. As the greater part of the time was de- 
 voted to teaching, even those of moderate aptitude 
 acquired a power of handling a class. But the small 
 amount of time available for lessons was as a rule 
 a severe handicap. Especially from smaller schools 
 in the remote districts the Pupil-Teachers were at a 
 great disadvantage in the entrance examination. 
 
 The time spent in the Training College was two 
 years, but three years in the case of students who 
 combined University work with their training course, 
 an arrangement recommended by Dr. Kerr in 1865 
 and adopted some years later.^ The large number of 
 masters, even of those who are engaged in elementary 
 teaching, who have taken a University course, is a 
 striking feature of the teaching profession in Scotland. 
 
 THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 The Scottish Universities were reconstituted by the 
 Act of 1858. Commissioners were appointed under 
 the Act to carry out important changes. The manage- 
 
 * Dr. Kerr, Scottish Education^ p. 296. 
 
116 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 ment of the University was committed to two bodies 
 — the Senatus, consisting of the professors, and the 
 University Court, made up of the Eector (elected by 
 the students), the Principal, and four assessors. In 
 Edinburgh, where the Town Council had been the 
 managers, the Lord Provost was added to the Court, 
 and in Glasgow the Dean of Faculties. The later Act 
 of 1889 increased the number of members in the Courts 
 and included in each case the Provost. The Courts 
 as now constituted act as the business management, 
 whilst the Senate charges itself with the internal dis- 
 cipline and with educational affairs. In addition to 
 the Senate and the Court an important body con- 
 stituted by the Act of 1858 is the General Council, 
 which consists of the whole body of graduates, has two 
 statutory meetings yearly, and makes representations 
 to the Court on any matters that concern the interests 
 of the University. 
 
 Other great changes were made in the universities 
 by the Commissioners: the bursary system was re- 
 arranged, the order in which the various subjects were 
 to be studied was left optional, with certain restric- 
 tions, arrangements were made for the appointment 
 of professors' assistants and for degree examiners, and 
 new regulations were made for graduation both in Arts 
 and in Medicine. 
 
 The whole effect on University life and work was 
 salutary : fresh energy was put forth, management was 
 improved, the number of students rose, the standard 
 of University scholarship improved, and graduation 
 again became the natural crown of a University course. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 117 
 
 Among the new chairs founded some time after, were 
 those of Education at St. Andrews and at Edinburgh 
 (1876). Glasgow and Aberdeen have not yet pro- 
 fessorships in this subject, although they have of late 
 years established lectureships. 
 
 One of the difficulties in the Universities was the 
 existence of junior classes which were doing work at 
 a school level ; but until there could be a more general 
 and adequate provision of secondary schools through- 
 out the country it was not thought advisable to insist 
 on an entrance examination. To do so, it was felt, 
 might exclude earnest students likely to profit by 
 University attendance, who had no opportunity of 
 securing a sufficient school preparation. The Com- 
 missioners of 1889, however, expressed their opinion 
 that the junior classes should not be looked upon as 
 other than a temporary expedient. It was in 1892 
 that the present Preliminary Examination was in- 
 stituted, and no student allowed to graduate until he 
 had attended three years after passing the examina- 
 tion. The 1889 Commission introduced greater liberty 
 in the selection of subjects for graduation in Arts. 
 But the number of subjects, seven, a quaint survival 
 of Trivium and Quadrivium, was still maintained for 
 the pass degree. Faculties of Science to suit each 
 University were introduced. In 1884 a new body came 
 into existence — the Students' Representative Council. 
 It was felt by the students that some regular means 
 of communication was required between them and the 
 Senate and Court. On their own initiative they held 
 meetings and appointed representatives, and the Council 
 
118 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 now forms a recognised and useful part of University 
 machinery. 
 
 The eight years' work of the Commissioners, with 
 the Universities Committee of the Privy Council as 
 a court of appeal, dealt with all aspects of the Univer- 
 sity arrangements : new chairs and new lectureships 
 were established, regulations for degrees amended, the 
 medical course lengthened, the bursary scheme altered, 
 research and post-graduate work furthered, and women 
 admitted to graduation — all important changes, cal- 
 culated to benefit the higher education of the country. 
 
VII 
 
 EECENT MOVEMENTS AND CUEEENT 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 In approaching the discussion of current educational 
 movements one is met on the threshold by the 
 difficulty that invariably confronts any attempt to 
 study contemporary events. The wood can hardly 
 be seen for the trees. The seeming importance of 
 a question may have little relation to its essential 
 value in the evolution of a system, but may arise 
 instead only from superficial and temporary accidents. 
 For a spectator who is a contemporary of the move- 
 ments he desires to observe, the task of detachment 
 is a serious one, and the difficulty of placing events in 
 their true perspective wellnigh insuperable, however 
 much the observer may try to free himself from the 
 prepossessions and partialities of the moment. 
 
 What makes the disentanglement of educational 
 problems particularly difficult at the present time is 
 the overwhelming clamour of voices — propagandist, 
 critical, explanatory, or defensive ; expert, amateur or 
 ignorant — that surrounds every social question of the 
 present hour. 
 
 Every man has views on education, for has not 
 every man been more or less educated himself ? To 
 
 119 
 
120 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 his profit or pain he has passed through a school, 
 and claims that he is in consequence entitled to ex- 
 press an opinion on questions of school management 
 and school method. To make matters worse, managers 
 and teachers, departmental officials and statesmen, 
 have each their own angle of view, which afifects 
 materially their attitude towards educational ques- 
 tions. 
 
 Admitting then the impossibility of any particular 
 observer hoping to free himself from every eidolon, it 
 may be permissible to express one's views on the current 
 questions with decision, but also, let us hope, without 
 dogmatism. 
 
 Five main questions seem to call for discussion : 
 (1) recent changes in the primary schools — in adminis- 
 trative demands, in the improvement of teaching 
 methods, and in the wider view of the school's relation 
 to the child and to society; (2) the very successful 
 effort that has been made to organise and to finance 
 the secondary schools of the country ; (3) the rapid 
 development, encouraged by the Education Depart- 
 ment, of the Central Institutions of Art, Science, 
 Agriculture, and Commerce, and the corresponding 
 forward movement of the Universities; (4) the new 
 system launched by the Education Department for 
 the training and certification of teachers ; and (5) the 
 changes brought about in the administration of all 
 grades of education — partly by legislation, but even 
 more by Departmental Minute. 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 121 
 
 "When a primary school of to-day is compared with 
 that of twenty years ago, the first thing that strikes 
 one is the increased number and variety of the subjects 
 taught. Now as then, of course, the first effort of the 
 teacher is directed towards the mastery of the three 
 arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic ; and properly 
 so, for with these arts acquired, the avenues of all 
 knowledge may be said to be opened. But other 
 subjects have been added giving a richer and fuller 
 aspect to school training. Drawing is taught to every 
 pupil, and taught now by contact with real objects of 
 man's or Nature's fashioning. Various mediums are 
 used, and, in especial, the delight of colour has been 
 added, an innovation that would have rejoiced the 
 heart of the child of twenty years ago. Individual 
 interpretations of the tones and tints of beautiful 
 things have taken the place of wiry-lined copies of 
 wiry-lined anthemions. In every school physical 
 exercises of a rational kind, based on Ling's system, 
 are now compulsory. The old barren object-lessons — 
 to-day on a piece of coal, to-morrow on a camel — have 
 been supplanted by an orderly series of connected 
 lessons on the natural phenomena of the world in 
 which the children move daily — with its changes of 
 weather, its flowers, butterflies, and birds, its passing 
 seasons, and its human industries. School gardens 
 have sprung up mysteriously, even from the baked 
 asphalt of city playgrounds. Recreative reading and 
 the memorising of beautiful passages of prose and 
 poetry receive more time and more sympathetic 
 treatment than in the old days. The busy hands, 
 
122 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 too, that were a source of embarrassment to their 
 owners and of annoyance to the conscientious teacher 
 have been pressed into the educational service. 
 Kindergarten gifts convey unconsciously, through 
 pleasant play, ideas of form and number. Paper, 
 cardboard, and clay are manipulated with pleasure 
 and profit. The older boys learn the delights of 
 handling saw and plane and chisel. Even the needle- 
 work which the girls of twenty years ago had in 
 abundance has changed its character and has ceased 
 to be a torture of stitches incredibly small and 
 impossibly uniform. Instead, the younger ones make 
 little garments for their dolls, and the older ones 
 delight in blouse-making and the sewing-machine. 
 
 Other old subjects have shared in the vitalising : 
 geography consists no longer of lists of names to be 
 memorised, but has become instead a series of exercises 
 in intelligence and observation; history is no longer 
 strings of dates but a revivification of old times and 
 manners, and of the great men and women of the 
 past. Even the three K's themselves, though still the 
 main staple of early education, are approached by 
 more attractive and more intelligent methods. Teachers 
 have learned better how to keep up the interest of a 
 subject and to anticipate its difficulties. They have 
 pleasanter ways of control ; discipline, without being 
 less eff'ective, is less severe than of old, and pains are 
 taken to make the road of knowledge smooth walking 
 for little feet. 
 
 There is, of course, some risk in it all. There is 
 just a chance that some teachers may err on the side 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 123 
 
 of doing too much for their pupils, that the old inde- 
 pendence and power of attack that the former system 
 — partly through its defects — encouraged, may be 
 lost. The use of cog-wheel railways over the Hill 
 Difficulty may lead to the atrophy of the pilgrims' 
 limbs. Good teaching method is of great importance, 
 but, after all, it is learning rather than teaching that 
 matters. Education must be a process from within 
 rather than from without. 
 
 Accompanying the changes for the better in methods 
 of teaching has been the introduction of wiser ways of 
 examining. Inspection is no longer an attempt to 
 appraise educational and moral results in terms of 
 £ s. d., that extraordinary device of the commercial 
 British mind that was for years the wonder of foreign 
 educators. Individual examination and payment by 
 results have been supplanted by inspection and block 
 grants based on attendance. Much still remains to be 
 done in this direction ; can anyone say, for example, 
 why there should be a payment of 18s. for a child 
 under seven, of 20s. for a child between seven and ten, 
 and of 22s. for one over ten ? Is it that infants are 
 less valuable? Or more easy to teach? With the 
 disappearance of the standards more freedom is left to 
 the teacher as to the matter and manner of the teach- 
 ing. This is a step in the right direction; for no 
 teacher can be expected to encourage individuality and 
 initiative in his pupils if no scope is afforded in which 
 he may himself exercise these qualities. The freedom, 
 
124 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 however, presumably granted by recent Codes, is 
 occasionally more apparent than real It is said that 
 in some districts, and with some individuals, the 
 inspector has become a new Code. This, if it exists, is 
 bad. As it is necessary that a teacher, most of all a 
 strong teacher, should carefully refrain from imposing 
 his personality on his pupils, even more will a wise 
 inspector leave room for the teacher's individuality, 
 welcome originality and intelligent nonconformity, and 
 in the case even of those who seem to him somewhat 
 old-fashioned in their methods, whether from want of 
 ability or from the rigidity that sometimes comes with 
 age, realise that the ideally best method is not neces- 
 sarily the best for every teacher. 
 
 A notable feature of the new outlook is the greater 
 attention that is being given to the pupil's physical 
 well-being. Better lighted and better ventilated class- 
 rooms, better systems of heating, the provision of more 
 floor- and air-space, and of more comfortable types of 
 desks, are all symptoms of the movement. Still an- 
 other is furnished by the recent legislative provision 
 of school medical officers. As the discovery of defects 
 will not of itself bring about improvement, many per- 
 sons expect to see this followed up by school clinics, 
 that "svill supplement State inspection by State treat- 
 ment. Meanwhile, various charitable agencies have 
 set themselves to feed hungry children and to clothe 
 naked ones. It is interesting to see that even persons 
 who on principle object to any parent being relieved, 
 under any circumstances, of these primitive duties 
 protest but weakly when the hungry and naked child 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 125 
 
 is presented to them. The general feeling throughout 
 society at the present moment is in favour of giving 
 every child a chance of a fair start. The present 
 wave of public sentiment towards the poor and the 
 wretched seems to be concentrating on the children 
 as the surest means of effecting social improve- 
 ment. 
 
 The regard in which schools are now held as a means 
 of setting on foot new social and economic movements 
 is another interesting indication. Do the authorities 
 wish to prevent rural depopulation ? Establish courses 
 with a rural bias in country schools. Do the medical 
 experts wish to improve the dentition of the race ? 
 Introduce tooth-brush drill into the schools. Are the 
 women not making the homes as comfortable as they 
 might? Give school training in housecraft. Are we 
 appalled by infantile mortality in the slum areas of 
 certain cities? Give the schoolgirls instruction in 
 the care of babies. 
 
 The recently awakened regret that so many boys 
 were entering " blind-alley " employments on leaving 
 school has led to a closer correlation between the 
 school and employers. Bureaux have been established 
 in many towns to bring boys and their parents into 
 more intelligent touch with the labour market, to 
 advise them as to the best forms of employment, and 
 to place at the disposal of the employers the teachers' 
 knowledge of the qualifications and aptitudes of the 
 boys and girls about to leave school. 
 
126 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 One of the difficulties of school organisation has 
 been to fix the point in a child's school career at which 
 the study of secondary subjects might most conveni- 
 ently begin. The Department have come to the con- 
 clusion that this should be done about the age of 
 twelve years, and they have established a Qualifying 
 Examination intended to test the fitness of the 
 primary school pupils for entering on secondary work, 
 or, in the case of those whose circumstances compel 
 them to leave school at fourteen years of age, for 
 passing into Supplementary Classes. 
 
 In the latter there is to be provided a thorough 
 revision and consolidation of elementary work already 
 done, and the training is to be given " a practical turn 
 towards those affairs of life on which they are about to 
 enter." ^ The general aim of the classes is that the 
 pupils should form habits " of applying what they 
 know, finding out what they wish to know, and ex- 
 pressing what they have found." ^ In these Supple- 
 mentary Classes the tendency most strongly marked at 
 present is towards greater use being made of practical 
 work as a means of training — gardening, woodwork, 
 cookery, laundry-work, housewifery. It cannot be 
 doubted that there is scope for a series of educational 
 experiments to test the value of these practical 
 subjects as an instrument for developing intelligence, 
 sharpening observation, and cultivating judgment. 
 
 As the Act of 1908 retains the pupil in school until 
 the " fixed date " succeeding his fourteenth birthday, 
 there is reasonable time for the supplementary course 
 
 ^ Selection of Circular Letters, p. 7. ' Ibid. 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 127 
 
 to exercise its educative effects. School Boards have 
 the right to confer exemption, in exceptional circum- 
 stances and with conditions of further instruction 
 attached, after the age of twelve. The larger Boards 
 have exercised this power very sparingly, and the 
 right is one which the Education Department jealously 
 supervises. 
 
 Finally, enabling powers have been conferred on 
 Boards by the 1908 Act for imposing by means of by- 
 laws compulsory attendance at Continuation Schools 
 on youths of both sexes up to their seventeenth year. 
 The importance of the adolescent period and its possi- 
 bilities have at last begun to be recognised. 
 
 In secondary education the current movements are 
 towards the completion of the system of organisation 
 that began in 1885. No one who regards carefully the 
 advance our secondary schools have made during the 
 last quarter of a century can fail to be impressed by 
 the skilful way in which the movement has been pro- 
 moted and guided by the Education Department. 
 Criticism has been levelled at certain details of their 
 work, and changes have in some cases followed ; but 
 where there has been any considerable departure from 
 the ideal that lies deep down in the national con- 
 sciousness and which has worked' itself out through 
 the centuries, the Department have quickly noticed 
 their mistake and modified their policy. The attempt, 
 for example, to engraft on the Scottish system. Higher 
 Grade schools "predominantly scientific or commercial" 
 
128 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 was bound to fail. It was probably produced by the 
 pressure on the Department of certain grants ear- 
 marked by the Treasury; but not even the bribe of 
 increased payment could induce wise managers to take 
 it up. The movement was abandoned, the Intermediate 
 Course substituted, and the old humanistic training, 
 with a reasonable admixture of realien, restored. 
 Again, on the introduction of Supplementary Courses, 
 it looked for a moment as if the old parish school, far 
 removed from centres, was to lose its ancient right to 
 teach higher subjects to selected scholars. In this 
 case the trouble was caused probably rather by over- 
 zealous inspectors, who misunderstood the Depart- 
 ment's intentions. Certainly the diagram of Educa- 
 tional Organisation in Scotland that was issued with 
 the selection of Circular Letters (1898-1904) showed 
 full recognition of such work when done by the smaller 
 schools. 
 
 The completion of the organisation of the secondary 
 schools is proceeding apace. The schools have been 
 graded, in a prefatory note to the Code, according to the 
 length of their course and the nature of the certificate 
 which marks its successful completion. Intermediate 
 schools are those which have a three years' course and 
 keep their pupils until the age of fifteen to sixteen years. 
 Secondary schools have a five or six years' course and 
 keep their pupils as a rule until the age of eighteen. 
 In the former the Intermediate Certificate marks the 
 satisfactory completion of a well-balanced course of 
 secondary education extending over at least three 
 years and including instruction in English, Mathe- 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 129 
 
 matics, Science, Drawing, and at least one language other 
 than English. In the latter class of schools the Inter- 
 mediate Certificate is taken about the middle of the 
 course, and a further course of study extending over 
 two or three years is satisfactorily completed by the 
 award of a full Leaving Certificate, whfch also In most 
 cases admits to the University. The value of both 
 certificates is now recognised by parents, but would 
 undoubtedly be greatly enhanced if a certain number 
 of Civil Service vacancies were reserved for those who 
 held them. 
 
 The introduction of the Junior Student system has 
 been most ingeniously used as a lever to secure better 
 equipment and better staffing for secondary education 
 in the schools — whether Higher Class or Higher Grade 
 — that have been recognised as Junior Student centres. 
 The Department has also skilfully made use of the 
 Junior Student Course as a means of adding a year to 
 the secondary course. The high standard of the In- 
 termediate Certificate Examination is in many cases 
 adding another year to the Intermediate Certificate 
 Course. It is nominally a three years' course, but 
 many pupils find that it needs four years of prepara- 
 tion. The leaving age from a Scotch Secondary School 
 is no longer as it once was, sixteen years, but is now 
 for most pupils eighteen or over. The Department 
 have long envied the lengthy course pursued in German 
 schools, and appeals to parents in the annual report 
 having failed, success could be obtained only by other 
 means. That the leaving age is still steadily rising is 
 a proof of the success of the Department's new method. 
 
130 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 The present difficulty with which the Department 
 is concerned is the arrangement of Post-Intermediate 
 courses. Their first attempt has been the issue of the 
 recent circular regulating Junior Student courses. 
 Here, owing to the special grants, they were more 
 logically in a position to dictate. But the effort has 
 been ill received by the teaching profession. The ideas 
 underlying it that the first purpose of this State sub- 
 vention is the provision of teachers for elementary 
 schools, and that there is no need that these should 
 have a University course, are unpalatable, particularly 
 the latter. The even more thorny problem of the 
 courses allowable or desirable for ordinary secondary 
 pupils, and the relation of these and of the Leaving 
 Certificate to the Preliminary Examination of the 
 University Joint Board, is one which is still exercising 
 the Department. They have had the wisdom to give 
 the various teachers' organisations an opportunity for 
 conference and presentation of their views.^ 
 
 An important bursary scheme for the counties and 
 the greater burghs has brought nearer Knox's ideal 
 that every lad of ability, whether rich or poor, should 
 be educated "so that the commonwealth may have 
 comfort by him." But just here a safeguard is at 
 present required which Knox was shrewd enough to 
 
 ^ Since the above was written the Department have issued in 
 Circular 340 their new regulations for Leaving Certificates. The 
 certificate will normally be secured by a pass in Higher English, in 
 the Higher Grade of a language other than English, and in Higher 
 Mathematics or Science, together with satisfactory work in a fourth 
 subject, the study of which has been continued throughout the 
 course. 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 131 
 
 see the need of. Are all pupils who are being given 
 at present a secondary education by means of a State 
 subsidy worthy of it or likely to prove profitable to 
 the commonweal? We have been much concerned 
 to secure for our youth an opportunity of stepping on 
 to this secondary-education ladder ; have we also had 
 the wisdom to realise that for a certain proportion of 
 those who start to climb opportunity will have to be 
 given for their stepping off? Whenever it is certain 
 that their climbing power is exhausted, it should be 
 made easy for them to leave school and find their 
 proper work elsewhere. 
 
 A noteworthy change has been made in the method 
 of appointing bursars. This is no longer done by 
 competitive examination between pupils from different 
 schools, a system which gave the preference to pupils 
 from schools taught by able teachers. Instead, the 
 ideal towards which the County Committees are work- 
 ing is to give one or more bursaries to each school.^ 
 There is at present some tendency to secure uniformity 
 by forcing boys and girls to Centre Schools at the 
 early age of twelve or thirteen years. This practice 
 is heartily to be condemned. No educational benefit 
 can at that age compensate for the loss of parental 
 supervision and home influence. On this point The 
 First Booh of Discipline has wise words: "The 
 youtheid and tender children sail be nurischit and 
 brocht up in virtue, in presence of thair freindis ; by 
 whose good attendance many inconvenientis may be 
 
 ^ When may wo expect to see the same principle of allocation 
 applied by the University authorities to secondary schools ? 
 
132 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 avoided, in the which the youth commonlie fallis, 
 eather by too muche libertie, which thai have in 
 strange and unknawin plasis, while thai cannot rule 
 them selfis ; or ellis for lacke of gude attendence, and 
 of such necessiteis as thair tender aige requireth." 
 
 For Secondary Schools there is the same danger 
 ahead as has been pointed out for Primary — the im- 
 position on the schools of the personality — the word 
 is used advisedly — of the Department. No school 
 and no teacher can do well the work of education 
 without freedom, power of initiative, independence of 
 judgment, individuality. Over-zeal, even for the best 
 of ends, on the part of officials may seriously damage 
 these qualities. Uniformity of system may be gained 
 at too great a cost. It is true that a certain amount 
 of unity must be secured; anarchy is not freedom. 
 But equally important is it to preserve variety amid 
 the unity. Variety of management, variety of schools, 
 variety of aim, variety of curriculum, variety of 
 method — these are things to conserve tenaciously in 
 our secondary schools. It was necessary to get out of 
 chaos, but our cosmos need not be geometric. 
 
 In the discussion of Technical Education it was 
 shown that at the head of the Continuation Class 
 system stood the Technical College. The development 
 of these Central Institutions continues to receive 
 much attention from the Department. In addition to 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 133 
 
 those already discussed others are being developed — 
 for Art, for Commerce, for Agriculture, for Naviga- 
 tion. It is intended not only that the Continuation 
 Classes should feed these, but that the teaching staff 
 of the Central Institution should directly influence 
 the syllabuses and methods of the subsidiary classes 
 of their area. The central institutions themselves are 
 intended "to provide for work at the University 
 level" and to develop facilities for research. The 
 future has still to see the working out of the relation 
 of these colleges to the University of their area. 
 
 At the same time much remains to be done to im- 
 prove the Universities themselves. They need to be 
 brought into closer contact with the schools which act 
 as their feeders, and they need to become leaders of 
 the schools, instead of, as at present, somewhat of a 
 dead-weight, which in a sense the schools have to push 
 forward before they can themselves advance. Can it 
 be denied that for some years past the schools have 
 been more progressive than the Universities ? There 
 is no desire to minimise the value of the progressive 
 work being done by individual members of the pro- 
 fessoriate. Every Scottish student cherishes one or 
 more of these in his memory with lasting thankful- 
 ness. But this need not blind our eyes to certain 
 disappointing general features of inertia in some 
 regions of University life and work. The medical 
 schools of the Universities lead the medical thought 
 of the country. Why cannot the Universities as a 
 whole be more of a living influence than they are, be 
 more directly in touch with the movement of national 
 
134 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 life and more sensitive to the thoughts of the age 
 before these become fully conscious of themselves ? 
 
 Improvements in educational detail also are needed 
 in the Universities; better methods of teaching, 
 smaller classes, improved methods of laboratory 
 instruction, and more encouragement of post-graduate 
 research. Let the Civil Service age of superannuation, 
 accompanied by generous provision of pensions, be 
 applied to the professoriate. Anachronisms, whether 
 of methods or of persons, should be removed. 
 
 That it is good for the Universities to retain their 
 liberty most people will agree; but the Universities 
 must realise tiiat they have a price to pay. Liberty 
 involves responsibility. The right to freedom carries 
 with it the necessity for progress. If any institution 
 shows that it fails to realise this, then it becomes a 
 question whether such is fit to remain free. 
 
 It looked for a time as if the recent increased grant 
 from the Government was to be accompanied with 
 some measure of control by the Education Depart- 
 ment. The Universities themselves evidently pre- 
 ferred the control of a presumably ignorant Treasury 
 to that of a too effectively informed Education De- 
 partment. Perhaps they may find in the long run 
 that the Treasury control has drawbacks. Meantime, 
 another control is being steadily established which 
 also threatens the autonomy of the Universities — 
 that exercised through the purse by the Carnegie 
 Trustees. One wonders gravely what the ultimate 
 effect of this Trust may be on our Universities and 
 our students. Even with the most admirable inten- 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 135 
 
 tions, is it desirable that the Trustees should be in a 
 position, by means of ear-marked grants, to dictate 
 the lines of advance that are to be followed? The 
 payment of students' fees many persons regard with 
 even greater distrust. The number of beneficiaries is 
 increasing. In 1901 at the four Universities 2684 
 availed themselves of the Trust ; last year (1909-10), 
 3823. In 1901 £34,960 was paid in fees ; last year, 
 £48,313.^ When one remembers that previous to the 
 operations of the Trust, students similar to these 
 found their own fees, the question seems at least 
 worthy of discussion whether the new way is better 
 than the old. Would it not have been better if the 
 fund had been one from which a poor student could 
 borrow, on his own promise to repay, what he needed 
 to carry him through his course ? One indirect result 
 of this fee-paying has been to produce the unedifying 
 spectacle of the Universities " tripping each other " in 
 their eagerness to raise their class fees. It is now 
 more difficult than it was before the Trust was founded 
 for a student who wishes to pay his own way to do so. 
 At present it looks as if the demand for the fixing of 
 a composite fee might be made an excuse for a second 
 rise in class fees.^ 
 
 It has been already pointed out that the average 
 entrance age for our Universities is now nineteen. This 
 at first seems all to the good. Certainly the balance 
 of benefit is great for the University work itself. But 
 
 ^ Ninth Report of tJu Carnegie Trust 
 
 2 This danger seems now to have been obviated, thanks partly at 
 least to the stand made by the General Councils. 
 
136 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 a study of the statistics will show that in spite 
 of the greatly increased facilities for secondary edu- 
 cation, the number of men students at the Univer- 
 sities is not increasing. Even with the admission 
 of women the increase in the total number of 
 students during the last ten years has been slight. 
 In 1901 St. Andrews had 435 students, in 1909, 571 ; 
 Glasgow for the same years, 2041 and 2653; 
 Aberdeen, 831 and 1007; and Edinburgh, 2872 
 and 3075. Taking the four Universities together, 
 there were, in 1901, 6179 matriculated students and 
 in 1909, 7306. The significance of this seems to be 
 that those who are to enter callings other than the 
 professions are no longer able, owing to their prolonged 
 attendance at school, to take a further course at a 
 University. If this is the explanation, it involves a 
 serious national loss. Nothing could be better for the 
 culture of the nation than to have among the ranks of 
 its business men, its farmers, and its organisers of 
 industry, a leaven of University graduates. 
 
 The improvement in secondary teaching and the in- 
 stitution of the Leaving Certificate and Preliminary 
 Examinations are sending up students greatly better 
 prepared than they were twenty years ago. It is probably 
 not far off the mark to say that many schoolboys now, 
 on leaving school, could take the degree examinations 
 in Latin, Greek, and mathematics of thirty years ago. 
 The better state of preparation on entering should 
 have much improved the teaching and standard of 
 scholarship in our Universities. Further, the age of 
 entrance, as already shown, has risen. There are men 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 137 
 
 still living who entered the University at twelve years 
 of age ; the average student of the present day enters 
 at nineteen. Both of these changes are favourable to 
 a higher standard of teaching. One wonders to what 
 extent the new possibilities have been realised by our 
 University professors and lecturers. 
 
 Among the present movements that attract atten- 
 tion the new method of training teachers calls for 
 mention. The old Pupil-Teacher system has been 
 superseded. Future teachers are to be drawn from 
 the pupils of secondary schools and are to receive a 
 full six years' course of training in secondary subjects 
 with a restricted amount of practical training in teach- 
 ing superadded. No specialisation is attempted until 
 the Intermediate Certificate has been obtained. The 
 candidate then seeks nomination through the County 
 or Burgh Committee within whose bounds his parents 
 reside. The number of nominations allowed for any 
 one county is strictly limited, the number being deter- 
 mined by a careful calculation made by the Department 
 of the number of new teachers needed yearly to supply 
 the waste of the profession and the advancing demands 
 of the schools. The nominated students, selected on 
 account of their possession of the qualities that will fit 
 them to be teachers, spend three years at a secondary 
 school which has been recognised as a Junior Student 
 Centre. They then proceed to the Training Centre, 
 where they spend the next two years as Senior 
 Students. With this, if they can spare the additional 
 
138 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 years, they may combine a pass or honours course at a 
 University. On the satisfactory completion of their 
 course they are provisionally certificated for school 
 service, but their final recognition depends on satisfac- 
 tory reports being obtained during the two years of 
 their teaching probation in school. 
 
 The new system should greatly raise the level of 
 scholarship among teachers. Most of them will go up 
 to the Training Centre at or near the Leaving Certificate 
 stage, that is to say, they will enter on their training 
 better equipped academically than under the old system 
 they were when they finished their course. As far as 
 can be judged at present, the change should in a few 
 years make the school masters and mistresses of Scot- 
 land one of the best educated bodies of teachers in the 
 world. If no barriers are placed in the way, and if the 
 pass degree ceases to be discouraged, many of them 
 will graduate, and in this way the old traditional close 
 association of Scottish teachers (including those in 
 primary schools) with the Universities will be main- 
 tained. 
 
 It has been objected to the new system that the 
 students turned out by it have not the practical teach- 
 ing skill of those produced by the old system. Such a 
 judgment is premature, as the products of the new 
 system are not yet available in sujB&cient numbers for 
 demonstration. A ijriori judgments on such a subject 
 are of no value. 
 
 Need we look on the new training arrangements as 
 final ? Can there not yet be established in our Uni- 
 versities a Faculty of Education as of Law, Medicine, 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 139 
 
 and Theology ? May the Training Centres not become 
 the clinical wards of the profession ? Why not have 
 each Scottish teacher a University graduate in peda- 
 gogy ; whether after two years' study (as in the case 
 of a Bachelor of Law) or after three years of pro- 
 fessional study following upon graduation in Arts (as 
 in the case of a Bachelor of Laws or a Bachelor of 
 Divinity) ? The teacher of elementary subjects will 
 teach them all the more skilfully if he has the wider 
 outlook and the larger sympathies of one who has 
 shared in the culture of one of our ancient seats of 
 University learning. 
 
 Whatever will improve the status of the teachers 
 and the dignity of their profession is to be encouraged. 
 In this way good men will be attracted and the youth 
 of the country will benefit. The public recognition of 
 teachers, even in Scotland, still leaves something to be 
 desired. We have found that in the old days the 
 rector scolarum was a citizen of great importance who, 
 in public affairs, often took a worthy place among nobles 
 and distinguished clerics. But the schoolmaster is 
 not so regarded in modern times. Those, for example, 
 who distribute public honours overlook him. Such 
 honours are frequently bestowed on successful busi- 
 ness men or leaders of great industries ; actors, 
 authors, engineers, scientists, physicians, lawyers, re- 
 ceive occasional State recognition ; but who ever 
 heard of a schoolmaster, the maker of men and 
 moulder of citizens, receiving knighthood? 
 
140 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 A survey of the present educational position which 
 did not consider, however briefly, the question of 
 administration would be incomplete. Education in 
 Scotland is now controlled by many bodies, appointed 
 in divers ways. Elementary schools are under the 
 charge of School Boards or of Church or other 
 voluntary managers. Secondary Schools are controlled 
 by School Boards or Grovemors, and to a certain 
 extent by County and Burgh Committees of hetero- 
 geneous composition. Training Colleges are managed 
 by Provincial Committees of mixed constitution. The 
 Central Institutions are under Governors appointed 
 by various interested public and private bodies, and 
 the Universities are under the University Courts. 
 Above most of these authorities sits the Education 
 Department, guiding, inspecting, and to a great extent 
 controlling, primary and secondary schools (including 
 endowed schools), training colleges, and central institu- 
 tions. Only the Universities have escaped so far. 
 
 Assuming the good points of the various managing 
 bodies, let us consider some of their defects. For 
 School Boards the areas are in many cases too small 
 to maintain a secondary school, therefore too small 
 to be an educational unit. The cumulative vote, 
 combined with the Parliamentary franchise, makes 
 it possible for any small band of " cranks " to put in 
 one or more of their number. Little power of initiative 
 is left to the Boards — flanked as they are by the 
 regulations of the Department on the one hand, and 
 by the County Committee and its overlapping of their 
 sphere of action on the other. They have to find 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 141 
 
 locally a larger proportion than was formerly the case 
 of the money spent on schools, and many of them are 
 hag-ridden by dread of the ratepayer. 
 
 County and Burgh Committees are bodies which 
 were created by Departmental Minute for the super- 
 vision of secondary education and have now had their 
 very large spending powers, connected with both 
 secondary and primary education, confirmed by law. 
 They are non-elective, in the sense that their members 
 are not voted in by the general body of the people, 
 and are therefore irresponsible. The members are 
 drawn from various districts of a county, and each 
 naturally desires to secure for his own area as liberal 
 treatment as possible. Whether the diagonal result- 
 ing from the action of so many conflicting forces is 
 always the best line of movement is open to doubt. 
 The Department has one or more assessors in each 
 Committee, and where these are strong men they 
 direct its policy, probably to the advantage of rapid 
 educational progress, but to the detriment of the 
 administrative training of the members. 
 
 The Provincial Committees are also non-elective, 
 in the sense given above. They are closely controlled 
 by the Department, which supplies all the funds, and 
 in practice dictates not only general lines of policy, 
 but even such details as the amount of salary to be 
 given to the lecturers and instructors. 
 
 Speaking generally, we may say that in the region 
 of Scottish education the Department's power is 
 limited only by the hardheartedness of the British 
 Treasury, and by the naturally slow development in 
 
142 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 the country of ideas on matters of advanced educational 
 policy. The permanent staff of the Department con- 
 sists of an excellent band of devoted officials within 
 the office, and another band, the Inspectors, in the 
 field. The latter are those who come into contact 
 with the public. Through them the Department are 
 kept in close touch with the thought of educational 
 workers, and with the progress, the defects, and the 
 needs of the schools. 
 
 In the Memorandum which serves as introduction 
 to the Selection of Circulars (1898-1904), published 
 by the Department, there is an excellent statement 
 of the aims that actuated the Department during the 
 period specified. The statement is none the less ad- 
 mirable and coherent that it was drawn up after the 
 event; for national progress can be only partially 
 deliberate. Some of the forward movement must 
 always be in obedience to the driving force of general 
 conceptions that arise often mysteriously, and the 
 strange tenacity of national traditions that show 
 themselves wonderfully persistent amidst the changes 
 of administration and the passing of administrators. 
 That the tentative efforts and occasional inconsistencies 
 of policy shown by the Department have indicated 
 something of this blindness is not to be regarded as 
 entirely a fault ; it is a proof that they are in contact 
 with the growth of ideas and are sharing in the 
 national development. 
 
 The inspectorate and its grading pre-dates recent 
 changes and can hardly be said to have been brought 
 into conformity with them. In the old days of rigid 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 143 
 
 individual examination, with much correction of ele- 
 mentary work on paper and scheduling of results, 
 it was appropriate to have a subordinate grade of 
 inspectors whose function was to help in routine work 
 the responsible inspector in charge of a district. But 
 now, with the changed conditions, the need for in- 
 spectors of this class has disappeared. The business 
 of the inspector has been gradually becoming differen- 
 tiated ; the expert is needed to take charge of a group 
 of schools and help by sympathetic discussion and 
 kindly counsel to produce efficiency in the general 
 school-work, and the specialist is needed who will 
 examine in Classics or Mathematics or French or 
 Science or Physical Exercises or Housecraft or Drawing. 
 Chief Inspectors, too, are needed with a large outlook, 
 wide sympathies, long experience, and expert know- 
 ledge, who will tactfully correlate the educational 
 agencies of a province, speak words of wisdom to 
 retrogressive or halting managers, temper the zeal of 
 over-eager specialists, and generally be ready to supply 
 both the power that drives the wheels and the oil 
 that checks the friction at the bearings. 
 
 The need for the Sub-Inspector has gone. The best 
 of them — and many of them are able men — could be 
 promoted to inspectorships. There would be no harm 
 in having smaller and more numerous districts that 
 would find them employment. Any not suited for 
 this responsible work would complete their term of 
 service, but no new appointments of this grade should 
 be made. It is not seemly, as sometimes happens 
 under present conditions, that the schools of teachers 
 
144 EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 of experience should be inspected by young men who 
 give forth educational platitudes to more or less 
 patient schoolmasters, and write reports, which after 
 transmission through the hands of the responsible 
 inspector and the Department come back to the 
 managers as official and well-considered criticisms and 
 recommendations. The point to be made is that 
 the Education Department can hardly be said to 
 have fully realised yet in this matter the nature 
 of the changes that they themselves have brought 
 about. 
 
 No estimate, however, of the inspectorate would be 
 sound, that did not take account of the hearty and 
 intelligent interest taken by the majority of its 
 members in educational questions, their progressive 
 outlook, their enthusiastic sacrifice of time and energy 
 to secure the effective working of the educational 
 system; and this in spite of the fact that the Civil 
 Service effacement of the individual in his Depart- 
 ment renders impossible public knowledge or apprecia- 
 tion of their services. Outside the professional ranks 
 of teachers and managers these men who are doing so 
 much to advance the education of the country are 
 hardly known at all. Consequently the recognition 
 to be obtained is that within the Department. This 
 itself is not without risk. The very departmental 
 etiquette that expects a loyal carrying out of the 
 recognised policy of the Department, and which as far 
 as an outsider can judge is observed with remarkable 
 punctiliousness in Scotland (only a very rare inspector 
 becomes garrulous even after superannuation has 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 145 
 
 removed the official muzzle), must tend to produce an 
 official type of mind, a conformity of opinion, a readi- 
 ness to accept the departmental dicta, and a certain 
 possible impatience with teachers of some individuality 
 who do not respond too readily to changes of educa- 
 tional policy and method. 
 
 There has been left to the last, consideration of the 
 strongest educational influence in the country,i the 
 power that has originated and driven forward the 
 great progressive movements of recent years — the 
 Permanent Secretary. Scotland has been fortunate 
 in her two Secretaries whose work has been contempo- 
 raneous with the forward movement of the last quarter 
 of a century. To Sir Henry Craik's credit stands the 
 organisation of Secondary Education with its system 
 of State inspection, examination, and certification. To 
 him also must be traced the gradual improvements of 
 the Act of 1872. 
 
 His successor, Sir John Struthers, the present head 
 of the Department, is busy completing the work of 
 organisation, and welding the whole educational 
 system of our country into one piece of co-ordinated 
 machinery that will include day schools of all kinds, 
 systematically grouped and graded, continuation 
 
 * Our indebtedness to the successive responsible ministers who, in 
 filling the oflSce of Secretary for Scotland, have had the parliamentary 
 direction of Scottish educational policy, must not be overlooked. 
 These statesmen, of both political parties, have shown a praiseworthy 
 zeal for, and interest in, educational progress, though in their legis- 
 lative efforts they have been hampered by the fact, an excellent one 
 in itself, that there is no party capital in a Scottish Education Bill, 
 seeing that all Scottish Members, on whatever side of the House 
 they sit, are practically at one on the larger educational questions. 
 L 
 
146 EDUCATION m SCOTLAKD 
 
 schools, and central institutions of all types, whether 
 technical institutes, training colleges, schools of art, 
 navigation and housecraft, colleges of agriculture and 
 commerce, or the Universities themselves, which have 
 still to take their full place as the crown of the whole 
 educational system. Nor does his work stop there. 
 A reorganised bursary scheme is to bring equality of 
 opportunity to every boy and girl in our land, whether 
 born in a remote Highland glen or in the heart of a 
 city ; to conduct them not only to school, and maintain 
 them while there if necessary, and give them, if worthy, 
 a secondary education, but to carry them also to the 
 higher institutions of learning "to continew their 
 studie, sa that the commonwealthe may have some 
 comfort by them." It is Knox's ideal, at last about 
 to be realised. 
 
 The Secretary's work, already partially accomplished, 
 is to find a means of combining what was best in the 
 old national tradition with those newer developments, 
 in the choice of studies and in the methods of train- 
 ing, that must be incorporated if our people are to 
 hold their own among the new conditions of modern 
 life. A great part of his task is still before him : to 
 complete the organisation of the educational system 
 and yet secure such freedom to schools, colleges, and 
 Universities as will allow them to develop on original 
 and individual lines; to give sufficient imperial aid 
 and yet not impair local responsibility, local manage- 
 ment, and local initiative ; to secure a high standard 
 of intellectual attainment, and yet ensure that managers 
 and teachers shall regard the development of character 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 147 
 
 as their supreme aim; to conserve, or restore where 
 necessary, the old parental belief in the value of 
 education; to maintain for Scotland its humanistic 
 ideal of training, and yet encourage and aid large 
 experiments, conducted over many years, directed 
 towards securing the full educational value of science 
 and various forms of handwork as a means of mental 
 and moral training; to preserve the open road for 
 merit from places the most lowly, and yet to avoid 
 removing children of tender years from the home and 
 its influences; to bring the Universities into closer 
 touch with the schools ; and to infuse into the adminis- 
 tration of higher education more of a representative 
 and responsible character. 
 
 To produce out of separate entities and disjointed 
 fragments a great correlated system, each unit of 
 which is organically connected with the rest, and sub- 
 serving the good of the whole, and yet free to develop 
 along its own lines of growth ; to preserve all that is 
 best in our national tradition, and yet assimilate what- 
 ever is of value in the ideas of modern t ''ucationists ; 
 to maintain the old democratic aim of equal oppor- 
 tunity for ability wherever found, and yet, while 
 giving help, to leave unharmed the national sturdy 
 spirit of hardiness and independence that made Scots- 
 men of the past angustam amice patiperiem pati ; 
 these together constitute a task both difficult and deli- 
 cate, the successful achievement of which may well 
 prove a worthy monument to any man. 
 
lid EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 
 
 Our tale of the centuries is told. Celtic monks and 
 bards, mediaeval chancellors and rectors, sixteenth- 
 century preachers and bishops, University regents and 
 professors, parish and burgh schoolmasters, all have 
 borne their part in the great work of Scottish educa- 
 tion. There have been times of rapid advance and 
 times of stagnation, of humdrum routine, and again of 
 enlightenment and fertility of ideas. 
 
 And through the ages there have run a few simple 
 ideals, held more or less unconsciously by succeeding 
 generations : that education was a thing valuable in 
 itself and its attainment worthy of self-sacrifice, that 
 it was for the whole people and therefore a matter of 
 State concern, both as regarded provision of schools 
 and compulsion on the unwilling, that the higher in- 
 struction of the Universities ought to be readily 
 accessible to all classes, that secular and religious 
 instruction were both necessary, and in the schools 
 should be closely associated. 
 
 Some of these conceptions are as old as the time of 
 Ninian, others are more modern; but at no time 
 throughout the last four centuries of our history have 
 any of these ideals been lost sight of. They are still 
 at the core of our educational system and affect pro- 
 foundly its arrangements. 
 
 The eminent position the Scottish people and nation 
 have taken in the world is a fit subject of patriotic 
 pride. It is owing, in part at least, to the early 
 diffusion of education throughout all ranks, and to the 
 important place given to religion and education in the 
 national ideal. 
 
RECENT MOVEMENTS AND QUESTIONS 149 
 
 It is for the present generation of Scotsmen, who 
 have entered into the labours of those who have gone 
 before, to see to it that this national ideal is main- 
 tained and strengthened. The educational torch has 
 been passed down to them through the ages by worthy 
 and earnest hands ; it is for them to trim it and hand 
 it on, with brightening flame, to their children. 
 
AUTHOEITIES 
 
 The chief authorities that have been consulted and the 
 sources from which material has been obtained are noted 
 below. References not contained in this list have already 
 been given in the footnotes. 
 
 History of Scotland 
 
 For the general history of Scotland the works of Mr. 
 Andrew Lang and Professor Hume-Brown have been 
 consulted. 
 
 For Scottish literature use has been made of the six 
 volumes published to date of The Cambridge History of 
 English Literature. 
 
 Some illustrative details have been obtained from the 
 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, from the Ex- 
 chequer Rolls of Scotland, and from the publications of the 
 Scottish History Society. 
 
 Ailred's and Adamnan's Lives {Historians of Scotland 
 Series) have furnished a good part of the material relating 
 to Ninian and Coluniba. 
 
 For the history of the Highlands and Islands Skene's 
 Celtic Scotland^ Gregory's History of the Western Islands^ 
 and Mr. W. C. Mackenzie's History of the Outer Hebrides, 
 have been consulted. Some details have also been obtained 
 from the Senchus Mor, translated by W. N. Hancock and 
 T. O'Mahony, from the Chronicum Scotorum, translated by 
 W. M. Hennessy, and from the Orkneyinga Saga, translated 
 by Sir G. W. Dasent. 
 
 150 
 
AUTHORITIES 151 
 
 History of Education 
 Gbneral. 
 
 Compayr^'s The History of Pedagogy^ translated by 
 W. H. Payne; Thomas Davidson's The Education of the 
 Greek People and its Influence on Civilisation^ in the 
 International Education Series ] and the monographs in the 
 Great Educators Series. 
 
 Scottish. 
 
 The book to which the heaviest debt is owing is Grant's 
 History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland. The more it is 
 used the more one is impressed with its permanent value for 
 all who wish to understand the evolution of our Scottish 
 system of schools. 
 
 Edgar's History of Early Scottish Education. 
 
 Dr. Kerr's Scottish Education. 
 
 Sir Henry Craik's The State and Education. 
 
 The official publications of the Universities, and the 
 various reports and other publications of the Scotch 
 Education Department, have also been laid under con- 
 tribution. 
 
 The material for Section Y, dealing with education in the 
 Highlands and Islands, has been built up from many 
 scattered references; a part of it has been obtained by an 
 investigation of the MS. Minutes, extending over a century, 
 of one of the Hebridean Presbyteries. 
 
 For the development of technical education in Scotland 
 in the nineteenth century Prof. A. H. Sexton's The First 
 Technical College has been found helpful. 
 
WILLIAM 6REKDON AKD SON, LTD. 
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