Scotland in the nineteenth century

5. Education

Section 5.4: The poor

The Education Committee sent a list of queries to the ministers of all the parishes and chapelries in Great Britain in April and May 1818. The answers returned by the Scottish clergy (pp. 1275-1450) referred principally to the year 1818. Replies to queries circulated by a committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland were also included in the report. The returns included details of the population of each parish, schools and educational endowments and any observations made by the ministers. Tables followed for each county showing the population and area of each parish, the number of paupers, parochial schools, unendowed day schools and unendowed Sunday schools and the number of children attending these schools.

A general table showing the state of education in Scotland followed the returns. This included details of the population in 1811, the number of parish schools, endowed schools, unendowed day schools, i.e. dames schools, and ordinary schools, Sunday schools, the number of children attending these schools and their revenue.

Kay had visited the Scottish schools and tried to attract Scottish teachers to work in England. Dr. Kay had visited the Sessional School in Edinburgh conducted by Mr. Wood and the model schools of the Glasgow Normal Seminary (pp. 150-51). These consisted of an infant school, a juvenile school and industrial schools for boys and girls. In both the infant and juvenile schools the boys and girls were educated together, as it was thought to be injurious to separate them "...because it deprives the girls of the benefit of the concentrated answers produced by the stronger minds of the boys; and it deprives the boys of the quick perception, and sometimes deep feeling, envinced even by very little girls, particularly when scripture narratives are under consideration".

It was also found that the boys were less boisterous when taught with the girls. Both masters and mistresses were considered essential and the classroom was arranged with the children in a gallery to give the teachers better control. The junior and infant schools were based on a similar model to help the children settle when moved.

In Edinburgh text books written to suit each stage of growth were used and by this method a taste for reading was engendered.

In Kinghorn Kay found the parish school had established a museum with specimens of art and natural objects of the parish collected and correctly classified (p. 156).

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The Committee looked at the education of destitute children and whether it could be improved by government funding. There were 14 Scottish industrial schools (pp. 130-144). Since their establishment these schools had been maintained by public subscription. He considered the majority of Aberdeen's schools to he very bad, especially in the poor areas where many were run by women unable to do any other work (p. 133). The destitute were well provided for but not the poor, who could have afforded Id a week. It was this group who suffered from the absence of parish schools.

The Committee recommended that there should be no interference in ragged schools which provided a net to catch the poor child.

Appendix 2: Details of the United Industrial School Edinburgh, with tables showing occupations of children on leaving the school (pp. 212-217).

Return of pauper children under 15 years of age in each parish of Scotland showing if they were attending school and the amount the parochial board was spending on their education.