Above, the exterior of the Meigle Museum which was the Meigle schoolhouse in the late 1800s.

The first parish schools in Scotland came into existence in the late 1600s. By 1790, a school had been established in every parish. The parish school was financed by a tax on the local landed proprietors who were obliged to build the schoolhouse and provide the schoolmaster with a salary. Landowners had the right to ask the tenants to pay half of the schoolmaster's salary.

The parish schools were governed by the church. Although the landowners were able to appoint the schoolmaster, he could be dismissed by the Church Court for negligence or for bad conduct. The church inspected the schools and examined the children regularly. Generally, government regulations about the schools were more concerned with how the schools were supported than how the children were educated. Accordingly there was little uniformity between the different schools. This meant that the children's education depended on the quality of the individual master whose appointment was subject to the influence of the landed gentry and/or the clergy. The masters were generally those who were studying to enter the church or were not capable of manual labour. Masters were generally poor - their salary being set by the price of corn. To supplement their income, they were given a small two-roomed house and a quarter of an acre of land to raise their own food.

Parish schools taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Many schools were able to teach some kind of applied or theoretical mathematics slightly more advanced than arithmetic. Geography, Greek and French were the other three subjects most commonly available if the master had those qualification. However, the number of children who ever took any subjects apart from reading, writing, and arithmetic in a parish school was probably always a very small proportion of the total. Religious teaching formed a crucial part of the life of every parish school. The bible was part of every child's first reading, and in many schools, was almost the only reading book available until well into the nineteenth century.

Here's an account of a visitation in 1773 by the Presbytery of Dunkeld to Kinloch Rannoch school that is probably pretty typical.

The Rev. Mr. Macara of Fortingall was chosen as preses, and opened the meeting with prayer. Particular enquiry was made concerning the faithfulness, diligence and success of Mr. Archibald Campbell, the master. He was found to be faithful and diligent, and particularly that he teaches no Latin in his school. He teaches reading, writing and arithmetic. Of the 49 boys at the school, 15 were learning the ABC and 16 were writing. Ten girls were on the ABC but none were writing. All children were learning the Catechism. Of the 67 students, 18 were absent, for whom excuses were sustained. Some were sick, others had gone to the Low Country.

A few small books were thought necessary for the poor scholars. On enquiry the schoolmaster had no grievances, nor had the people any, and the schoolmaster and scholars having been suitably exhorted, the preses concluded the meeting with prayer.

Children could attend the parish school from the age of 6 or 7 until they were 14 or 15. However, parish schools usually contained only one parish schoolmaster who might see, on average, something like 50 or 60 students. This meant that there was often little pressure brought by the minister and the Kirk Session to keep children at school for more than about 4 years. There was little pressure to keep girls at school even for so long, (or in some cases to send them at all). Great regularity of attendance through the year was not insisted upon. Thus, the average parish school in the rural lowlands before 1750 probably could, with any luck, get most of the boys through its doors for a short time in their lives. But if the parish was large, or if the levels of population grew, the number of students became unsustainable.

There were other pressures impacting the students' education as well. Few parents could afford to allow their children to remain at school when there were opportunities for them to contribute to the family income by working in the fields. Attendance during haying and harvest in particular was always extremely thin. There was indeed a chronic problem of absenteeism. For example it is estimated in one parish that less than half of the enrolled children actually attended the school for as much as six months of the year.

However, that is not to say that schooling wasn't thought important. Even the desperately poor scrimped and saved in order to give their offspring the opportunities they themselves had been denied. Here's a quote from the Statistical Accounts.

In Scotland, many half-starve themselves, in order to make savings; not a few lay by several pounds sterling, which they reserve for old age, for putting their children to apprenticeships, or for otherwise bettering their own condition or that of their families. People, who seem to have no livelihood but the fruits of their daily labour, do, by some means or other, bring up families, and even give their children such education as the nearest school affords.

It should not be surprising that the quality of education in the parish school was prone to endemic problems: mechanical teaching, teachers slap-happy with the tawse (strap), over-sized classes, irregular attendance, and far too little to learn. However, the people increasingly came to believe that education was desirable. They wanted their children to learn to read and write but their absences were dictated by the family's need for the pennies their children could earn.

One of the measures of how successful the parish schools were in promoting education was the presence of Adventure Schools. These were private schools operated by men and women who opened their homes to instruct a few children in reading and writing in exchange for a few pence. These schools were most successful in large parishes where it was impossible for every child to attend the single parish school. In smaller parishes, the Kirk Session exercised their right to shut down any adventure school which did not meet their approval, for example if they felt the teacher was incompetent or doctrinally unorthodox. However by the mid-1700s the desire for education in the parishes was so strong that the Kirk Session became virtually powerless to prevent adventure schools from appearing when and where the proprietors wanted.

Sources

Smout, T.C. (1998). A History of the Scottish People, Fontana Press.

Various web sites, including

Perthshire Diary (http://www.perthshirediary.com)

Statistical Accounts of Scotland (http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/)