Background: the school system in Edinburgh After the
Reformation there were a series of attempts to provide a network of
parish schools throughout Scotland. By the late seventeenth century this was largely complete in the
Lowlands, but in the
Highlands elementary education was still lacking in many areas. These schools were controlled by the local
Church of Scotland and provided a basic education, mainly to boys. The
Statistical Account of Scotland undertaken parish-by-parish by
John Sinclair in the 1790s indicated that all but the oldest inhabitants were expected to be able to read and that many (although fewer girls) could write and count. However, it also indicated that much of the legal provision of schooling had often fallen into decay. In the burghs there were a range or parish schools, burgh schools and
grammar schools, most of which provided a preparation for one of the Scottish universities. These were supplemented by boarding establishments, known as "hospitals", most of which had been endowed by charities, such as
George Heriot's School and the
Merchant Companies Schools in Edinburgh. The publication of George Lewis's
Scotland: a Half Educated Nation in 1834 began a major debate on the suitability of the parish school system, particularly in rapidly expanding urban areas.
Church schools Aware of the growing shortfall in provision the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland formed an education committee in 1824. The committee had established 214 "assembly schools" by 1865. There were also 120 "sessional schools", mainly established by
kirk sessions in towns and aimed at the children of the poor. The
Disruption of 1843, which created the breakaway
Free Church of Scotland, fragmented the kirk school system. 408 teachers in schools joined the breakaway Free Church. By May 1847 it was claimed that 500 schools had been built, along with two teacher training colleges and a ministerial training college, 513 schoolmasters were being paid direct from a central education fund and over 44,000 children being taught in Free Church schools. The influx of large numbers of Irish immigrants in the nineteenth century led to the establishment of Catholic schools, particularly in the urban west of the country, beginning with Glasgow in 1817. The church schools system was now divided between three major bodies, the established Kirk, the Free Church and the Catholic Church. and 60 per cent of children aged 5–15 in Glasgow were enrolled on their books. From the 1830s and 1840s there were also
mission schools,
ragged schools,
Bible societies and improvement classes, open to members of all forms of Protestantism and particularly aimed at the growing urban working classes. The ragged school movement attempted to provide free education to destitute children. The ideas were taken up in Aberdeen where Sheriff William Watson founded the House of Industry and Refuge, and they were championed by Scottish minister
Thomas Guthrie who wrote
Plea for Ragged Schools (1847), after which they rapidly spread across Britain.
Theory and practice Scots played a major part in the development of teacher education.
Andrew Bell (1753–1832) pioneered the
Monitorial System, by which the more able pupils would pass on the information they had learned to other children and which developed into the pupil-teacher system of training. It was further developed by John Wood, Sheriff-Depute of Peebles, who tended to favour fierce competition in the classroom and strict discipline. In contrast
David Stow (1793–1864), who founded the first
infant school in Scotland, in Glasgow in 1828, focused on the bond between teacher and child and advocated the "Glasgow method", which centred on trained adult teachers. Ultimately Wood's ideas played a greater role in the Scottish educational system as they fitted with the need for rapid expansion and low costs that resulted from the reforms of 1872.
Commissions (c. 1860) by
George Frederic Watts The perceived problems and fragmentation of the Scottish school system led to a process of secularisation, as the state took increasing control. From 1830 the state began to fund buildings with grants, then from 1846 it was funding schools by direct sponsorship. and, unlike in England where they merely attempted to fill gaps in provision, immediately took over the schools of the old and new kirks and were able to begin to enforce attendance, rather than after the decade necessary in England. Overall administration was in the hands of the Scotch (later Scottish) Education Department in London. Demand for places was high and for a generation after the act there was overcrowding in many classrooms, with up to 70 children being taught in one room. The emphasis on a set number of passes at exams also led to much learning by rote and the system of inspection led to even the weakest children being drilled with certain facts.
Secondary education Burgh School Board still bears its name, carved on the stone
pediment above the entrance Unlike the English act, the Scottish one made some provision for secondary education. The Scottish Education Department intended to expand secondary education, but did not intend to produce a universal system. The preferred method was to introduce vocational supplementary teaching in the elementary schools, later known as advanced divisions, up until the age of 14, when pupils would leave to find work. This was controversial because it seemed to counter the cherished principle that schooling was a potential route to university for the bright "lad o' parts". Larger urban school boards established about 200 "higher grade" (secondary) schools as a cheaper alternative to the burgh schools. Some of these were former grammar schools, such as the
Glasgow and
Edinburgh High Schools, Aberdeen New High School and
Perth Academy. Some hospitals became day schools and largely remained independent, while a few, including
Fettes College in Edinburgh, became
public schools on the English model. Other public schools emerged around the mid century, such as
Merchiston,
Loretto School and
Trinity College, Glenalmond. The result of these changes was a fear that secondary education became much harder to access for the children of the poor. However, in the second half of the century roughly a quarter of university students can be described as having working class origins, largely from the skilled and independent sectors of the economy. The Scottish Education Department introduced a
Leaving Certificate Examination in 1888 to set national standards for secondary education. In 1890 school fees were abolished, creating a state-funded, national system of compulsory free basic education with common examinations. ==Universities==