five years petitioned to be appointed to the school in Strathkinness. It is

not likely that she was successful, as the following year she was described as

‘a schoolmistress in Kincaple old and infirm’ and is given assistance to flit

to Strathearn.

There is no mention of parish schools at that time having holidays, but at

harvest time parents simply kept their children at home to work in the fields.

The school day in the summer was a very long one. it could start as early as

6 a.m. and could last eight or nine hours, with some breaks during the day.

In the Kirkcaldy area the children had shorter days on Tuesdays and Thursdays

when they left school at 4 p.m. and on Saturdays the school day finished at

12noon.

Although schooling was supposedly compulsory attendance was extremely

poor, and most children attended school for only three or four years, or even

less. Some parents, not poor enough to have their children accepted as poor

scholars, had to be forced to send them to school, and they removed them at

the earliest opportunity. As the main purpose in the 1600s was to study the

Bible so as to know the word of God, a large number of children would leave

school as soon as they could read. Writing was also taught, although a child

could leave school able to read but not to write. The number of those who

could write their names had undoubtedly increased, but there was not a

dramatic increase in writing abilities. Arithmetic was not considered neces-

sary until the 1700s when it began to appear in the parish schools.

The maintenance of the schools and the salaries of the schoolmasters and

mistresses were the responsibility of the Kirk Session and the heritors (land-

owners of the parish), supplemented by the fees paid by parents. Payment

of fees was a real burden for some parents. For those deemed poor scholars

the fees could be paid by the Kirk Session and in later years by the Parochial

Board, though there is no instance of a payment for a poor scholar for more

than five years and in most cases it would have been considerably less.

In 1675 the Strathkinness School was reported to be in need of repair as

‘it had fallen donne’, and although it was repaired it is probable that from then

until 1710, when there is another reference to a schoolmaster in Strathkinness,

the children from Strathkinness went to school in Kincaple. In 1712 Thomas

Lyall became schoolmaster, and it appears that he stayed until 1755. In that

same year it is recorded ‘considering how many in the neighbourhood have

their children accommodated at that school and considering also that there is

neither schoolhouse nor dwelling house which belongs to the schoolmaster in

Strathkinness, it is agreed to grant the schoolmaster an additional £1.12 Scots’

(one pound Scots was one twelfth the value of one pound sterling). In 1757

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