Parents complained that Mr. George Mair, who succeeded Mr. Richard, was

not a ‘proper public Teacher’, and also they said he would no longer let them

use the schoolhouse for a Sabbath school ‘to read and learn religious questions

by heart’. When Mr. Mair complained of breakages at the school they replied

that the Only damage they had done to the school was to break the foot of a

stool, which they had had mended at their own expense, and they added that

they had also ‘put a sneck on the door which had never had one’ and ‘all Mr.

Mair has to do is open and lock the door which is not three feet from his door’.

However, the Kirk Session was opposed in principle to Sabbath Schools, saying

it was the parents’ business to teach their children in their own homes, and

Sabbath Schools could even do harm. They added that they ‘would always be

ready to help those children within their bounds, who being destitute and

neglected, appear to be likely to perish for want of knowledge’. The same day

that the Kirk Session dismissed the Strathkinness petition they received another

one signed by forty-two residents of St. Andrews asking for support in setting

up a Sabbath School saying that it would help prevent ‘the profanation of the

Sabbath, swearing falsehoods and contempt of their superiors, so prevalent

among the young’. The reply of the Session was much the same as that given

to the Strathkinness parents.

Although the parents had complained about Mr. Mair, when he died in

1806 he had been schoolmaster in Strathkinness for twenty-five years. Mr.

Peter Kerr, the next schoolmaster, resigned after five years. When Mr. John

Kilgour was appointed in 1811 he was nineteen years old. While he was

schoolmaster some of the school lands were first let out, at his request, in

order to increase his earnings; as schoolmaster he had a right to the rent from

the school lands. Also during Mr. Kilgour’s term as schoolmaster it was

reported that the school, which had been built about thirty-five years before,

was in dire need of repair. Mr. John Whyte Melville informed the St. Andrews

Kirk Session that he ‘expected Contributions from some of the rest of the

Heritors whose lands are situated in the West Division of the Parish’. After

eight years as schoolmaster Mr. Kilgour left Strathkinness to become minister

of Cameron Church.

Mr. Alexander McDonald, appointed in January of 1819, was a student at

the University of St. Andrews at the time of his appointment, although he

had been an assistant teacher previously in Perth. One of the terms of his

appointment was ‘to teach six poor scholars, without fee, if they shall so

require him’. He resigned in September of the same year. Mr. John Nicolson

who followed him was also a student, and had previously been an interim

schoolmaster at Logie for four years. Mr. Nicolson stayed thirteen years in

Strathkinness, and by the time he left to go to St. Monans as schoolmaster

much of the school lands had been let according to plans he had drawn up.

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