houses were to be used, they had to be repaired to meet the new standards

of the Education Department. ‘There was also’, it was reported, ‘an immense

cesspool behind the (North) School which cannot be healthy ... Mr. Thom

was to make arrangements for the regular and frequent removal of the filth

and excrement collected behind Mr. Walker’s School’.

The Board decided that the fees for each school should be: ‘Per month.

ten pence for the infant class, one shilling for Standard I, one shilling and

twopence for Standards II and Ill, and one shilling and fourpence for

Standards IV, V and VI’. A fourth child of a family was exempted from fees.

The parents were responsible for the cost of the children’s school books,

although the Parochial Board could pay for books as well as fees for poor

children. However, this was not always done. As late as 1908, a man was

summoned to appear before the School Board for failure to provide books for

his children. Mr. Mauchline had previously written to the Board to the effect

that the family were in a state of abject poverty and that he did not see how

it would be possible for the parents to do anything further for their children

‘in the meantime’. The father was told that a promise from him to procure

books as soon as possible for his children would mean that no proceedings

would be taken against him. Although parents paid for books, the School

Board now paid tne cost of pens, ink, and fuel for heating the school, all of

which had previously been paid by parents.

Unfortunately, Mr. Walker’s log book is missing; but Mr. Findlay’s log

book shows, as no statistics can, the difficulties of a teacher in a rural area

:ike Strathkinness. Fortunately, he did not adhere to the instructions given

at the beginning of a log book that ‘no entry or opinions of a general character

are to be entered’, and in consequence a picture of the village as seen through

us eyes emerges. It is a bleak picture. His principal difficulty was indifference

or positive opposition by many parents. A great number of them, compelled

to send their children to school, did not care about their education. If a child

was needed at home to help in the support of the family, if a child even though

under school-leaving age found a job, or if a child was just going to work in

:ne fields anyway what, they thought, was the point in an education which

they felt was not needed and not wanted, and for which they had to pay?

The entries in the first year of the log book, which starts in 1873, are

typical of the entries throughout Mr. Findlay’s time as schoolmaster. Children

tame to school after the re-opening following the summer holiday in small

-timbers over a period of days and even weeks. This gradual filling of the

-oil was almost immediately followed by a mass exodus of both boys and

;~rls for the potato lifting season which lasted for three, four or perhaps more

*~eeks depending on the weather. The children’s parents counted on the

65