Mr. Walker’s brief experiment of enticement, when attendance did seem to

improve for a short while, it was not until after 1901, when Mrs.Younger

began to offer prizes for regular attendance, that the situation improved

significantly.

The school had been affected by many epidemics of diseases such as

whooping~cough, chicken-pox, measles, and scarlet fever. Then in January,

1883, Mr. Findlay recorded in his log book, ‘Typhoid closed school for eight

weeks and three days’. What he did not reveal, but the School Board Minutes

did, was that the typhoid was in Mr. Findlay’s own family. The Medical

Officer of Health closed the school to prevent an extension of the disease.

It did not go beyond Mr. Findlay’s family, but one daughter died early on

from the disease and his other children and his wife all contracted it. One

son died a few months later, possibly from complications of typhoid. The

drains of both the school and the schoolmaster’s house were thoroughly

examined, as was the school well which had recently been put in, for the

exclusive use of schoolchildren and teachers, as the one previously used was

suspected of having been the source of outbreaks of diarrhea and enteric

fever (typhoid). The water from the well was declared fit for consumption

‘provided it retained its present composition’ (one of the problems of the

Strathkinness wells was that the purity of the water varied greatly from time

to time). Shortly afterwards the drains at the school (i.e. the South School)

were improved. There was great dissatisfaction expressed by some of the

villagers at the school being closed for so long, it was re-opened with a tem-

porary teacher who could stay no more than ten days, and Mr. Findlay was

then obliged to take charge of the school, even though his wife and one

daughter were still critically ill.

When the decision to amalgamate the schools in Strathkinness was finally

taken it was done to save money. Mr. Findlay had already suggested in 1874

that the two senior schools should be amalgamated, dividing the work between

the two masters, teaching in the same school. The proposal was turned down

by the Education Department because of difficulties over the junior and infant

s~ctions. In 1884 the idea was put forward by a member of the School Board

that if Mr. Scott, the schoolmaster in Boarhills (where there had been diffi-

culties for several years and decreased grants because of inadequacies in

teaching) was paid £50 life rent, Mr. Walker transferred to Boarhills School,

and Mr. Findlay, schoolmaster of the South Public School, made the school-

master of the combined schools, with an ‘adjustment’ of the other teachers

(mostly ex-pupil teachers at this time), a saving could be made. The idea was

adopted, and Mr. Walker agreed to the transfer but insisted that he get equal

facilities in Boarhills with regard to his house. Although his house in

Strathkinness was in very bad condition, and had been so for many years,

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