what he found to be low standards of work: ‘Indeed, in the majority of cases

the children have no attention paid to them at home and the result is that many

won’t work unless corporal punishment is resorted to, and instruction under

such conditions is bound to be weak’.

The problem of deliberate absenteeism was decreased dramatically soon

after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Younger at Mount Melville. Mrs. Younger

took a personal interest in the school, something which had been sadly lacking

in almost all members of the School Board, and with the institution of medals

and prizes for regular attendance, and the success of these enticements, Mr.

Mauchline could concentrate more on teaching than Mr. Findlay had been able

to do — although Mr. Findlay had struggled valiantly to keep to his time-table

of work. The policy was so successful that Mr. Mauchline wrote in December

1904, ‘Many children are coughing in school, but they are attending regularly

in the hope that they will receive a medal or prize at the end of the session’.

Epidemics of illnesses such as measles, chicken-pox, whooping-cough and

influenza, which seemed to be almost endemic, continued to lower attendance

considerably as did extreme weather conditions and bad roads. In spite of

these things, however, every year there were several children, often as many as

seventeen, who managed to have perfect attendance for the year, for which

they received a medal from Mrs. Younger; there were several who had seven

years perfect attendance for which they received a silver wristlet watch. One

boy had perfect attendance for eight years and received a pair of gold cuff

links. Those who lived near the school must have had an advantage because

the children who lived long distances away were often unable to get to school

because of the frequently blocked roads.

Mr. Mauchline, like Mr. Findlay, stressed the serious effect of the annual

potato lifting on the work of the school. In 1902, on a suggestion made by

Mr. Mauchline when he first came to Strathkinness, the Board decided to close

the school for three weeks in the autumn to enable all pupils to have the same

amount of schooling. The new system must have been reasonably successful

as it became the practice in all schools in the area. However, as many children

started potato lifting early, had exemptions after the official holiday ended,

and some continued even longer, as in 1904 when Mr. Mauchline records in his

log book, ‘Several children still engaged lifting potatoes on the farm of Mr.

Russell, member of the School Board’, the school both before and after the

official potato lifting period continued to be affected. The annual agri-

cultural term removal at the end of November, which was a centuries-old

practice, also continued to disrupt the work of the school until it finally

disappeared at the beginning of the Second World War.

The school continued to have staffing problems. When a new teacher had

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