OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLUMN

Otago Witness, Volume 14, Issue 2648, 14 December 1904, Page 79

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLUMN

.«. FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. {Conducted by Magisteb, to v.horn all •ommunications must be addressed.] HIGH SCHOOLS, THEN AND NOW. In one of my papers the other day I came across an interesting account of the Stirling High. School in Scotland, and I thought that a portion of it would be interesting- to boys and girls — boys especially — attending our Dunedin High Schools; and also to those who may enter those schools next year. The extracts will exercise your patience, and will be an exercise in Old English or Old Scots: —

The school buildings were certainly not palatial. The Stirling one Tvas a one-storey building on the Castle Hill, covered witli thatch till 1633, when it was rebuilt, enlarged, «nd "theikit with sclaitt." At first there was au> house accommodation either for master or doctors; but in the course of time a master's house was added, Vith-a byre, a " coil-house, mud a- brew-house — and it must be added that for a long time the master had the privilege ofrybrewing his ale free of the local impost on malt, — and afterwards he -was '" possessed in a yaird." The scnool staff consisted — except in very small schools — of a magister, or "maister," and an assistant called the doctor. In the more important grammar schools, like that ■of Stirling, there were always at least two doctors — a Latin doctor and a Scots, or, as h.e was afterwards called, an Inglis doctor. _3Che rule was that both' doctor and maister were appointed by the Town Council, and subject to the authority of that body, although occasionally the council instructed the master to find his own doctor, and be answerable for him. The council, besides appointing the master and fixing his salary and fees, was Careful to protect his interests in the best way known to it, by ordering all male children over six or eight years of age to be sent to the grammar school. Private schoolmasters •who dazed to contravene this order had their *" schule doors stickit up " ; and if they still proved contumacious, were visited with fine, •nd eventually banishment from the town.

The doctors had salaries of £20 (£1 8s aterling) and 20^merks (£1 2s 2d) respectively, -with. their scolages, but they were also entitled *o receive board from the parents of pupils in their order. Somewhat elaborate arrangements ■were made for this purpose. A roll was made •up of all the parents of. pupils in the town, *nd one of the bailies was ordained to see that they should be duly advertised of the date and length, of the/ doctor's visit, and to warn them that if they failed to entertain him they •would have to pay at the rate of 6s 8d af-day — the_charge to be exacted by summary process «f daw.- That seems to indicate some reluctance on the part of the " honest men " to entertain the doctors. And so by-and-bye parents were allowed to commute this obligation to hoard the "doctor by a payment of 6s for' each boy of the family in attendance — three, it is carefully explained, to count as two, and four as three. Masters and bays had to be in their places in -the school at 6 o'clock, and in some burghs at ''5 o'clock, in the morning. These eexly tours continued for more than a century after the Eefdrmation. Stirling was the first school to -make a change by altering the hour to V o'clock, and this example was followed and improved oir hy the High School of Edinburgh, -which was the first to fix: 9 o'clock as the time cf jnorning meeting. Suppose, then, we enter the school with the boys at 6 a.m., we find ourselves in a long, low room, dimly lit by small windows. The boys, none of them under ■six years of age, and many of them well-grown lads, aie ranged on " firms " or " binks/' while the pulpit of the maister is at one end and the stools of the doctors at the other. The floor is earthen, and strewn with bent or rushes, or of stone well sanded. The leges scholss, or school regulations, setting forth the duties of masters £id pupils alike, are written in " gryfc letteris on a bord," and hung up where all can see them. The work" of the day is begun -with prayer, offered by the master; and as_ it was begun so it is closed. After morning; prayer the usual work of the day begins, and goes on till 6 o'clock p.m. There were, however, two breaks in the day's work, the actual teaching hours being from 6 o'clock till 9; then from 10 to 12, when there was an interval of an hour for dinner, and then came a long Bpell from 1 to 6 at night. -A day of 12 hours-, with actual teaching and learning work for 10 liours, looks to us appalling. But it may be doubted whether some of the pupile — and masters, toor-in our higher schools are not ■worked quite as hard at the present day. It must be remembered that the whole work of learning, as well as of reciting lessons, seems to have been done in the school, and the acholar -had no burdensome home lessons to keep him working till far oa in the night, nor the teacher piles of exercises to consume his leisure. And what were the teachers iind masters doing during these long hours of the day? The Soofe doctor>was. of course, tiying to teafch his pupils to read the mother tongue. to write, and do accounts. , did not necessarily begin at the beginning, for as pupils ■were not -admitted > to the grammar • school until they were six. or more usually eight, years of age, they had already received xne rudiments of education in the Scots scnools of the burgh. The master and the Lnlin doctor were busy with their classes in what •was then called grammar — that is to say, instruction in Latin, and in some cases :'xreair. The instruction was given generally in the Xiatin language itself, and the scholars were forbidden to speak to each other in tLe vernacular. A list of penalties was laid down fox the benefit of transgressors of this Imy-— for the first transgression punishment with the ferula, and for further faults a public ■whipping by the master. One Town Council even ordered the master of its grammar school to appoint " private clandestine captors " — a sort of licensed eavesdroppers, who were expected to watch for their schoolfellows dropping into Scots and report them to the master. jßut how, it may he asked, could the scholars "be required to speak Latin before they had learned the language? Two ancient school directories throw some light on this matter. One is that of the Grammar School of Aberdeen, dated just a little before the Eefoimation. This en-joins a Pythagorean silence of one year on scholars in the rudiments. When the choice lay*, between being whipped for making mistakes in his attempts at La-urn-speaking, being caught by the master or a clandestine captor speaking Scots, and hoiai'i'^ liis tongue altogether, we may well enough suppose that elsewhere than at Ab.erdeeu the schoolboy was quite -wiiling to preserve a Pythagorean silence. . . . Besides speaking in the vernacular, sundry other tLings were forbidden.

Would you like those times again? The following extract from another article may not be so interesting to High School l>oys and girls — excepting to those who wish to modernise - the Soots of it, — but Old Identities who know what self-denial was practised in Scotland to secure a liberal education will read it with pleasure, particularly if they have a fair knowledge of Scotch history: —

From the earliest days the Scottish folk %aye valued the benefits of gducatioa jiml

when t-hey had to pay for the teaching the fees were not grudged. Next to the minister ot the place (and in some cases it can be stipposed the minister took a back seat), the schoolmaster would be really the only person who was guilty of any book knowledge. . . . In the middle of the sixteenth century n, further step was taken. Consideration of educational problems had been ordered by James VI, and being convinced that the youth, should bo brought up and instructed in the fear of God and " gude nianeris," and that if it were otherwise it were v tinsel! baith of thair bodyis and saulis," the Parliament ordained "" that all scules to burgh and land, and all universiteis and collegis be reformat." In order that the teaching staff might be of the best, no one was to have charge ." or to instruct the youth privatlie or oppinlie" unless he had been selected by the superintendent or visitor of the kirk. James -was also alive to the benefits of music, for it was in his reign we find that the art of music and singing was falling into decay, so much so that the^authorities were afraid that it would be a lost art unless some " tyinous remeid be prouidit." To stem the tide of decline, the provost, bailies, and "councillors of the " maist speciai burrowis" and those in" authority where "sang schulis" existed, were ordered to provide means whereby these schools could be kept up, and as an incitement to their working in this cause they were assured of his Majesty's good pleasure. Special attention seems to have been given to the classical languages, for the royal approval is given to the erection of a school at Prestonpans for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Dunkeld was favoured in like manner with, royal patronage, for •vheTe tlie Sovereign, "upoun gude aoid godlie respeqtis tending to the publict -weill of this reaime," erected a grammar school, the charter for winch was passed under the Great Seal in 1606. As can be readily understood, in the days of no codes every master would to a certain extent be a law unto himself. Certainly this seems to have been the case in the teaching of Latin. About this time it was found that th« " understanding of the Latine towng" was greatly diminished, and this was traceable to the fact " that the maisteris of scoillis and pedagogis have thir inony yeiris bygane chosen to thameselflls sic writtaris of the arte c-f graznmer as hes bene commendit unto thani be the prentaris or buiksellaris, quhilkis ather they have leirnit thameselfßs or elleis lies bene accustuinat to teiche, or sic as upoun the occasoun of the tyme and place, nowmer, or pryceis, come reddiest to their handis; quhairby it come oft to pas that the best forme and maist prof&table for advanceing of the studyis of the youth hes nocht beno taucht, but sic as they tryit to be maest ensie for sparring and inhalding of thair travel! ; and lykewayes ulso mony divers gramineris ar brocht in and taaicht in the cuntrey as thair is teichearis of that arte, swa that, quhen the scollaris are changeit frozne place to place at the arbitriment of thair parentis, they ar newlingis to begyn that arte quhairin thai have spendit sum yeiris of befoir, and ar rather chairgit thair to forgett, nor repeit that quhilk thai have leirnit, to the grite hindering of thair procedingis and confounding of thair memoreis and ingynes." That all such anomalies and fads of individual masters shou-d. be dissipated the Estates decreed that " thair sail be ane sallit forme oi the best and maist conioun and approvin gramer collectit and prentit to be teachit in all tyme cuining."