by Alexander Shevlinn

 

With the passing of the 1872 Education Act, education throughout Scotland
was formalized under a central system, although the various institutions it
superseded continued to operate schools for a period. This Act was to change
the whole of the Scottish Education system, particularly the Highlands, as
it made it compulsory for all Scottish children to have an education. The
Education Act of 1872 marked an important turning point for the recognition
and use of Gaelic within the education system. Under the new regime, the use
of Gaelic was unofficially, but actively discouraged in the schools. The
appointment of English-speaking or English teachers was common ¨C as was the
punishment of children for speaking Gaelic in schools. The device of the
maide-crochaidh, (a stick on a cord), was commonly used to stigmatize and
physically punish children speaking Gaelic in the schools. Its use is
reported as late as the 1930s in Lewis. Previous to this Act being
introduced, you could be prosecuted if your child did not go to school.

Why there should be so sudden a change of policy concerning the use of
Gaelic in schools is difficult to appreciate. The agencies promoting public
education in the Highlands up to 1872 had been sympathetic to Gaelic and
active in its use as a teaching medium. These agencies had readily handed
over their educational work to the newly constituted State system. In
hindsight, it appears remarkable that they should have done so since, in
these respects, the new system proved inimical to the methods and objectives
of the schools societies operating within the Gaelic area.

The Act set up School Boards in each parish and burgh, and to these
authorities were transferred all schools set up by parliamentary authority
(e.g. the parliamentary schools set up under an Act of 1838). The Education
Act (Scotland) 1872 was passed without recognition that the Highlands were
an area of particular linguistic significance within a national educational
system. Those bodies involved in the education of the Gael from 1709 had an
undeniable influence on Gaelic, although the means employed varied, as did
their effect over space and time.

For this reason, the omission of even a mention of Gaelic in the 1872 Act is
perhaps not as surprising as some have suggested. The lack of formal
provision for Gaelic in 1872 and for some years afterwards, without doubt
harmful to Gaelic literacy and the language as a whole, was really only a
reflection of the ambivalent attitude of those involved in Highlands
education, and of the fact that many people, Highlanders included, were
apposed to Gaelic as an educational language.

As far as the Gaelic language was concerned, in 1871 was established the
Gaelic Society of Inverness which was active in the agitation for the
restoration and advancement of Gaelic within Highland Schools. As a result
of pressures from the Gaelic Society of Inverness, the Scotch Education
Department circulated 102 Highland School Boards in 1876 on the language
question. Ninety replied, and of these sixty-five were in favour of
instruction in Gaelic, despite the fact that Gaelic-speaking teachers were
not always obtainable. Fifty-three boards stated that they were able to
provide Gaelic teachers.

From 1885, Gaelic was made a specific subject, which automatically
carried a grant, and a grant of 10 shillings was paid. This new status was
the result of several influences in combination: the appointment of the
reasonably sympathetic Henry Craik to the position of Secretary of the
Scottish (formerly Scotch) Education Department; the pressure exerted by the
Napier Commission, and the please of Fraser-Mackintosh, and the Gaelic
Society of Inverness. This 1885 special Minute did not, however, signify
the beginnings of a more enlightened attitude among bureaucrats toward
Gaelic in education.

Rather, the Minute was intended to provide the means whereby Gaelic-speaking
children may most speedily overcome the difficulties of mastering English,
and whereby such encouragement may be given to the teaching of Gaelic as may
eventually provide a body of certificated teachers specially fitted, by a
knowledge of the vernacular, to take charge of schools in Gaelic-speaking
districts.

These concessions were little used and had little effect in making Gaelic
part of the educational scene. A number of reasons have been advanced to
explain this. Many of the smaller Highland schools were omitted from the
scheme, many teachers were poorly trained, and there was always a shortage
of Gaelic-speaking teachers. Many of those Gaelic-speakers who were properly
trained preferred to remain in the south where wages and conditions were
better, and in several Highland schools the grant money was used for almost
anything but the teaching of Gaelic. More important still was the lack of
anycompulsion with regard to Gaelic teaching, and the fact that Gaelic and
its culture had no official status or standing as an educational medium:
where and when it was used at all, it was used only as a means of acquiring
English.

An educational pressure group was formed in 1891, An Comunn Gaidhealach,
which rapidly came to lead the language-loyalty movement, although it
operated chiefly within a Lowland context. Its annual musical and literacy
festivals (National and Provincial Mods) became important foci of Gaelic
cultural activity. An Comunn was considerably more effective than other
Gaelic societies of the time.
In 1904, Gaelic was made an optional subject in the Leaving Certificate,
which meant that the language could be studied for itself, not for the
single purpose of acquiring of English, and could be used in preliminary
examinations for entry to Scottish Universities. Lack of teachers hindered
this scheme, though it did not prevent some individuals from advancing to
the Celtic Departments at Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow.

Not until the Education (Scotland) Bill of 1918 were the attempts made to
gain a statutory place for Gaelic in Education at all successful. With the
help of politicians, churchmen, Highland societies, An Comunn, and public
support, a Gaelic amendment was included in the 1918 Bill, which offered the
teaching of Gaelic at all levels of education in all chiefly Gaelic-speaking
areas. By the 1930s, Gaelic was being taught to over 7,000 pupils in 284
schools, as well as 50 students in the universities and 45 in Jordanhill
Training College, Glasgow.
At the end of the Second World War, as in 1918, there was another important
Education Act, the Education Act of 1945. Its influence on Gaelic in schools
has undoubtedly been the most relevant and the most beneficial of all the
Acts, because it is based on a philosophy of education, which is essentially 

child-centered. The general educational climate created by this Act and
our growing knowledge of the nature of bilingual situations has strengthened
quite considerably the possibilities of real bilingual education for
Gaelic-speaking children. In this decade following the Act, and possibly
inspired by it to some extent, there also came a series of notable reports
on primary and secondary education from the Scottish Advisory Council on
Education and from the Scottish Education Department, which were similarly
progressive and open-minded, although distinct. Their references to Gaelic
in schools reveal a sympathy with, and understanding for, children in a
bilingual situation, which are far in advance of those of previous official
resources.

As early as 1946, some city schools in Glasgow and elsewhere introduced
Gaelic into the school curriculum for the first time. A new category of
pupil emerged, the learner (as distinct from the native speaker),
who can be from within or outside the language area. This new category of
pupil was formally recognised in 1962 with the introduction of special
Scottish Leaving Certificate papers for such pupils, and these new recruits
are compensating to some extent for the continuing decline of native
speakers.

Over the last twenty years those responsible for the provision of Gaelic in
schools have had to cope with many problems, the majority of them probably
inherited from the past, some of them quite new. The main problem is still
lack of faith. With the new problems, however, fresh opportunities have
arisen. Possibly the most significant developments in the history of Gaelic
in schools are those taking place now in the Western Isles, where the
appointed all-purpose Council, formed in 1975, has already committed itself
to the implementation of a full bilingual policy. The educational reasons
for doing so, for educating Gaelic-speaking children in their own language
as well as in English, are theoretically as sound now as ever they were, and
the project has shown that the proposition is quite practicable.

I think that Gaelic education after the 1872 Act was not as well managed as
it could have been. A lack of faith in, and understanding of the Gael, led
to Gaelic language being looked upon as having no real scholarly value. Only
by the perseverance of the many societies who recognised the need for
children to be taught through the medium of Gaelic, and continue to do so
today, have ensured that Gaelic education can only continue to go from
strength to strength. The opportunities are there for Gaelic speakers to do
Post-Graduate research on textual, linguistic, literary, philological,
historical and socio-linguistic topics.

If Gaelic education is to continue in Scotland, it must have the full support of all the major colleges and universities. Failing this, the future of Gaelic teaching and education looks very bleak indeed.
--------------------

Enjoy the article? Got a question for Alexander? Email him.