‘They must have their children educated some way’: the education of Catholics in eighteenth-century Scotland

Abstract

This paper examines the provision of schooling to Catholics in eighteenth-century Scotland. In the first half of the century, schools established in the Highlands by the SSPCK mainly served a religious purpose, because Protestants were convinced that education was both a preservative against and an antidote to popery. As for the Catholic Church in Scotland, it concentrated its efforts on providing education to those boys intended for the priesthood. However, as the century wore on, there was a clear shift in the attitude of Scottish Catholics towards education. This paper presents evidence which suggests that Catholics came to regard education as an asset rather than as a threat, and that the changing perception of the uses of education mirrors the evolution of the standing of Scottish Catholics in British society.

Adam Smith on Education as a Means to Political Judgment

“…), a society aimed at Anglicizing Scotland after the Act of Union (Law 1965, 59–62). The S.S.P.C.K.’s main aims in reform were in promoting religion rather than in improving student understanding: they sought to ensure that schoolmasters were Presbyterian, teaching the catechism, and insisting students read from the Bible (ibid., 62–63; also see Prunier 2009). Smith’s proposals for the instruction of the poor in parish or district schools, by contrast, would be a “necessary introduction to the most sublime as well as to the most useful sciences” (WN, V.i.f.55).…”