Article XVII written by Alexander Gunn was published in
the Northern Ensign on 17 November 1881 – Part A
Berriedale School
The school at Berriedale was a mixed school. Gentle and
simple meet on a common footing. It was the only school between the Ord and
Latheron. The young ladies from Achastle, the daughters of Mr Grieve, the
overseer and factor for the estate, stood side by side with the daughters of
Peter MacGungle, an Irishman who lived down at the shore, and the only
Irishman, I suppose, in the county at the time. There was no respect of
persons. All shared the same treatment at the hands of the teacher, and at the
hands of our fellow-scholars. We all engaged in the same games, where each
strove to outdo his neighbour.
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| The teachers and pupils of Scoraig School, 1897 Am Baile Facebook |
We had a yearly Presbyterial examination of the school,
when all did their best so as to carry away a prize, which consisted
principally of Bibles or Testaments, and I believe the prizes were given more
to please the parents than according to merit. There were not prizes enough for
one to be given to each scholar, but they were equally divided, and those
omitted one year go them the next, and that seemed to please everybody. There
was one exception to this rule, in the case of a girl named Maggie Dow,
daughter of John Dow of the Inn. She generally carried away a prize every year.
She was possessed of a wonderfully retentive memory, and could repeat the Psalms
from beginning to end without a single slip or mistake, and also could repeat
any verse of any particular Psalm you wished. As might be expected she excelled
in mental arithmetic.
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| Source: Land of Heather |
My Comments:
While the three Rs were the core part of the curriculum,
one of the main goals of Scottish schools at the time was on pupils being able
to read the Bible and the Shorter Catechism. Prior to the Disruption in 1843
most schools were paid for by the Church of Scotland and were open to boys and
girls regardless of social status. As we have seen in previous blogs, children
educated in a Scottish school could get to University although I think the
higher education opportunities applied more to young men than young women.
I can’t find a birth record for Maggie Dow but there are
records for seven children of Mr John Dow the Innkeeper at Berriedale and his
wife Margaret Munro, including one Maryanne born in 1822
(so a contemporary of Alexander Gunn). This may be the clever girl he refers to
as Maggie.
Roydhouse makes the following comments from his research
of other letters of Alexander Gunn.
Of the school at Berriedale, surviving letters of early
contemporary scholars describe both the building and the dominies of the period
1830 and forward to about 1850.
The building which was designated the 'School' (at
Berriedale), must, I am inclined to think, have been intended for a crofter's
dwelling. The school room was a small room with a couple of small windows
facing to the south, and the one doorway at the eastern end. Adjoining the
schoolroom were two rooms and a 'closet', the abode of the dominie.
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| Small window at the Laidhay croft museum |
The school
furniture was of the most primitive description. There were three, or perhaps four,
homemade, clumsy desks, each about eight feet long and three feet high, the
desk top being steeply sloped. There were no fixings to the earth floor and be-times
desks would fall over or get moved just as you were attempting to make a
beautiful hair stroke (as we called them) in our copybook.'
'There was a single fireplace in the extreme end of the
room, and in cold weather two or three pupils were permitted to warm themselves
at the peat fire.
There was an old door key hanging on a nail at the window
nearest the doorway. Where it came from I cannot tell. Anyone who asked to
leave the room had to take the key with them and place it back on the nail when
they returned. The idea of the 'key' business was instituted by one of the
teachers who discovered that it was becoming a practice among pupils to ask out
one after the other and thus enjoy themselves for a little time together and
thereby slip uncongenial tasks. When the key was not on the nail by the window
anyone asking liberty to leave the school had to wait until it was replaced.'
The schoolroom was perhaps a matter of twenty by twelve
feet and was crowded by fifty or so scholars, and about 1845 the schoolroom was
extended which gave more comfort - additional windows were provided and another
fireplace added in the extension. The management of the school was lately in
the hands of the parents of the scholars and the teacher.
The little school on the barren hillside at Berriedale
saw the roll of fifty or so scholars augmented in the winter by some of the
older lads - they attended school to be 'finished off' as it were; during the
summer they were engaged in all kinds of work to augment the 'smaller livings'
at home. Although advanced in years compared with the regular pupils, they were
in no sense advanced in education and had to take their places in the classes
often with mere bairns.'
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| This extract from the 1861 census shows Alexander McLeod (my great-grandfather) still a scholar at age 18 |
Nearly all our
writing at school was done on slates and the scratch and scrape of the slate
'pencils' is a lasting memory of those days.
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| Old slate |
Our teachers as a whole gave us of
their best and the marvel to me now is that considering all the disadvantages
from which was suffered we made so great progress in our studies. After all
there is something to be said for the old parochial system of education - which
was a kind of hybrid between both the 'Education Board' and the
parochial style it was devoid of the 'cram' of
today; what one was taught was learned and remembered. I hardly think it
probable that there was another school in the whole of the North that did not
come under School Board management, but ours continued to be governed and
worked on the primitive lines I have indicated for fifteen or more years after
the passing of the Education Act of 1872. Yet, after all, some of the lads of
those days are now occupying responsible positions in various spheres
throughout the world.'
Source: Alan Roydhouse 1975 (unpublished)
