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 SCHOOLS

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SCHOOLS

Scotch colleges which sent many missionaries back to suffer for their faith had been founded at Rome, Douai, Paris, and Valladolid. However, in the crushed condition of the country candidates for the priesthood became scarce. Small Catholic schools were occasionally started in remote districts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and struggled on for a while. Thus in 1675 two small schools existed at Glengarry and in the Island of Barra. Early in the eighteenth century a small seminary was begun at Scalan in Glenhvat to be subsequently transferred after sundry vicissitudes to Aquhorties. Others were started at Samalaman and Lismore. The first really important Catholic col- legiate foundation in Scotland since the Reformation was that at Blairs, in 1829, when the two surviving "little seminaries" at Aquhorties and Lismore were united to form the new college, destined to have an honourable and fruitful career as the future Alma Mater of a considerable proportion of the Scottish priesthood. Since Catholic Emancipation there has been a large immigration from Ireland and a rapid growth within the Scottish community, so that the remnant of ISOO has risen to an estimated Catholic population of 518,000 in Scotland in 1910, with 554 priests and 238 missions. The story of the progress of Catholic education during the past century has been much the same in Scotland as in England. As each little Catholic congregation formed, it started a school. In spite of the stronger religious bigotry in the beginning, the increasing demand for liberty and equality for dissenters after the separation of the Free Church in 1843 helped Catholic educational claims.

However, it was the Education Act of Scotland of 1872 that has determined the Scotch system down to the present time. That Act, following on the line of the English Act of 1870, established, or rather in Scotland reformed and re-established a dual system of public schools, i. e. Board-schools, and voluntary' or denominational schools. Both receive considerable grants from the imperial exchequer, whilst the former enjoy rate aid. The voluntary schools, built and partially maintained by private funds, retain the re- ligious character of the body which owns them. Fortunately in Scotland the voluntary schools did not meet with the same ho.stility from the supporters of the public or Board-schools as they did in England. The religious differences which have set the English Nonconformists against the Anglican proprietors of the great mass of the voluntary schools did not exist there. As a consequence, the voluntary schools generally, and the Catholic schools in particular, received more liberal treatment and less pressure, and the intolerable burden and acute need for reform which brought about the Enghsh Education Act of 1902 did not arise. The present situation of Catholic Education in Scotland, as gathered from the Scotch Education Department Blue Book for 1910-11, may be thus summarized:

Catholic Voluntary Day Schools: primary, 207; higher grade, 12. These provide places for 107,740 scholars. The average number on the registers dur- ing the past year was 92,594. The average in actual attendance, 81,980 (41,363 boys, 40,617 girls). Teach- ing staff: certificated teachers, male 167, female 1306; assistant (provisonally certificated) teachers, 475. Average annual salary of Catholic teachers: principal masters, £148; principal mistresses, £94; assistant masters, £94; assistant mistresses, £73. The average salaries for the public schools at the same time were: principal masters, £189; mistresses, £95; assistant masters, £136; mistresses, £81. Catholic teachers thus work at a sacrifice. Total annual income of Catholic primary schools: — voluntary contributions in various forms, £39,100; state contribution under various heads: annual grant, fee grant, grant in

aid, grants for drawing, etc., about £170,000. The inclusion of rent (on the basis of assessment) in the approved expenditure is permitted in Scottish volun- tary schools. This amounted in 1909 to £36,000, or an average of £164 per school. The total expenditure on Catholic primary schools in 1910 was £208,624, which worked out at a cost per child of £2. 13s. 5d.; while the cost to the State of each child in the public schools amounted to £3. 14s. 13^d. Moreover the public schools drew about twenty-three shilUngs per child from rates not available to the voluntary schools. Still on the whole, though the CathoUc Church is sub- ject to certain financial disadvantages, it has secured freedom, and when worked in a liberal spirit the Scot- tish system has proved tolerable, indeed with certain further amendments helping to raise CathoUc teach- ers' salaries to those of the pubUc schools it would be even fair.

The working conditions of the Catholic primary schools in Scotland are much the same as in England. The chief manager and correspondent of each CathoUc school is usually the priest in charge of the mission, but the managers of groups of voluntary schools are united into small Councils or Committees in which they share common control and responsibility for certain purposes — an arrangement possessing some distinct advantages. In regard to secondary edu- cation, the better higher grade schools help towards this in Scotland; and there are twelve such CathoUc higher grade schools recognized and receiving grants. Owing to the difficulty already alluded to of defining secondary schools, it is not easy to give accurate statistics. One Catholic school for boys, the Jesuit College in Glasgow, is on the list of secondary schools recognized by the Government. The Marist Broth- ers also conduct a boarding college at Dumfries, St. Mungo's Academy, in Glasgow, and a ho.stel for the training of male teachers. There are two ec- clesiastical colleges, Blairs and St. Peter's, New Kil- patrick; and in addition to those recognized as higher grade schools, there are probably about half a dozen academies and convent boarding schools giving secondary education. There is one large training college for female teachers, managed by the Notre Dame Sisters, in Glasgow.

Gordon, The Catholic Church in Scotland from the Suppression of the Hierarchy to the Present Time (Aberdeen, 1875) ; Belles- HEiM, History of the Catholic Church in Scotland (Edintjurgh and London, 1890) ; Scotch Education Department Reports (Edin- burgh and London, 1910-11).

Michael Maher.

In the United States. — Out of a Catholic popula- tion of approximately 14,347,027, nearly one-half of the Catholic children attending elementary schools in the United States were being educated under the parish school system in the year 1910. Catholic schools are practically impossible in most country dis- tricts, and it has been estimated that from one-fourth to one-third of the number of Catholic children of school age live in country districts. In towns and cities, therefore, where alone it is possible, generally speaking, to build and maintain Catholic schools, it may be said that all but about one-fourth to one-sixth of the Catholic population attending school is being educated in the parish schools. The number of pu- pils in the parish schools is also steadily increasing.

This result has been achieved by a process of grad- ual growth, the root of it all being the firm determina- tion of the Catholic mind to make religion a vital ele- ment in the education of the Catholic child. This determination has characterized the attitude of American Catholics in respect to education from the very beginning, and it has been shared alike by the clergy and the laity. The earliest Catholic colonists implanted the principle of religious training in the virgin Catholic soil, and every decade that has passed since then has added but a new growth or a fresh