One result of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 had been the recognition of a need to create a business economy which demanded regulation of finances, trading and land laws and involvement not only of the wealthy land owners, but also of the ordinary working classes. The landowners required taxmen (agents) to administer their extensive land holdings, lawyers, ministers of religion, doctors and schoolmasters to take care of their business and their workforce. To fill these requirements and ensure loyal service, they looked to the young people within their own boundaries, seeking out those with potential for further education even to University level. Having contributed handsomely to the establishment of schools and Universities in the cities, these men reserved the right to endow a certain number of places for students from amongst their own people. We know that Hugh Gillies and his brother Andrew, raised on a farm at Carnasserie, were sponsored by their laird to attend Glasgow University and obtain degrees in Medicine. On graduation, Hugh was first appointed by Breadalbane, to a medical practice at Dalmally before being directed to Easdale. John Whyte, a pupil at the school in Taynuilt, was sponsored for an apprenticeship with an engineering firm in Glasgow before being appointed to the Easdale works as quarry master. Jessie Gillies, the mother of Dr Patrick Gillies, was widowed when Patrick was only eleven. Two of her sons obtained medical degrees. It is unlikely the boys could have afforded a University education without some form of sponsorship from His Lordship.

Girls were rarely educated beyond elementary level before the 1872 Education Act. Included in their curriculum alongside the basic subjects were sewing, housewifery, spinning, weaving and dairying in preparation for employment as household or farm servants to the wealthy. A smart girl might be appointed as a pupil teacher and gain teaching qualification through a correspondence course offered by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) which had been established by Royal Charter in 1709 in an early attempt to regularise the curriculum and standards of teaching in public schools. Some girls might attend a school designed specifically for the education of daughters of the clergy. This was so in the case of Mary MacIntyre, whose father was the Minister of Kilbrandon and Kilchattan in the 1870s. Mary attended school in Edinburgh and became a qualified teacher before marrying Dr Patrick Gillies and returning to live permanently in the Slate Islands. The daughters of the rich were tutored at home where most learned to read and write, with sufficient arithmetic to allow them eventually to keep account of household expenditure. Otherwise their education concentrated upon the more delicate skills associated with music, sewing and drawing. In their teens the daughters of the rich were sent to finishing schools, often on the continent of Europe or in England, where they were expected to learn the art of ensnaring a suitable husband.

Very few women attended University before 1900. The one area which attracted female pioneers was medicine and the Scottish medical schools were the first in the United Kingdom to admit women to their classes. So much so that by 1914 there were sufficient medically qualified ladies to form The Scottish Women’s Hospitals, a group of female medical practitioners who aided the wounded in both France and Serbia during the First World War. 

The 1872 Education Act provided for the establishment of a High School in Oban, now a Burgh. Very few children from the Slate Islands were able to progress to secondary education, however. The journey by road to Oban took more than two hours, so a child attending the High School had to be accommodated in the town during the week. Unless there were friends or relatives living in Oban who could accommodate them, the children of quarrying families could not afford the expense of a High School education.

Having regularised elementary and secondary education, the Government now turned to Higher Education. In 1897 proposals were put forward and augmented in 1901 to formalise further education into three categories:

(1) Continued elementary

(2) 3-4 years’ technical training

(3) Academic, non-vocational study.

Category one could be undertaken in the grammar schools. Category two led to the establishment of technical colleges which eventually became mechanical institutes such as The Royal College of Science and Heriot Watt College, now a University. Category three was undertaken by the established Universities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The Robbins Report of 1963 proposed all colleges of advanced technology should become universities. So far as the Slate Islands are concerned, this has included the prestigious Scottish Association of Marine Science outpost at Dunstaffnage which became part of the University of the Highlands and Islands in 1992.

Although the official school-leaving age had been amended to fourteen by the end of the Great War, many children were still leaving school at thirteen if work became available. Families devastated by the loss of their breadwinner depended upon every penny the children could earn. The dire state of the economy meant that little progress was made in the field of education between the two world wars, so it was not until the Butler Education Act of 1944 that substantial attention was again paid to Scottish education.

A Scottish school leaving certificate had been introduced in 1888, the standards achieved becoming related to the level of employment to which a student might aspire. Soon the qualification was divided into Ordinary level and Higher level certificates, Ordinary leading to clerical, banking and merchandising jobs while the Higher Certificate might lead to University entrance and the professions of Law, Medicine and the Church. Those leaving school with poor or no qualification must fill the role of servant or labourer. During the 1920s and 30s there was a strong movement towards self-improvement by the adult working population through evening classes and correspondence courses.

As recruitment into the armed services escalated from 1939 onwards it became clear that large numbers of eighteen to thirty-year-olds had missed out on even a basic education. Faced with increasing demands of modern technological warfare which required a high level of expertise, the services developed training programmes to bring recruits to the required standard. The post war developments introduced alongside the 1944 Education Act, owe much to the system of training initiated by such bodies as the Army Education Corps. At the end of hostilities, many training personnel from the armed services entered the teaching profession. Educational psychology became a subject in the curriculum of every aspiring teacher. Experimental teaching strategies were introduced into the classroom, some more effective than others, but the overall result was an improved, more enlightened teaching force and a greater recognition generally, of the importance of education to the national economy. While advanced academic studies were still largely the prerogative of the middle classes, vocational training was upgraded by the introduction of technical colleges in every local authority area. Apprentices could now attend college on a day-release or block release basis, learning on the job. They could attain qualifications at all levels, including those such as the Higher National Certificate, recognised by the universities as of degree standard. Through the Training Boards, companies were required to subscribe to this system financially but compensated for loss of work hours when apprentices attended classes. (Sadly, the Training Boards were abolished in the 1990s, the result being a substantial fall in numbers of craftsmen being trained, particularly in the Construction Industry.) Pre-war systems of selection for the grammar schools were set aside. Private educational establishments continued to exist alongside the State funded schools but under the supervision of the inspectorate of the Scottish Education Department.

There was a negative side to these developments, however. In the remote Highlands and in the islands where the population was sparse, schools with small intakes having single classes of all ages and abilities, were considered unsatisfactory and many closed during the latter part of the twentieth century. Even the youngest children were required to travel long distances to school by bus and ferry. Seniors often had to leave home for student accommodation at the age of eleven. Families not wishing such separation, moved to the larger conurbations and a second Highland clearance appeared to be taking place. It was information technology, becoming available to all by the 1990s, which halted the egress. Schools in the Scottish Highlands were the first in the UK to introduce lessons by video link. On-line provision allowed children access to as wide a curriculum on Rum as they could get in Glasgow. Although the secondary children must still leave home to attend school, the small village schools have adapted to the new provision and classes of all ages and abilities are once again acceptable.

In the year 2020 lock-down due to Coronavirus has necessitated on-line communication for all. Teachers have adapted their teaching to this situation with remarkable skill, rising to new heights of experiment and invention. Those of us from an era in which the most sophisticated piece of classroom equipment was an overhead projector, may be struggling to come to grips with our smart phones and tablets. Be assured that whatever else the education system of the twenty first century has achieved, you can turn to your grandchildren for help with your laptop!