Outline of the Scottish Educational System.
| Author | J. B. Frizell |
| Date | 01 January 1939 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1939.tb03025.x |
| Published date | 01 January 1939 |
Outline
of
the Scottish Educational
System.
By
J.
B.
FRIZELL,
B.L.,
A.L.A.A.,
Education
Oficer,
City
of
Edinburgh.
I.
HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT
T
is extremely difficult to understand the construction of the modern
I
educational system of Scotland without some knowledge, however
slight,
of
what has gone before. Moreover, in endeavouring
to
trace
the development of Scottish educational institutions, it is not easy
to disentangle the thread from the web of social, economic and
ecclesiastical history or to understand the process of evolution
without having some regard to the geography
of
the country and
the changing trends of its population. Within the space of as short
an outline as
this
there
is
no
room to draw what, it is felt, would
prove an intriguing and fascinating background.
A
few general
impressions are, however, necessary to
a
proper understanding
of
what follows.
One must picture a country
274
miles from north to south and
146
miles at its point of greatest breadth-in area, something like
30,000
square miles. Its northern and western seas are studded with
islands of various shapes and sizes. The whole country is divisiblc
into three distinct regions, each with
a
different relief, rocks and
structure,
so
that the occupations
of
the people inhabiting them differ
considerably.
A
rift valley runs across the Midlands of the country
from the south-west to the north-east, separating the high land in the
north, known as the Highlands, from the not quite
so
high land in
the
south
to which the name
of
Southern Uplands has been given.
The flat, central plain between, extending from the Clyde on the
west to the Forth on the east, has been the cradle of Scotland’s
industrial growth. In its northern and western parts Scotland is
hilly and mountainous and faces out to the turbulent Atlantic.
Its
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