(Stow) came to see how absurd it was to commit the education of the rising generation to those who have never been taught how to exercise their profession, and how to impart their own knowledge to the minds of their pupils. He saw that it was not enough that the teacher be possessed of the learning needful for his office – he must also be well instructed in the best mode or system of communicating it, ere he can become an efficient teacher; in other words, he felt that what to teach and how to teach were distinct and separate things – the one being the science or theory, and the other the art or practice.  In this he only sought to assimilate the office of a teacher to all other professions in the land, to none of which inexperienced, untaught, undisciplined individuals are at all admissible; and, beyond all doubt, this is entitled to rank, and will rank, as one of the most important eras in the annals of British education.[footnote]‘David Stow: A sketch by one who knew him’ in The Sabbath School Magazine (1866), p. 242. My emphasis.[/footnote]

Notwithstanding national and even municipal pride, there is probably little value in arguing who, and which institution, first trained teachers in Great Britain. Stow asserted that on April 23rd, 1828, the day that the Drygate School opened, two students were enrolled making this date the beginning of teacher-training in Scotland [footnote]‘Two teachers on the same day were enrolled as normal students, with a view to two schools in Glasgow, in the process of being erected in the neighbouring parishes, to be conducted on the same system’, Stow. (1860) Granny and Leezy op cit.[/footnote]a view which has persisted in articles on his life and work (Fraser 1857, Leitch 1876, Morrison 1884, Thomson 1893, Pratt Insh, 1938, Mechie 1960). [footnote]Cf. also Reports of the Committee of Council on Education [/footnote]

However, the Sessional School of the Tron Parish in Edinburgh, opened in 1813, used Lancaster’s monitorial and later Bell’s ‘Madras’ system, both of which involved the training of young monitors. Indeed, in 1824, under the direction of John Wood, the school moved to Market Street and became, in 1826, a model school for the training of Gaelic teachers for the Highlands and Islands under the Education Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. HMI John Gordon considered, with justification, that it was this school which was the ‘germ of the Normal School system in Scotland’.[footnote]Report on the Glasgow Established Church Normal College by Her majesty’s Inspector of Schools, John Gordon, Esq. for the year 1856 in MCCE, 1856-57, p. 806. Gordon continues ‘It was the only manner in which the preparation of schoolmasters specially for their calling was pursued in Scotland from 1826-1834’ suggesting either ignorance or disregard of developments in Glasgow thirty years earlier. Gibson later argues, however, that, unlike the General Assembly, the Glasgow Normal College trained teachers for ‘indiscriminate’ destinations and was the ‘first regular seminary of the Normal kind established in Scotland’ – a very careful choice of words.[/footnote] In 1835, Wilderspin informed the Select Committee that ‘the Edinburgh Model School was the best he had visited anywhere’.[footnote]Quoted Roberts, A.F.B. (1972)  ‘Scotland and Infant Education in the Nineteenth Century’ in Scottish Educational Studies vol. 4, no. 1, 4 May 1972. p. 40.[/footnote] And since all these initiatives amounted to little more than observation of successful practice ‘for the purpose of getting hints and an example’[footnote]Fraser. (1857) The State of our Educational Enterprises: A Report of an Examination into the Working, Results and Tendencies of the chief Public Educational Experiments in Great Britain and Ireland Glasgow, Blackie and Son, 1857, p. 98.[/footnote]

others could claim that they were similarly ‘trained’. When the Glasgow Infant School Society appointed David Caughie as their first teacher, for example, he had already accumulated ten years’ experience in Stranraer. [footnote]Since Caughie celebrated his Jubilee in teaching in 1868 he must have begun his career in 1818 at the age of sixteen.  He was therefore a mature and experienced teacher when he was appointed to the Drygate School in 1828.[/footnote] Robert Owen would maintain that James Buchanan, an untrained weaver in 1816, became a successful teacher of some renown under his tutelage.[footnote]

James Buchanan was the first master of Brewers’ Green Infant School, opened under the jurisdiction of Lord Brougham early in 1819.[/footnote] And there were many examples of teacher-training attached to model schools in England. In 1805 Lancaster added a residential annexe to his London school for monitors and adults who wished to become ‘Superintendents’ of his schools on the ‘British’ plan.[footnote] In 1805 there were ‘eight lads and several men’ and by 1810 possibly three times as many, cf. Hewett, S. (1971). The training of teachers, a factual survey. London, University of London Press. This is the origin of the Borough Road Training College.[/footnote] By 1810, Bell instigated the idea of teacher-training based on a ‘model’ or ‘demonstration’ school and the National Society trained teachers in the ‘monitorial system’ at Baldwin’s Gardens. Even the use of the term ‘Great Britain’[footnote]Great Britain being England, Scotland and Wales.[/footnote] should alert us to the Kildare Place Society of Ireland which had trained sixteen schoolmasters by 1814.[footnote]‘By 1814 the Kildare Place Society had 16 trained masters and it opened its first school in the following year. By 1831 it had 1,621 schools with 1,908 teachers and 137,000 pupils. Women teachers had been trained from 1824 onwards and by 1831 they numbered 482.’[/footnote]

And, widening the picture, despite Stow’s later denials that his ‘system’ owed nothing to the more advanced provision in Europe, as we have noted, James McCrie, the first college principal, spent nine months abroad on a study tour, and David Welsh’s first lecture to the Glasgow Educational Society in 1834 was on ‘Prussian Education’. There were successful teachers long before Stow.[footnote]Stow. (1840) The Training System’ op cit 4th ed., p. 91: ‘Many teachers work out and arrive at a good system, it is true.’[/footnote] Nevertheless, perhaps none of these British initiatives constituted a ‘college’ where the business, as Rich (1933)[footnote]Rich, R. (1933). The training of teachers in England and Wales during the nineteenth century. London, p. 4.[/footnote] notes, was the principles and skills of teaching rather than the mechanical preparation of monitors or the patchy provision provided in the model schools. Fraser, that unwavering champion of Stow, thus attempts to decide the argument:

‘As priority of institution has been denied to Glasgow, I may state, that while teachers long attended the Glasgow Seminary, as they did others in London and Edinburgh, and while it is difficult to decide as to where first the rudimentary forms of normal teaching appear, there can be no dispute as to Glasgow having the first systematic, publicly-recognized Normal School in Britain. The Edinburgh Sessional School became systematically normal in 1838. – See Wood’s’ Account of Edinburgh Sessional School’, fifth edition, 1840, p. 322. The first established in England was Battersea, in 1840. I have before me a finely executed lithograph of the Glasgow Institution, headed, ‘Normal Seminary for Glasgow and the West of Scotland,’ and enriched with elegantly arranged devices, in a Certificate given then to the students. It is signed, ‘David Stow, George Lewis, Secretaries;’ and is of date, Session 1832-3. The dispute is of little importance, but this settles it.’[footnote]Fraser. (1857) p. 98.[/footnote]

Or, to a non-Glaswegian, perhaps not. But it is at least arguable that Stow should be credited as the first to put explicit emphasis on the quality of the teacher and the craft of her/his profession at the heart of teacher-training. With the opening of the Glasgow Normal Seminary in October 1837,[footnote]Although most authorities, even Stow, refer to the opening in November, it was Ian McKellar who spotted that it was actually 31st October, cf. ‘Schoolmaisters to be taught? Never!’ in The Times Educational Supplement, April 1978. The Scottish Guardian’s account of 2nd November, 1837 refers to ‘last Tuesday’, which was, in fact, 31st October.[/footnote]a formal process and pattern of teacher-training was established which is still recognisable today, and which might be claimed to be the first of its kind in ‘Great Britain’.[footnote]Greig and Harvey, (1866) Assistant Commissioners appointed by the Royal Commission of Education in Scotland, state: ‘Glasgow claims (we believe justly) to have been the first Normal school in Britain for the systematic training of teachers’, p. 71. Seaborne, M. (1974). ‘Early theories of teacher education’ in British Journal of Educational Studies also adopts this view, p. 328.[/footnote]

Students’ qualifications on entry

The explicit aim of the Glasgow Seminary was to train students in Stow’s ‘System’. In an obvious response to Lancaster’s use of the word ‘System’ for training the child-monitors he abhorred, Stow wrote in 1840 ‘The NORMA of the Glasgow Seminary is the Training System’.[footnote]Stow. The Training System, op cit, 4th ed., p. 91, my italics but not capitals; cf. the Monitorial ‘system’ taught at Borough Road.[/footnote]

This seemingly innocuous statement has continued to vex colleges and faculties of education ever since: the Normal Seminary did not exist to give teachers an education but to train them. Stow initially argued that, on enrolment, students should already possess a level of education and knowledge which would enable them to teach the curriculum required for their chosen stage/age-group.[footnote]Unlike the monitorial training schools, where some of the applicants could scarcely read and write and whose lessons, therefore, were aimed at teaching them simultaneously with the method of teaching others.[/footnote]

Thereafter, the college was responsible for training students in the craft or art of teaching. Thus, on application, candidates were interviewed by a Board of four made up from the Rector and the Principal Masters of the three Departments.[footnote]As noted in Chapters 9 and 10 , Infant, Juvenile and Female School of Industry.[/footnote]

The panel adjudged the candidate’s prior qualifications which had to be sufficient to teach arithmetic, to a level which included algebra and geometry, and elementary history, geography, nature study, music and drawing (in addition to the obvious reading, writing, Scripture and the Westminster Shorter Catechism). If found ‘very imperfect’ the applicant was immediately rejected. Rejected candidates were not allowed to re-apply for at least six months.[footnote]This followed a long tradition by which the National Church (the Church of Scotland) controlled the moral quality of its teachers. An Act of the Scottish Parliament, ‘For settling the Quiet and Peace of the Church’, 12th June 1693 stated ‘All Schoolmasters and Teachers of Youth in schools are and shall be liable to the tryall (sic), judgement and censure of the Presbyteries of the Bounds for their sufficiency, qualifications and deportment in the said Office’.[/footnote]

If ‘imperfect only in a few points’ the candidate was enrolled in the preparatory classes but was subject to a later special examination by the Board. If acceptable, the applicant was enrolled as a regular student. Stow claimed that, all else being equal, preference was given to candidates who had passed a course of Latin, Greek and higher mathematics and that this accounted for three quarters of the male students.  That this was a vain contention, initially at least, quickly became obvious. John Gibson, Her Majesty’s first Inspector, reporting on the Seminary in 1841,[footnote]It should be noted that 1841 was a very difficult year in the history of the college.[/footnote]raised the poor qualifications of the students as a major issue. Gibson, of course, was used to the traditional entry into teaching via the Universities and, to be fair to Stow, his first ‘students’ in the Model Schools were experienced, university-educated teachers who came to observe this new ‘System’ more out of curiosity, and stayed for a week, a month, or a couple of months, as they could afford. Many came (and gratifyingly returned) in their vacations – the first examples of inservice training.[footnote]‘From fifty to sixty parochial and other teachers, from various districts of the country, have spent part of their vacation in (the Model Schools) – some from two or three months, others for a week or ten days’. The Glasgow Herald, 9th October 1835.[/footnote]The object of the Seminary however, as indeed it is for teacher-training now,[footnote]In 2008, 70% of primary and 81% of secondary teachers received only 36 weeks training (on the PGDE course): Teachers in Scotland 2008, Table 12.1: Students graduating from teacher training, 2000-2008 available at www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/29102949/106 (as at May 2010).[/footnote] was to turn out trained teachers as quickly as possible on the grounds that they already possessed the relevant curricular knowledge, were urgently required, and that this was the cheapest arrangement for student and Government alike.

Gibson immediately and devastatingly saw the flaw in this approach. After corroborating the arrangement for interviewing prospective candidates, his Report first notes that the level of requirement in fact tended to focus on ‘evidences of Christianity, the doctrines of Scripture, Bible history, such a knowledge of grammar as to enable them to parse with tolerable correctness and facility, a general acquaintance with geography, and a knowledge of arithmetic as far as vulgar and decimal fractions’.[footnote]Gibson, John. (1841) Report on the Glasgow Normal Seminary, Edinburgh, July 3rd, 1841 in MCCE 1841-42, pps. 14-27.[/footnote]

This was obviously insufficient to teach the curriculum of the senior Juveniles as described in Chapter 8. While some candidates, Gibson reported, had ‘enjoyed the advantages of a regular collegiate education’ many had attended only burgh and parochial schools. Of the current seventy-one applicants he comments, encouragingly, that seventeen (12%) had been rejected outright. Of those accepted, one had been a preacher in the Church of Scotland, twenty-one were teachers from small Adventure schools, one was a teacher of dancing and five were currently at another college (20% in total). We might presume that these had something to offer on arrival. However, the previous occupation of seven men and of the fourteen women could not be ascertained and the remaining five had been a baker, a portrait-painter and three had worked in a shop (68% in total).[footnote]Happily, Gibson’s arithmetic is accurate.[/footnote]

Gibson did not consider this level of education to be sufficient and his first recommendation was to extend the length of training by at least two months to allow time for the acquisition of the necessary curriculum. Currently, he acidly observed, the college curriculum  ‘does not include anything of which any boy of thirteen or fourteen years of age, in the highest class of a well-taught primary school, should be ignorant’.[footnote]Gibson, (1841) op cit.[/footnote]

Stow was forced to recognise that even six months was inadequate to learn not only how to teach but what to teach and resorted to the age-old but inefficient process whereby the teacher covered the curriculum simultaneously with the children. Apparatus and books were purchased, ostensibly for the pupils, but in practice to improve the teachers’ own education.[footnote]As in New Lanark, for example, where historical charts, detailed botanical and natural history illustrations and geographical maps, obviously too advanced for the children, were in use.[/footnote]

Many pictorial charts and drawings had notes for the teacher on the reverse; and the almost universal use of books published by the Irish National Education Society, recommended by Gibson, was aimed at supporting teachers as much as the children. The entry for 15^th February, 1848, in the Guardians’ Minutes of Southwell Union Workhouse, to which at least two of Stow’s teachers were appointed, reads:

‘That the following books be procured for the use of the Schools, published by the Irish National Education Society: 2 dozen First Lesson Books; 1½ Second Lesson Books; 1½ supplements to the Second Lesson Books; 1½ dozen of the Third Book of Lessons; 10 Books of the Fourth; 10 Supplements to the Fourth; 10 of the Fifth’.[footnote]Board of Guardians’ Minute Books, Southwell Union Workhouse, Nottinghamshire.[/footnote]

 Indeed, teachers in Union Workhouses would already have been issued with, at the direction of the Committee on Education of the Privy Council, a series of books for teachers, some of which contained curricular lessons to support their own education.[footnote]Kay-Shuttleworth: On the Training of Pauper Children 1839, p. 41, 42.

‘The schoolmaster and schoolmistress have been furnished with approved works on the art of teaching, describing the methods of instruction which have been most successfully adopted. Among the books have been comprised ‘Wood’s Account of the Edinburgh Sessional School,’ Stow’s ‘Moral Training, Abbott’s ‘Teacher,’ Dunn’s ‘Normal School Manual,’ Wilson’s ‘Manual of Instruction for Infant Schools’, Wilderspin’s ‘Infant System, ‘Chambers’ ‘Infant Education,’ Brigham ‘On the Influence of Mental Cultivation upon Health,’ &c., books on gardening, frugal cookery, &c.’[/footnote]

Stow explicitly refers to the use of textbooks to create an appropriately sequential, developmental series of lessons which would sustain a course of instruction over several years.[footnote]Stow. The Training System, op cit, 4th ed., p. 101.[/footnote]

Students were required to explain how their single, specific lesson fitted into the overall structure. In acknowledging the place of textbooks in the students’ own education he emphasised that ‘trainers ought to consult larger works on each of the points to be brought out in the daily lessons’.[footnote]Ibid, p. 102.[/footnote]

‘The master’, he wrote, ‘who does not know ten times as much as he actually communicates to his infant auditory, must sink into the scale of a mere teacher; his mind has not grasp enough to conduct his pupils to the broad well-defined outlines of every subject’.[footnote]Stow. The Training System, op cit, 7th ed. p. 496.[/footnote]

Therein lay the rub. Helpful though all these approaches proved, teaching students to master the content of the curriculum, in addition to the craft of teaching, during their time at the Seminary became increasingly necessary. In turn, this required the appointment of additional Masters on the basis of their specialist knowledge rather than their teaching ability or experience. Stow was still resisting this as late as 1850, on the grounds that the college’s raison d’être was to train teachers in their craft, not to instruct them.[footnote] Minutes of the Free Church Training College, 4th, March 1850.[/footnote]

By that time tutors in English, music, elocution (1840), Classics, mathematics, modern languages (1846) and drawing (1848) had been appointed. Rich (1933) suggests that the college lost its vocational distinctiveness when it thus parted company with the ‘intentions of its founder’.[footnote]Rich, R. W. (1933). The training of teachers in England and Wales during the nineteenth century. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 36.[/footnote]

The course of training

The course of training followed by the students was governed by two factors: firstly their subsistence costs and, secondly, their intended destinations. As we have seen, prior to the opening of the Normal Seminary, the period of training might last only two to three weeks. There was no compulsion for prospective teachers to undertake such preparation, which pre-1837 they did at their own expense, and the temptation to take up teaching posts as soon as possible proved irresistible. To counteract this, the course was gradually extended to three months and a deposit of three guineas required, which was returned on a satisfactory conclusion. By 1837, however, all students were required to pay a fee of three guineas (irrespective of the length of their stay). If they were lucky enough to live in Glasgow, they would almost certainly be maintained by their parents. Cost, therefore, determined the Scottish tradition of studying from home. Students from further afield were found lodging with suitable landlords.[footnote]It is interesting to note, for example, that David Caughie, the head infant-trainer, boarded students in Hope Place and we may speculate that his second-eldest daughter, Margaret, married one of them. Scottish Census 1841 and GROS Register of Marriages 10th March, 1864, Margaret Caughie and John Rebanks, a teacher. See also the drop-down menu: ‘David Caughie 1802-1874’.[/footnote]

Stow constantly bemoans the fact that the Seminary had no funds, and particularly no endowments, to support students.

There were two categories of students, those supported by their Church, particularly the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Wesleyan Connexion, and those of independent means. Reasonably enough, candidates supported by the Church of Scotland (and presumably other denominations) were required to be members. These students could only be admitted at one of three dates in the year: the second Tuesday of August, the third Tuesday of November, and the third Tuesday of March. This additional complication for course structure is confirmed by student registers as late as the early 1860s. Inevitably, the cost to the sponsors controlled the number entrants. A maximum of twenty candidates, for example, who were receiving subsistence from the Church of Scotland could be accepted at any one diet but it was acknowledged that this created an additional pressure for places for such applicants ‘whose circumstances, in the judgment of the Committee, entitle them to receive pecuniary assistance to the extent of not more than 8s a week, from the funds of the General Assembly’. Those who were self-funded had an easier ride, as this request from George Combe, the phrenologist, suggests:

‘(My brother’s) eldest son, my namesake, now 34 years of age, has inherited from (his mother’s) stock a small brain of a feeble nature. In consequence, he has been unfortunate in trade, into which he entered 14 years ago, against my earnest remonstrances, and has tried many things since, & with no success ………. my impression is that he is better qualified to become a teacher than any thing else, and I am anxious to give him an opportunity of trying whether he is fit for this vocation.’[footnote]Letter from George Combe, Edinburgh, 10th October, 1847. This letter was written under the auspices of the Free Church Normal College, but reflects the need, in both colleges, to accept students who could pay their own fees.[/footnote]Stow accepted George Combe junior.[footnote] This would be something of a triumph for Stow since Combe was a prominent Secularist.[/footnote]However, independent students were expected to stay as long as they could afford[footnote]Even at this stage it was hoped that the course of training would last three years but lack of financial assistance inhibited this: GES Third Report, p. 9.[/footnote]and eventually many remained for up to two years. Initially, however, the minimum attendance which could be required was six months.

Coupled with the second factor, that of varying student destinations, it must have been difficult to organise a systematic course. New entrants might intend spending their careers in Juvenile schools (at one or both of two stages about 6-9 and about 10-14) or, as options were added, in schools for the wealthy, Commercial Schools, Industrial Schools or in rural locations. Women applied as teachers for the Female Industrial schools although many were sought as governesses. (Stow later complained bitterly that female teachers were always expected to cost less: ‘I think I have had 5 or 6 orders for Governesses from or near Cheltenham but they all expect them to go cheap’.[footnote]Letter to Miss Clark, dated Glasgow, 2nd July 1852, in response to a request for staff. Although this refers to the Free Church College, the context had not changed.[/footnote]

In addition to observing and subsequently practising the art of teaching, which is dealt with more fully below, a third of the 40-hour week was devoted to three specialised areas. Firstly, they studied teaching theory, as described in Chapter 9, and aspects of school organisation, as described in Chapter 10. William McIsaac’s first report, dated 30^th November, 1864, indicated that ‘he had studied and passed School Management, the principles and processes of Education generally, and specially the subjects of School Registration, Classification, Examination, Discipline and Method’.[footnote]See drop-down menu’ William McIsaac’, which includes his three college reports and timetable.[/footnote]They had also to submit a weekly essay to the Rector on some aspect of education or teaching. ‘An Essay on Stow’s Training System’ by Jesse Gostick’ [footnote]Gostick, Jesse. (1847) An Essay on Stow’s Training System. London, John Mason. [/footnote]written during the Christmas vacation of 1846, may well be a surviving example. Gibson also refers to the students ‘being enjoined to keep a journal in which to record his observations and which must be submitted weekly to the rector for his perusal and criticism’, a habit currently revived in many current forms of professional training. Secondly, students attended, perhaps individually, elocution lessons and ‘Improved articulation and expression in Reading’.[footnote]William McIsaac’s report, op cit.[/footnote]

And thirdly, inevitably, the students had to bring their personal education up to the required standard. The course of study included Scriptural and secular history and geography, physics, all aspects of written and oral language, mathematics, physical exercises, music and singing. The influence of the timetable and curriculum of the infant and juvenile model schools is obvious.

Observation of students’ teaching

If current students were aware that Stow was the originator of the hated ‘crit’ lesson they might vandalise his bust more frequently.[43][footnote]The bust of David Stow, which once stood in the entrance of the David Stow Building, Jordanhill Campus, University of Strathclyde, has occasionally been vandalised![/footnote] Wood claims that Stow was naïve in stating that ‘No bad feelings have arisen which were not promptly and easily repressed’[footnote] Wood, Sir H. P., Speech given at the celebration dinner, 27th October 1978 at the City Chambers, Glasgow.[/footnote]and even Leitch refers to it as a ‘trying time’.[footnote]Leitch. (1876) Practical educationists and their systems of teaching. Glasgow: James MacLehose. p. 194.[/footnote]

Stow was mindful that chairing the ensuing discussions required tact and sensitivity[footnote]Stow. (1840) The Training System, op cit. 4th ed., p. 109: ‘It requires considerable prudence on the part of the Chairman to keep all in good humour’.[/footnote]and in suggesting that one advantage of the process was the development of character he is, in effect, admitting that students were often hurt and discouraged by a process Stow, almost onomatopoeically, alluded to as ‘pulverisation’.[footnote]Stow. (1840) The Training System, op cit, 4th ed., p. 106.[/footnote]

Yet a unique and most moving tribute in the Minutes of the Committee of the Privy Council recollects his handling of nervous students:

‘As long as (Stow) was able he attended the public criticisms, and added not a little to the value of that exercise by his pertinent remarks on the teaching of the students, and the kindly counsels and words of encouragement, which no one knew better to apply to the wounded sensibility of some raw lad who had failed from his over-anxiety to do well.’[footnote]Minutes of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education in the Report of HMI C.E. Wilson MA, March 1865,[/footnote]

Stow himself was at some pains to defend the approach, suggesting that he was conscious of the students’ censure: indeed, his continual use of the word ‘ordeal’ in the succeeding editions of ‘The Training System’ suggests that he was well aware of the students’ views. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see how new entrants to any profession can be assessed without observing them at work and the practice has continued with little alteration. Forty years after Stow David Ross, the Principal of the Church of Scotland Training College, published a most instructive pamphlet for students and staff alike on ‘How to profit from a model lesson’,[footnote]Ross, D. How to profit from a model lesson. (c1880).[/footnote]exemplifying the teacher’s manner, the tone of the class, discipline, language, the selection and organisation of the subject matter, the use of verbal illustrations and teaching materials, and assessment.

Furthermore, teaching is a public activity and embryonic pedagogues must learn to accept this with appropriate humility.  By the seventh edition of ‘The Training System’ Stow was arguing that the principle of the ‘sympathy of numbers’ underlay the communal comments about a particular student’s work: ‘all, however, train the students, and as mind operates upon mind, and manner upon manner, so the variety of the natural capacity of the students renders it impossible for any one person to officiate so powerfully as a number may’.[footnote]Stow. (1846) The Training System, 7th  ed., p. 480.[/footnote]

He suggests, as an example of the approach, that a highly imaginative student would feel himself ‘utterly collapsed, were his studies and attention exclusively confined to the course that might be prescribed by a mere matter-of-fact trainer’.[footnote]Ibid, p. 481.[/footnote] This is an important insight into Stow’s recognition that students brought their own talents and personalities to bear on what was often regarded as an overly rigid ‘system’.

The process of the ‘public criticism’ began gently enough with the observations of the head-trainer at work in each department. Thereafter, students had an hour and a half each day to practise their lessons with small groups of children in the multiple side-classrooms of the Seminary. The head-trainer of the appropriate school was available to give advice while the assistant master taught the remainder of the children. This point is often missed in disparagement of the ‘crit’ lessons mainly, perhaps, because the popular illustrations depict the large, and unquestionably awesome, Gallery. Women students, in particular, were not exposed to the demands of public criticism, partly because it was assumed that the majority (interestingly, not all) were supposed to be too frail to carry their voice; and partly because this was not usually a requirement of their final appointments.

The time came, however, when the men were required to give their lessons publicly in each of the four model schools in turn. Four students, who had been in the Seminary for at least three months, were selected to teach for twelve minutes each. With interspersing hymns, prayers, marching or exercises, this amounted to a total period of an hour. The condensed timescale compelled students to keep to the point, taking account of the age and capacity of the children. Students taught from a wide range of single ‘object lessons’ which, being complete in themselves, did not require the deep and broad knowledge required for a series or course. One was from Scripture (an emblem, a story or a point of doctrine) and the other three could be from history, science, geography, or even a discussion of a playground incident.

At the end of the hour, the four students retired to another room [footnote]Leitch (1876) recalled that no comments could be made in the presence of the children, ‘Practical Educationists and their systems of teaching’ op cit p. 195.[/footnote] where their colleagues, according to the order in which they were seated, evaluated their performance. Neither the students involved, nor the women, could comment, the latter presumably because they were exempted from the ordeal. Nor could students remark upon each other’s criticism. This simple rule belies a wealth of experience: allowing discussion of a contribution quickly detracts from the matter in hand. The process normally took a further hour and a half and covered, in addition to the content of the lesson and didactic skills, the manner, tone of voice, grammatical errors, mispronunciations and any ‘want of success in securing and riveting the attention’.[footnote]Robert Gibson’s report, op cit.[/footnote] When the discussion closed with prayer, the universal sigh of relief must have breezed down Sauchiehall Street. Nevertheless, these episodes made a lasting impression:

‘No-one who has listened to the lessons and the subsequent criticisms can have forgotten the frank, off-hand, hearty commendation, the gentle rebukes, the sometimes subtle and sometimes broad humour of the more experienced critics, and the timid, half-hesitating remarks of beginners. Sometimes the lessons were analysed, and discussion sustained in such a way as to show how deeply some of the teachers were enquiring into the philosophy of education and making the human mind their study.’[footnote]Leitch. (1876) op cit, p. 195.[/footnote]

Most sources from the period (Fraser 1864, Leitch 1876, Wilson 1865) recall that Stow himself chaired these student discussions on two afternoons per week. Helpfully, most editions of the Training System contain a ‘Memoranda for Students and Trainers’ written explicitly ‘at a time when the state of the author’s health prevented him from enforcing the same points during the weekly public and private criticisms’ and repeated verbatim in all the following editions.[footnote]Stow, The Training System’, op cit, 4th edition (p. 368); 5th edition (p. 368); 6th edition (p. 408); 7th edition (p. 410); 8th edition (p. 418); 9th edition (p. 306); 10th edition (p. 323); 11th edition (p. 331). These ‘Memoranda for Students’ were available for purchase as a separate pamphlet for 4d.[/footnote]

We thus have a glimpse of the comments which he might have made: among 148 pithy statements of advice[footnote]See downloadable documents: ‘Memoranda for students’ 8th and 9th Editions.[/footnote]are the following gems:

If a child does a thing improperly, or neglects to do a thing it has been bid to do, the simplest way to check such impropriety is to cause the child to do the thing. He may have thrown his cap on the floor, instead of hanging it on a peg; simply call him back, and see that he hangs it properly. You may have told him to walk softly up stairs – you hear him beating or shuffling with his feet as he ascends; call him back, and see that he walks up every step in the way you wish him. This method repeated will produce the habit, when a threat, or a scold, or a cuff, without the doing, may be instantly forgotten. The certainty of being obliged to do, is better for the memory than the longest speech.

 Do not forget that most important practical axiom, A LESSON IS NOT GIVEN UNTIL IT IS RECEIVED. It is only offered. You may speak, and your pupils may hear, but your lesson is lost unless they understand.

SIMPLICITY. – Do not imagine that you lower your dignity by being simple, you cannot be too simple – the most cultivated minds are always simple – they use simple terms, but they grasp noble ideas. The most complex machine is simple in its parts. One is simple, and a thousand is simply a thousand ones.

An alternative approach to the public criticism lesson entailed men and women to teach each other for about twenty minutes. The students sat in the Gallery and responded as children of a given age-group, with the proviso that if an ‘improper’ question was put they were not expected to answer or complete the ellipsis. The reasoning behind this injunction may be left to the imagination. Under this arrangement, the chairman might interrupt to elucidate the theory, correct an error, or involve the other students. It was an artificial arrangement, however, which Leitch subsequently abandoned.[footnote]Leitch. (1876) op cit. p. 196.[/footnote]

Despite the polish which must have resulted from a year (later two years) of this intensive training, Gibson expressed the same serious misgivings which might be made today. His report on the public criticisms is a model of illustrative detail, methodically compiled, and remarkably consistent with Stow’s own account.  He accepted that students were given ample opportunities to enhance the range and depth of their teaching skills and strategies: indeed his list, a more detailed analysis than Stow’s, might grace a contemporary student’s practical guide to teaching. Overall, he was of the opinion that ‘the methods adopted and practised for the purpose of giving the students the power of performing this difficult duty are highly successful, and entitled to unqualified approbation’. He also commended the number and length of opportunities which the staff were given for evaluating student performance which, again, might be noted in the current reductionist climate:

The rector and the various masters have thus more frequent opportunities of judging with what success they have availed themselves of their opportunities of observation, and of their trials of skill in the art of teaching; and of testing the efficacy of the revision and re-arrangement of their previously acquired knowledge, in rendering it available for the purposes of instruction (and in thus giving to it a practical value), and of witnessing with what effect the general views of education to which in the previous months their attention had been directed are brought to bear upon the ordinary processes of instruction.’[footnote]Ibid.[/footnote]

Nevertheless, he raised several pertinent misgivings. The first, already noted, concerned the lack of depth and breadth in the students’ lessons. Unable to select, as appropriate to age and capacity, from an extensive knowledge, or to maintain interest through ample illustrations, or to answer questions, probe responses or spontaneously develop aspects which excited interest – the students resorted to teaching all they knew of the given topic. Gibson suggested that until the students’ own grasp of the curriculum improved, lesson content should be limited to what they fully understood. Equally germane to the subsequent practice of the ‘crit’ lessons, he considered, prophetically, that the students gave too much of their ‘industry and powers’ to their preparation and were ‘led to attach an undue prominence and value’ to this one aspect of their training.

 Although phrased with some delicacy, Stow also acknowledged that the children’s education could suffer through student practice. ‘Every time a student teaches or trains a class’, he admitted, ‘the children to a certain extent are injured’.[footnote]The Training System, 7th Edition 1846, p. 501.[/footnote]

This was partly to do with the variety of accents – students came from at least thirty-three named counties in England, from Ireland and from different areas of Scotland – but also from the ‘risable qualities’ of the children. The students prepared their lessons so thoroughly, but the children had heard it all before. They obviously took as much delight in poking fun at students as they do today. Their antics, remarked Stow sardonically, provided good moral training for scholars and students alike.

Despite the criticisms, few changes were made even when the student body transferred to the Free Church Training College.[footnote]The fifth Edition of ‘The Training System’ (1841, the date of Gibson’s report) repeats verbatim, albeit in a different chapter order, the arrangements described above. The sixth edition (1845) is reworked but essentially describes the same process. The seventh edition (1846) includes the minor changes described here.[/footnote]

Students began to spend a day a week in what was now called the ‘Initiatory’ department, rather than beginning and ending their course there. The ‘Juvenile’ department was divided into ‘Junior’ and ‘Senior’. The Rector looked for two essays a week – including a comment on a lesson given the previous week.[footnote]

This practice of commenting on work undertaken, rather than on preparation of future lessons, continued until the 1970s as enshrined in the term ‘record-of-work’.[/footnote]

The public criticism period was extended to an hour and a half and the women’s opinions were finally acknowledged, albeit after the male students had left the room or in writing afterwards. Cruikshank (1970) notes that this was partly to do with class: while the men were mainly less articulate labourers, female students were often the more-confident daughters of the lower middle classes who could afford to support them and for whom teaching provided a means of independent living. [footnote]Cruikshank, Marjorie. History of the training of teachers in Scotland. London, University of London Press, 1970, p. 61.[/footnote]

The Assistant Commissioners, in their Report on the State of Education in Glasgow (1866) confirm this view:

‘The families of the female students are commonly more able than those of the other sex to maintain them at the seminary, and they, unlike the males, having scarcely the choice of any other occupation so suitable as that of teaching, there is, perhaps, on their part, the greater and more willing effort to prepare for it.’[footnote]Greig, James and Harvey, Thomas. (1866) Report on the State of Education in Glasgow. Edinburgh. p. 71.[/footnote]

The impact of the Committee of Council orders of 1846: finances

While the Church of Scotland, following the Disruption, continued to face considerable difficulties in training teachers, the Free Church College thrived. As described in Chapter 8, the establishment of the Free Church generated an enthusiasm, generosity and sense of purpose which translated into action not least in the provision of schools and teacher-training. Despite the inconveniences of moving ‘up the hill’ from Dundas Vale to Cowcaddens, the business of training teachers continued.

A year later, however, the Free Church College Committee was faced with the enforced changes introduced by the Committee of the Privy Council on Education. In an attempt to improve the quantity and quality of recruits a system was introduced whereby promising students were selected at the age of 13 and upwards and apprenticed for a total of five years to a local schoolmaster.[footnote] For personal recollections of the pupil-teacher/Queen’s Scholarship  system see ‘Some recollections and reflections of David Street School, Glasgow (1870-1884) and the Glasgow Free Church Training College (1885-1886) by Minnie (née Craig) Blair (1865-1956); transcribed by her grand-daughter Sheila Craik from her notebook.[/footnote] During that time, they received annual payments with incremental increases. The indenture signed by Mr William McIsaac,[footnote]See appropriate drop-down menu.[/footnote]for example, offered £10 at the end of the first year and, by annual increments, £30 at the end of 5^th year, although he was apprenticed for only the last two years before enrolling at the college. The class teacher also gained financially, receiving £5 for one pupil-teacher, £9 for two, £12 for three and £3 for each subsequent pupil. In exchange for this arrangement, the pupil-teachers were to teach during normal school hours and were to be taught for 7½ hours a week. They were inspected by an HMI at the end of each year, and at the end of their apprenticeship they entered a competitive examination for a bursary[footnote]£20-£24 for men and £15-£18 for women.[/footnote](a Queen’s Scholarship) to attend a Normal College for two or three years, during which they were also examined by an HMI. This arrangement undoubtedly benefitted the colleges in terms of student numbers, entry qualifications and financial support.[footnote]

In 1866, The Free Church Training College had an intake of 138 students, only 32 of whom were self-supporting and of them, only four were men.[/footnote]Students in receipt of bursaries [footnote] Enclosed within a copy of Stow’s ‘The Training System’ 11th ed. (1859), purchased from a bookseller in New York was a letter from J. Robertson, of Dundee, dated 11th April, 1867, enquiring about the progress of a ‘Bursar’, Mr Goodwin.[/footnote]were required to give an undertaking in writing that they would follow the profession of teaching in elementary schools for ‘the labouring classes’ – an interesting stipulation that those in receipt of state support should repay in kind.[footnote]The Rector’s report on student destinations  indicates that almost all students in fact found suitable posts.[/footnote]

However, the level of certificate acquired entitled them to an ‘augmentation’ of £15 to £30 to their salary also paid by the Government. It is also worth noting that examination success was not the only criterion for acceptance. The school authorities ‘if there was no room for the admission of all may reject some and prefer others, who, it may be, are lower on the list’ – a reflection that the best teachers are not always the most academically able.

It has been supposed (Monroe 1912, Gunn 1921, Cruikshank 1970, Wood 1987) that Stow, in company with other Scots who saw the scheme as an English imposition, was strongly opposed to the changes introduced by the Committee of Council on Education in 1846. In fact, he was generally in favour, being astute enough both to acknowledge the financial advantages and to recognise that he was unlikely to achieve much more:

‘Whatever may be said against any portion of these Minutes, or the expenditure, we must say, we believe that in no other way could an equal amount of good have been done to general education at a less expenditure. They, practically, have made one mighty step in progress, greater than has been done by any nation, or proposed by any politician.’[footnote]Stow. (1859) The Training System, op cit, 11th ed. p. 560.[/footnote]

Fraser wholeheartedly agreed: ‘Immense advantages have been secured through the action of the Committee of Council on Education. The arrangements are made on the most liberal scale, and with an enlightened regard to the thorough training of teachers’.[footnote]Fraser, Rev William. (1857) The state of our educational enterprises: A report of an examination into the working, results and tendencies of the chief public educational experiments in Great Britain and Ireland. Glasgow: Blackie and Son, p. 106.[/footnote]

It is true that Stow was unhappy with the pupil-teacher system itself, always arguing that children should be taught by trained teachers. But Stow’s own system of Model Schools attached to the college specifically to provide a ‘laboratory’ for student practice meant that children were taught by inexperienced students. He could hardly object if the arrangement was now writ large on a national scale. And even teenage teachers were preferable to Lancaster’s juvenile monitors, especially when their presence in sufficient numbers led to reductions in class-size which, in turn, allowed classification by age and, to some extent, ability. Indeed, Robson (1874) suggests that Stow, in condemning the use of monitors and insisting on teacher-training was ‘the author’ of the pupil-teacher system.[footnote]Robson, E. R. (1874) School architecture. Leicester, Leicester University Press, p. 13.[/footnote]

It is also true that the erstwhile problem concerning the vocational purpose of the college was raised again as Scottish antagonists protested that their students from the burgh and parochial schools did not require the detailed syllabus of personal education laid down by the Committee of Education. The evidence for Stow’s objections can be seen in the absence of restrictions applied to applicants for bursaries in the FCTC. All male and three-quarters of the female candidates in the Church of Scotland College had to have experience as pupil-teachers. Whereas the assistant-commissioners reporting on the state of education in Glasgow (1866) noted:

‘In the Free Church Normal school there are no such restrictions, except as to age; and 190 students, other than pupil teachers, have gained scholarships since its opening up to the present time. Of these, 91 were males and 99 females. ‘Some of these,’ the rector informs us, ‘have occupied high places in the examination, and, as a whole, they have taken a good position.’ He is of opinion that students who have not been pupil-teachers, but have gained their scholarships by open competition, come to their work with fresher minds, and without that feeling of caste, which, from their early training, marks strongly both the male and female pupil-teachers.’[footnote]Greig and Harvey. (1866). p. 72.[/footnote]

Nevertheless, Stow was pragmatic enough to recognise the advantages of the pupil-teacher system. Firstly, there was now a steady supply of students with up to five years’ experience of teaching, who had been subject to an annual examination and a final competition for bursaries. This had to be an improvement on the previous process of application for admission. On a surprisingly contemporary note, improved qualifications were also a means of controlling student numbers:

‘The overstocking of the market with teachers trained and qualified for their work, was an evil sure to follow had the old system continued longer in operation. The check given in this direction is a useful one, and will ultimately tell favourably on the position of the teachers themselves. They will command a higher place and a better remuneration than was likely soon to have been the case under the old system’. [footnote]Ibid, p. 71[/footnote]

During the five years in school, pupil-teachers also had time to assimilate the content of the elementary school curriculum – a major difficulty, as argued above, for both Stow and Gibson. University lecturers, particularly in Scotland, might sneer at the applicants’ lack of a coherent secondary education,[footnote] Pupil teachers remained in the elementary schools receiving only 7½ hours per week of personal education.[/footnote]but at least they were familiar with the material they had to teach. Moreover, the moral conditions of the Indenture were strict. William McIsaac [footnote]See William McIsaac’s indenture.[/footnote] had to ‘conduct himself with honesty, sobriety, and temperance, and not be guilty of any profane or lewd conversation or conduct, or of gambling or any other immorality’ and go to ‘Divine Service’ on Sundays.

Furthermore, while the Church of Scotland fumed, [footnote]‘Two subjects of your letter have caused much anxiety to the Assembly’s Committee.; 1st, The refusal, on the part of the Privy Council Committee, to give any aid to the Glasgow Normal School, ‘on account’, as you say of the appointment of a rector……. and 2nd, The unexpected withdrawal of the permanent grants from both of the Institutions of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the substitution of a plan of reimbursement, by means of yearly payments, to students in these institutions who have remained a certain time in them, and who are able to pass certain examinations laid down by the Privy Council’.  Reply by the Education Committee to Mr Kay-Shuttleworth’s Letter, dated 18th January 1848, p. 59.[/footnote]

Stow was not uncomfortable with the change in the mode of Government financial support. [footnote]MCCE. Letter from J.P. Kay-Shuttleworth proposing change in mode of applying aid to the Education Committee dated 18th June 1847.[/footnote] Under the Minutes of the CCE for August and December 1846, the Normal Colleges were to receive for each student, £20, £25, and £30 respectively at the end of the first, second and third (if valid) years in ‘repayment for the expense of training students’. This arrangement superseded the annual grants. It helped, of course, that the Free Church buildings in both Glasgow and Edinburgh were almost paid for and therefore the annual block grants were less essential. Stow was also sharp enough to note the initial requirement of the Privy Council that in order to receive the annual grant the colleges must appoint a Rector.[footnote]

‘The annual grant of £5000 to each Normal School was made on condition that £1000 should be every year expended besides the income from fees; that if the schools, or either of them, were not satisfactorily maintained and conducted, the annual payments to each of them might be discontinued whole or in part; and that a rector approved by the Committee of Council should be appointed to each school.’ Letter from Kay-Shuttleworth to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, February 2nd 1848 in Minutes of the Committee of Council, 1847-48, p. 68. [/footnote] While poor Mr Forbes,[footnote] One of ‘the inferior masters of the former Model Schools’, MCCE 1847-48, op cit, p. 69.[/footnote]formerly a teacher in the Glasgow Normal Seminary model school,[footnote]And possibly the one member of staff who did not join the general exodus when the staff and students left the Normal Seminary in Cowcaddens to march up the hill to the new Free Church College site. This member of staff has never been named in any of the accounts.[/footnote]continued to manage the Church of Scotland Training College for four years (1845-1849) without the status of the title of ‘Rector’, Stow was quick to remedy Mr Hislop’s position in the Free Church College:

‘Mr Stow stated that it had been suggested that it might add to Mr Hislop’s influence if he was allowed to design himself as Rector of the Institution, and as the Committee approve of the suggestion, he is authorised accordingly.’[footnote]Minutes of the Free Church Training College, Glasgow, Meeting of the 2nd November, 1845, p. 23.[/footnote]

On the one hand, Mr Hislop enjoyed an enhanced personal status; on the other, the Privy Council paid the annual grant to the institution.

Teacher-training in the FCTC was now founded on a sound fiscal footing. It could well be argued that the constant financial strain of the previous twenty-five years had damaged both Stow’s health and his pocket. Now there were grants for pupils, their supervising teachers, students, and through their fees the colleges, and additional salaries for certificated teachers and certificated college lectures. By 1852 the Free Church Colleges were in receipt of Government monies of £3,000 per annum,[footnote]Cruikshank, (1970) p. 58. Mason, D. M. (1985) ‘The Expenditure of the Committee of Council on Education, 1839-52’ in Journal of Educational Administration and History, Volume 17, Issue 1, records £2,739 for 1852, p. 30.[/footnote]three times more per college than the original maintenance grant of £500 each, and by 1860 the Glasgow FCTC was £500-£600 in surplus.[footnote]Minutes of the Glasgow Free Church Training College, March, 1857.[/footnote]

The impact of the Committee of Council of 1846: length of training

The second outcome from the Committee of Council which would delight Stow was the increasing length of the college course. With the change in funding, most students received bursaries and Stow’s vision of a two-year course could become a reality with a commensurate increase in teachers’ salaries. Stow was a businessman and had always argued that it was the quality of the goods that determined their economic value:

‘Some years ago, we were frequently urged, by friends, to direct our efforts to the obtaining of higher salaries for teachers in the first instance, and to train them afterwards; but we preferred the true mercantile principle, to provide a superior article, and then claim a higher price. This has been the uniform and successful mode of procedure.’[footnote]Stow: The Training System 7th ed. p. 442; 11th ed, p. 527.[/footnote]

Initially, although proposed by the Committee of Council, students could not be persuaded to remain beyond a year. John Gordon’s inspection of the Church of Scotland College noted that young men would not continue in study while ‘employments of another kind were open to them on all hands’.[footnote]MCCE (1856), Mr Gordon’s Report on Glasgow Normal College, p. 807.[/footnote]

The promotion of a second year’s attendance by the Supplementary Minute of August 1853 and 1854, was more effective and the surviving register of the Free Church College shows the increasing length of the students’ attendance at the college.

The Minutes of the Free Church Training College reflect these desires and difficulties.  In October 4^th, 1847,  ‘they further resolved that the minimum period for training students shall be one year’.[footnote]MCCE (1856), Mr Gordon’s Report on Glasgow Normal College, p. 807.[/footnote]

By 4^th March 1850 ‘Mr. Stow requested that a small Committee be appointed to consider the following points affecting the Institution and to report to the next monthly meeting of Directors in April: – the effect of adding the direct teaching of Mathematics and the Classics upon our Students during the limited course of twelve months training’. By September 1^st 1851 the candidate ‘Wm. Bowie (was) to be received but not for a course of training less than two years’. On September 3^rd, 1854 ‘The Committee thereafter proceeded to take into consideration the recent changes as adopted in the Minutes of Council regarding the course of study pursued in Training Schools. The Committee approved in general of these changes…..’  And by 1855, the extension of the College course entailed changes in staffing responsibilities and consequent remuneration:

Taking into consideration the increase in the number of Students, the extension of the period of training from one to two years and the desireableness (sic) of maintaining the (industrial?) Department in a state of the greatest efficiency possible, the Committee resolve to nominate the Rev. David Smith, at present Classical Tutor in the Seminary, and Mr. Peter McKay at present Mathematical Tutor, as Lecturers in terms of the minute dated 20^th August 1853 on condition of their being sustained after examination by the Committee of Council and in order to meet the requirements of the Committee of Council the Committee agreed to recommend to the Education Committee to approve of this nomination and to grant the Rev. David Smith and Mr. Peter McKay an additional sum of Forty Six Pounds 1/- each, making their salaries respectively One Hundred and Fifty Pounds Sterling and to authorize that this arrangement shall commence from the 15^th. Day of Aug: pressing.[footnote] FCTC Minutes, June 11th, 1855. The increase in salary to £150 enabled the lecturers to apply for the augmentation of their salary by a further £100 from the Privy Council ‘after examination’.[/footnote] Stow’s ideal of a two-year course, with a commensurate salary, had been achieved.

The impact of the Committee of Council: external evaluation

The concomitant of external support was, justly, external evaluation. The college was now subject to inspection and comparison. In 1857, the year after the inspection of the Church of Scotland Training College ‘A correspondence with the Committee of Council in reference to the Minute of 24^th. April 1857’ was laid on the table and it was unanimously agreed to request their Lordships to instruct Her Majesty’s Inspector to examine the Training School with special reference to that Minute’.[footnote]Minutes of the Free Church Training College, November 7th, 1857.[/footnote]

The inspection was carried out by HMI Mr Charles Wilson MA at the end of 1858, and the report appeared in January 1859. While the accommodation was generally considered excellent, two of the halls were ill-ventilated, there was no space sufficiently large to accommodate all the students, and the examinations had therefore been held in a nearby hall.[footnote]

The lack of a suitable hall for examinations was noted in the minutes of the FCTC for 8th November 1858 and ‘Messrs Brown and Stow’ were requested to look for a possible venue. On December 6th Colin Brown reported that Arcade Place had been ‘engaged for the examination of students for Certificates of Merit at a rent of five pounds per week’. Even in 1858, those inspected tended to direct the outcome the inspection.[/footnote]

The report lists the staffing and commends ‘their untiring zeal and singular aptitude’. Two pages are taken up with the detail of the curriculum which was ‘strictly adhered’ to. The description of the ‘crit’ lessons is as given above, with the recommendation that all students should have the opportunity to observe practice in the model village school. The report concludes that ‘the institution is in admirable working order in all its departments’.[footnote]A further inspection was carried out by HMI Mr Charles Wilson in 1862.[/footnote]

Comparisons with others can be both uncomfortable and unjust. On an astonishingly contemporary note, two years after the inspection:

‘The Rector called the attention of the Committee to the practice which was being largely followed in Normal Schools, of keeping back from the Government Examination for Certificate of Merit all Students about whose passing there was any doubt. He stated that …..  it was unfair to those schools which presented all their students, inasmuch as a false standard of success was established, and the public were thus misled as regarding the real efficiency of a Training School. The public judge of the efficiency of a Training School by the proportion subsisting between the number of students presented and the number who pass; but it is evident that, if all doubtful cases are kept back, the proportion is no fair witness of the efficiency of a Training School.’[footnote]Minutes of the Free Church Training College, November 7th, 1859.[/footnote]

There were also difficulties in measuring cost-effectiveness. A CCE minute of 1851 on the cost of college salaries comments that ‘The Glasgow Training School owes so much to the gratuitous supervision of Mr Stow, that, however successfully it might enter into the competition with others as to the efficiency of its course of tuition, it would be unfair to them to establish this comparison in regard to the cost of it’.[footnote]MCCE Minutes 1851, p. 128.[/footnote]

The proposals of the Privy Council must have seemed to be too good to be true – and of course they were. By 1860 the Government abolished the building grants, Queen’s Scholarships (reinstated 1867) and the payment by the Committee of Council of pupil-teachers’ salaries and head teachers’ fees. Nevertheless, the college’s foundation was secure and Stow was spared the effects of the implementation of the Revised Code of 1861. Although he was elected, in absentia on 30^th September 1861, to a sub-committee to consider the implications of the Revised Code, his last attendance at the full committee was on 11^th November of the same year.[footnote]Almost three years to the day before his death on 6th November, 1864[/footnote]

Until then, however, Stow continued making a substantial contribution to the college. He was appointed Honorary Secretary in 1847[footnote] Minutes of the Free Church Training College, April 5th, 1847.[/footnote] a time-honoured way of recognising those who have made an outstanding contribution. He continued to be ‘authorized to arrange the system & superintend the practical working of the Institution’.[footnote]Op cit, 15th August, 1851[/footnote]

His later years were spent as a revered member of the College Committee often carrying out practical tasks. He was commissioned, for example to advertise for replacements for college teaching staff,[footnote]Minutes, FCTC 5th April, 1847, 5th June, 1848, 13th November, 1848 (appointment of William Fraser), 7th December 1848 and 21st June 1852, when Miss Caughie was required to resign on account of her impending marriage. He recommended the appointment of Margaret Caughie, another of David Caughie’s daughters. Also 4th April, 1853, 9th August, 1853, 6th November 1854, 5th February, 1855, 11th June, 1855.[/footnote] and to investigate the proposed extension of the Juvenile Department,[footnote]Op cit, 4th October, 1847[/footnote], the provision of an additional water closet to be created in the northern end of playground,[footnote] Op cit, 3rdApril, 1848. Significantly, the 11th edition (1859) of ‘The Training System’ includes an illustration and details of an improved water closet, compared with that depicted in the previous 10 editions, presumably as a result of his investigations and recommendation.[/footnote]‘having a door made from the Lobby Stair to the playground of the Industrial Department,’[footnote]Op cit, 5th June 1854.[/footnote]and ‘additions made to the Janitor’s house’[footnote]Op cit, 3rd November, 1856.[/footnote] He continued to argue for increasing the length of training,[footnote]Op cit, 6th September, 1847.[/footnote] evaluated the necessity for offering Drawing [footnote]Op cit, 5th June, 1848.[/footnote]Mathematics and Classics[footnote]Op cit, 9th April, 1849.[/footnote]within the college curriculum, pursued the application for the Government grant,[footnote]Op cit, 4th September, 1848.[/footnote] and was given the unhappy task of explaining to the Education Committee of the Free Church of Scotland why unsanctioned repairs had been carried out.[footnote]Op cit, 6th December 1852. The previous two Committee Meetings had been abandoned for lack of a quorum [/footnote]He was always the first to recommend increases in staff salary [footnote] Op cit, 9th April, 1849, 5th December, 1853, 7th August, 1854, 5th November, 1855, 3rd November, 1856, 12th January, 1857.[/footnote] and it was he who had the presence of mind to suggest the formation of a sub-committee, of which he was a member, to calculate the effect on the college of the proposed establishment of the Wesleyan Westminster College.[footnote]Op cit, 4th March, 1850. [/footnote] He signed the student diplomas [footnote]Op cit, 13th September 1850.[/footnote] and spoke vigorously at the College Examination of 1854. And until increasing ill-health and the untimely deaths of his two elder sons prevented his attendance, he was always present even when some committees were barely quorate, sometimes chairing the meeting and sometimes taking the prayer. Indeed, the newspaper report of the Scottish Guardian of 31^st March, 1854, acknowledged this in its ‘Mr Chips-like’ [footnote]Hilton, James. ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1934.  When questioned about having no children of his own, Mr Chips replied that he had had many children – all boys.[/footnote] tribute:

We were delighted to see the father of this noble institution, Mr. Stow, once more in the midst of his numerous and intelligent family of children. Every visitor responded to the sentiment of one of the examiners, that, in the sight of such schools as these, Mr. Stow must feel that God had not left him without many consolations amidst the bereavements of His providence; and that, in cherishing these, he had still work worth living for.

Wood (1987) argues that Stow’s principal legacy to Scottish education was the establishment of a ‘pattern of teacher training in Scotland, the non-residential, co-educational colleges with the main emphasis on the professional requirements of intending teachers’.[footnote]Wood. (1987) op cit, p. 60.[/footnote] It was a pattern that was to last and expand considerably over the next 150 years.[footnote] In addition to the four Church of Scotland and Free Church Colleges in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Aberdeen (1874); Jordanhill (Glasgow Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland combined) (1904); Dundee (1959, formerly a Centre of St Andrews under a common Director of Studies); Craiglockhart (1959); Dunfermline College of Physical education (1959); Callendar Park (1964); Craigie (1964); Hamilton (1966); and Notre Dame in Bearsden (1967). [/footnote]

 

[1]           ‘David Stow: A sketch by one who knew him’ in The Sabbath School Magazine (1866), p. 242. My emphasis.

[2]           ‘Two teachers on the same day were enrolled as normal students, with a view to two schools in Glasgow, in the process of being erected in the neighbouring parishes, to be conducted on the same system’, Stow. (1860) Granny and Leezy op cit.

[3]           Cf. also Reports of the Committee of Council on Education (1863), p. 322 and (1865), p. 109

[4]           Report on the Glasgow Established Church Normal College by Her majesty’s Inspector of Schools, John Gordon, Esq. for the year 1856 in MCCE, 1856-57, p. 806. Gordon continues ‘It was the only manner in which the preparation of schoolmasters specially for their calling was pursued in Scotland from 1826-1834’ suggesting either ignorance or disregard of developments in Glasgow thirty years earlier. Gibson later argues, however, that, unlike the General Assembly, the Glasgow Normal College trained teachers for ‘indiscriminate’ destinations and was the ‘first regular seminary of the Normal kind established in Scotland’ – a very careful choice of words.

[5]           Quoted Roberts, A.F.B. (1972)  ‘Scotland and Infant Education in the Nineteenth Century’ in Scottish Educational Studies vol. 4, no. 1, 4 May 1972. p. 40.

[6]           Fraser. (1857) The State of our Educational Enterprises: A Report of an Examination into the Working, Results and Tendencies of the chief Public Educational Experiments in Great Britain and Ireland Glasgow, Blackie and Son, 1857, p. 98.

[7]           Since Caughie celebrated his Jubilee in teaching in 1868 he must have begun his career in 1818 at the age of sixteen.  He was therefore a mature and experienced teacher when he was appointed to the Drygate School in 1828.

[8]           James Buchanan was the first master of Brewers’ Green Infant School, opened under the jurisdiction of Lord Brougham early in 1819.

[9]           In 1805 there were ‘eight lads and several men’ and by 1810 possibly three times as many, cf. Hewett, S. (1971). The training of teachers, a factual survey. London, University of London Press. This is the origin of the Borough Road Training College.

[10]         Great Britain being England, Scotland and Wales.

[11]         ‘By 1814 the Kildare Place Society had 16 trained masters and it opened its first school in the following year. By 1831 it had 1,621 schools with 1,908 teachers and 137,000 pupils. Women teachers had been trained from 1824 onwards and by 1831 they numbered 482.’

http://deskeenan.com/4PrChapter25.htm#Kildare.

[12]         Stow. (1840) The Training System’ op cit 4^th ed., p. 91: ‘Many teachers work out and arrive at a good system, it is true.’

[13]         Rich, R. (1933). The training of teachers in England and Wales during the nineteenth century. London, p. 4.

[14]         Fraser. (1857) p. 98.

[15]         Although most authorities, even Stow, refer to the opening in November, it was Ian McKellar who spotted that it was actually 31st October, cf. ‘Schoolmaisters to be taught? Never!’ in The Times Educational Supplement, April 1978. The Scottish Guardian’s account of 2nd November, 1837 refers to ‘last Tuesday’, which was, in fact, 31st October.

[16]         Greig and Harvey, (1866) Assistant Commissioners appointed by the Royal Commission of Education in Scotland, state: ‘Glasgow claims (we believe justly) to have been the first Normal school in Britain for the systematic training of teachers’, p. 71. Seaborne, M. (1974). ‘Early theories of teacher education’ in British Journal of Educational Studies also adopts this view, p. 328.

[17]         Stow. The Training System, op cit, 4^th ed., p. 91, my italics but not capitals; cf. the Monitorial ‘system’ taught at Borough Road.

[18]         Unlike the monitorial training schools, where some of the applicants could scarcely read and write and whose lessons, therefore, were aimed at teaching them simultaneously with the method of teaching others.

[19]          As noted in Chapters 9 and 10 , Infant, Juvenile and Female School of Industry.

[20]         This followed a long tradition by which the National Church (the Church of Scotland) controlled the moral quality of its teachers. An Act of the Scottish Parliament, ‘For settling the Quiet and Peace of the Church’, 12th June 1693 stated ‘All Schoolmasters and Teachers of Youth in schools are and shall be liable to the tryall (sic), judgement and censure of the Presbyteries of the Bounds for their sufficiency, qualifications and deportment in the said Office’.

[21]         It should be noted that 1841 was a very difficult year in the history of the college.

[22]         ‘From fifty to sixty parochial and other teachers, from various districts of the country, have spent part of their vacation in (the Model Schools) – some from two or three months, others for a week or ten days’. The Glasgow Herald, 9th October 1835.

[23]         In 2008, 70% of primary and 81% of secondary teachers received only 36 weeks training (on the PGDE course): Teachers in Scotland 2008, Table 12.1: Students graduating from teacher training, 2000-2008 available at www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/29102949/106 (as at May 2010).

[24]         Gibson, John. (1841) Report on the Glasgow Normal Seminary, Edinburgh, July 3rd, 1841 in MCCE 1841-42, pps. 14-27.

[25]         Happily, Gibson’s arithmetic is accurate.

[26]         Gibson, (1841) op cit.

[27]         As in New Lanark, for example, where historical charts, detailed botanical and natural history illustrations and geographical maps, obviously too advanced for the children, were in use.

[28]         Board of Guardians’ Minute Books, Southwell Union Workhouse, Nottinghamshire.

[29]         Kay-Shuttleworth: On the Training of Pauper Children 1839, p. 41, 42.

‘The schoolmaster and schoolmistress have been furnished with approved works on the art of teaching, describing the methods of instruction which have been most successfully adopted. Among the books have been comprised ‘Wood’s Account of the Edinburgh Sessional School,’ Stow’s ‘Moral Training, Abbott’s ‘Teacher,’ Dunn’s ‘Normal School Manual,’ Wilson’s ‘Manual of Instruction for Infant Schools’, Wilderspin’s ‘Infant System, ‘Chambers’ ‘Infant Education,’ Brigham ‘On the Influence of Mental Cultivation upon Health,’ &c., books on gardening, frugal cookery, &c.’

[30]         Stow. The Training System, op cit, 4^th ed., p. 101.

[31]         Ibid, p. 102.

[32]         Stow. The Training System, op cit, 7^th ed. p. 496.

[33]         Minutes of the Free Church Training College, 4th, March 1850.

[34]         Rich, R. W. (1933). The training of teachers in England and Wales during the nineteenth century. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 36.

[35]         It is interesting to note, for example, that David Caughie, the head infant-trainer, boarded students in Hope Place and we may speculate that his second-eldest daughter, Margaret, married one of them. Scottish Census 1841 and GROS Register of Marriages 10th March, 1864, Margaret Caughie and John Rebanks, a teacher. See also Appendix 7/4: ‘David Caughie 1802-1874’.

[36]         Letter from George Combe, Edinburgh, 10^th October, 1847. This letter was written under the auspices of the Free Church Normal College, but reflects the need, in both colleges, to accept students who could pay their own fees.

[37]         This would be something of a triumph for Stow since Combe was a prominent Secularist.

[38]         Even at this stage it was hoped that the course of training would last three years but lack of financial assistance inhibited this: GES Third Report, p. 9.

[39]         Letter to Miss Clark, dated Glasgow, 2nd July 1852, in response to a request for staff. Although this refers to the Free Church College, the context had not changed.

[40]         See Appendix 12/5 William McIsaac’, which includes his three college reports and timetable.

[41]         Gostick, Jesse. (1847) An Essay on Stow’s Training System. London, John Mason. See ‘A review of the literature’ in the Appendices.

[42]         William McIsaac’s report, op cit.

[43]         The bust of David Stow, which stands in the entrance of the David Stow Building, Jordanhill Campus, University of Strathclyde, was vandalised during the writing of this thesis.

[44]         Wood, Sir H. P., Speech given at the celebration dinner, 27th October 1978 at the City Chambers, Glasgow.

[45]         Leitch. (1876) Practical educationists and their systems of teaching. Glasgow: James MacLehose. p. 194.

[46]         Stow. (1840) The Training System, op cit. 4^th ed., p. 109: ‘It requires considerable prudence on the part of the Chairman to keep all in good humour’.

[47]         Stow. (1840) The Training System, op cit, 4^th ed., p. 106.

[48]         Minutes of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education in the Report of HMI C.E. Wilson MA, March 1865,

[49]         Ross, D. How to profit from a model lesson. (c1880).

[50]         Stow. (1846) The Training System, 7^th  ed., p. 480.

[51]         Ibid, p. 481.

[52]         Leitch (1876) recalled that no comments could be made in the presence of the children, ‘Practical Educationists and their systems of teaching’ op cit p. 195.

[53]         Robert Gibson’s report, op cit.

[54]         Leitch. (1876) op cit, p. 195.

[55]         Stow, The Training System’, op cit, 4th edition (p. 368); 5th edition (p. 368); 6th edition (p. 408); 7th edition (p. 410); 8th edition (p. 418); 9th edition (p. 306); 10th edition (p. 323); 11th edition (p. 331). These ‘Memoranda for Students’ were available for purchase as a separate pamphlet for 4d.

[56]         See digitised resources: ‘Memoranda for students’ 8^th and 9th Editions.

[57]         Leitch. (1876) op cit. p. 196.

[58]         Ibid.

[59]         The Training System, 7th Edition 1846, p. 501.

[60]         The fifth Edition of ‘The Training System’ (1841, the date of Gibson’s report) repeats verbatim, albeit in a different chapter order, the arrangements described above. The sixth edition (1845) is reworked but essentially describes the same process. The seventh edition (1846) includes the minor changes described here.

[61]         This practice of commenting on work undertaken, rather than on preparation of future lessons, continued until the 1970s as enshrined in the term ‘record-of-work’.

[62]         Cruikshank, Marjorie. History of the training of teachers in Scotland. London, University of London Press, 1970, p. 61.

[63]         Greig, James and Harvey, Thomas. (1866) Report on the State of Education in Glasgow. Edinburgh. p. 71.

[64]         For personal recollections of the pupil-teacher/Queen’s Scholarship  system see ‘Some recollections and reflections of David Street School, Glasgow (1870-1884) and the Glasgow Free Church Training College (1885-1886) by Minnie (née Craig) Blair (1865-1956); transcribed by her grand-daughter Sheila Craik from her notebook.

[65]         See Appendix 12/5.

[66]         £20-£24 for men and £15-£18 for women.

[67]         In 1866, The Free Church Training College had an intake of 138 students, only 32 of whom were self-supporting and of them, only four were men.

[68]         Enclosed within a copy of Stow’s ‘The Training System’ 11^th ed. (1859), purchased from a bookseller in New York was a letter from J. Robertson, of Dundee, dated 11^th April, 1867, enquiring about the progress of a ‘Bursar’, Mr Goodwin.

[69]         The Rector’s report on student destinations, included as Appendix 13/4 indicates that almost all students in fact found suitable posts.

[70]         Stow. (1859) The Training System, op cit, 11^th ed. p. 560.

[71]         Fraser, Rev William. (1857) The state of our educational enterprises: A report of an examination into the working, results and tendencies of the chief public educational experiments in Great Britain and Ireland. Glasgow: Blackie and Son, p. 106.

[72]         Robson, E. R. (1874) School architecture. Leicester, Leicester University Press, p. 13.

[73]         Greig and Harvey. (1866). p. 72.

[74]         Ibid, p. 71

[75]         Pupil teachers remained in the elementary schools receiving only 7½ hours per week of personal education.

[76]         Appendix 12/5, William McIsaac’s indenture.

[77]         ‘Two subjects of your letter have caused much anxiety to the Assembly’s Committee.; 1st, The refusal, on the part of the Privy Council Committee, to give any aid to the Glasgow Normal School, ‘on account’, as you say of the appointment of a rector……. and 2nd, The unexpected withdrawal of the permanent grants from both of the Institutions of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the substitution of a plan of reimbursement, by means of yearly payments, to students in these institutions who have remained a certain time in them, and who are able to pass certain examinations laid down by the Privy Council’.  Reply by the Education Committee to Mr Kay-Shuttleworth’s Letter, dated 18th January 1848, p. 59.

[78]         MCCE. Letter from J.P. Kay-Shuttleworth proposing change in mode of applying aid to the Education Committee dated 18^th June 1847.

[79]         ‘The annual grant of £5000 to each Normal School was made on condition that £1000 should be every year expended besides the income from fees; that if the schools, or either of them, were not satisfactorily maintained and conducted, the annual payments to each of them might be discontinued whole or in part; and that a rector approved by the Committee of Council should be appointed to each school.’ Letter from Kay-Shuttleworth to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, February 2^nd 1848 in Minutes of the Committee of Council, 1847-48, p. 68.

[80]         One of ‘the inferior masters of the former Model Schools’, MCCE 1847-48, op cit, p. 69.

[81]         And possibly the one member of staff who did not join the general exodus when the staff and students left the Normal Seminary in Cowcaddens to march up the hill to the new Free Church College site. This member of staff has never been named in any of the accounts.

[82]         Minutes of the Free Church Training College, Glasgow, Meeting of the 2nd November, 1845, p. 23.

[83]         Cruikshank, (1970) p. 58. Mason, D. M. (1985) ‘The Expenditure of the Committee of Council on Education, 1839-52’ in Journal of Educational Administration and History, Volume 17, Issue 1, records £2,739 for 1852, p. 30.

[84]         Minutes of the Glasgow Free Church Training College, March, 1857.

[85]         Stow: The Training System 7th ed. p. 442; 11th ed, p. 527.

[86]         MCCE (1856), Mr Gordon’s Report on Glasgow Normal College, p. 807.

[87]         MCCE (1856) Op cit, October 4^th, 1847.

[88]         FCTC Minutes, June 11^th, 1855. The increase in salary to £150 enabled the lecturers to apply for the augmentation of their salary by a further £100 from the Privy Council ‘after examination’.

[89]         Minutes of the Free Church Training College, November 7^th, 1857.

[90]         The lack of a suitable hall for examinations was noted in the minutes of the FCTC for 8^th November 1858 and ‘Messrs Brown and Stow’ were requested to look for a possible venue. On December 6^th Colin Brown reported that Arcade Place had been ‘engaged for the examination of students for Certificates of Merit at a rent of five pounds per week’. Even in 1858, those inspected tended to direct the outcome the inspection.

[91]         A further inspection was carried out by HMI Mr Charles Wilson in 1862.

[92]         Minutes of the Free Church Training College, November 7^th, 1859.

[93]         MCCE Minutes 1851, p. 128.

[94]         Almost three years to the day before his death on 6^th November, 1864.

[95]         Minutes of the Free Church Training College, April 5^th, 1847.

[96]         Op cit, 15^th August, 1851,

[97]         Minutes, FCTC 5^th April, 1847, 5^th June, 1848, 13^th November, 1848 (appointment of William Fraser), 7^th December 1848 and 21^st June 1852, when Miss Caughie was required to resign on account of her impending marriage. He recommended the appointment of Margaret Caughie, another of David Caughie’s daughters. Also 4^th April, 1853, 9^th August, 1853, 6^th November 1854, 5^th February, 1855, 11^th June, 1855.

[98]         Op cit, 4^th October, 1847.

[99]         Op cit, 3^rdApril, 1848. Significantly, the 11th edition (1859) of ‘The Training System’ includes an illustration and details of an improved water closet, compared with that depicted in the previous 10 editions, presumably as a result of his investigations and recommendation.

[100]        Op cit, 5th June 1854.

[101]        Op cit, 3rd November, 1856.

[102]        Op cit, 6th September, 1847.

[103]        Op cit, 5th June, 1848.

[104]        Op cit, 9th April, 1849.

[105]        Op cit, 4th September, 1848.

[106]        Op cit, 6th December 1852. The previous two Committee Meetings had been abandoned for lack of a quorum.

[107]        Op cit, 9th April, 1849, 5th December, 1853, 7th August, 1854, 5th November, 1855, 3rd November, 1856, 12th January, 1857.

[108]        Op cit, 4th March, 1850.

[109]        Op cit, 13th September 1850.

[110]        Hilton, James. ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1934.  When questioned about having no children of his own, Mr Chips replied that he had had many children – all boys.

[111]        Wood. (1987) op cit, p. 60.

[112]        In addition to the four Church of Scotland and Free Church Colleges in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Aberdeen (1874); Jordanhill (Glasgow Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland combined) (1904); Dundee (1959, formerly a Centre of St Andrews under a common Director of Studies); Craiglockhart (1959); Dunfermline College of Physical education (1959); Callendar Park (1964); Craigie (1964); Hamilton (1966); and Notre Dame in Bearsden (1967).