School log books

The following is a subsequent paper by Caroline Bath

From Parish to Board: Schooling on the Isle of Lismore 1866-1890

Scope and background to the study

This study examines issues of continuity and change related to schooling on the Scottish Hebridean island of Lismore during the period both before and after The Education (Scotland) Act of 1872. School logbook entries documenting events at the main school on the island are cited as italicised (using original words) and contextualised by other local documentary evidence of the period. Lismore is an Inner Hebridean island near Oban, approximately ten miles long by one mile wide. It is relatively low lying, and very green and fertile, and surrounded by the waters of Loch Linnhe. The paper uses ‘Lismore’ to refer to the Isle of Lismore, unless specifically referencing the wider united parish of Lismore and Appin of the period.

The Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 followed just two years after England brought in similar legislation to create a system of education out of a disparate array of schools. Whether the Scottish Act was necessary is disputed, and in a widely cited debate to mark the centenary of the Act, Withrington said that the parish system of educational provision in Scotland was in need of legislative adaptation by 1872, whilst Myers argued that the Act had been an imposition of Westminster control on Scottish schooling. More recently, McDermid portrayed the Act in a different light – as a revival of the Presbyterian educational tradition of countrywide common schooling, and she also argued that education after the Act only changed in the sense that the state took over what was previously the church’s role to provide.
Whatever the arguments about the cultural politics of the 1872 Act, many educational historians refer to the common belief or ‘myth’ that Scottish education of the parish era was distinctive, high quality and accessible to a wide range of the population. This idea centred around the schoolmaster or ‘dominie’s’ role linking parish school and university; a tradition of ‘democratic intellect’ which Anderson and Wallace identify as a Calvinist stereotype of ‘the “metaphysical” Scot.’

[1] Isle of Lismore <https://isleoflismore.com (last accessed 3 Sept 2023).

[1] The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 62) < https://education-uk.org/documents/acts/1872-education-scotland-act.html (last accessed 3 Sept 2023).

[1] D.J. Withrington, ‘Towards a national system, 1867-72: The last years in the struggle for a Scottish Education Act’, Scottish Educational Studies, 4 (1972), pp. 107-124.

[1] J.D. Myers, ‘Scottish nationalism and the antecedents of the 1872 Education Act, Scottish Educational Studies, 4 (1972) pp. 71-92.

[1] J. McDermid, ‘Education and Society in the Era of the School Boards, 1872-1918’, in R. Anderson, M. Freeman and L. Paterson (eds), The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2015), pp. 190-208.

[1] G. Davie, The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and her Universities in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1961).

[1] R. Anderson and S. Wallace, ‘The Universities and national Identity in the Long Nineteenth Century, c. 1830-1914’, in R. Anderson, M. Freeman and L. Paterson (eds), The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland (Edinburgh, 2015), pp. 265-286.

Logbooks kept by the schoolmaster provided a record of everyday concerns, grounding the ‘myth’ in reality. The two logs cited in this study cover the period 1866-1890 during which the main school on Lismore transitioned from parish to public school. The study also draws on relevant census material, as well as the Lismore sections of The Old and New Statistical Accounts of Scotland, and it aims to situate schooling within a broader notion of education as linked to community. The rationale for this is explained later in a discussion of the historiography of ‘spatial history’. A key document of the period, The Report on the State of Education in the Hebrides , will be referred to throughout. This was one of the reports which comprised the Argyll Commission of 1864.

The Argyll Commission
Despite the strength of the Presbyterian educational tradition, as outlined above, Scotland argues that by the 1860’s, there were significant gaps or weaknesses in the parochial system. Many of these centred around lack of, or inadequate private ‘adventure school’, provision for the poor in urban areas. Across the country, a third of school buildings were unsuitable and the number of years of instruction provided, as well as standards in general, were variable. To provide information on these issues, a commission, appointed by Palmerston and led by the Duke of Argyll was set up.

Many of the shortcomings of parochial schools disproportionately affected either urban areas or Highland parishes covering very large areas of land. One of the geographical areas studied by the Argyll Commission was that of the Hebrides including Lismore and, in his report, Alexander Nicolson who was appointed as assistant commissioner, explains the rationale behind the decision:
I was instructed to direct my attention to that district in the first place, as a specimen of the Highlands in general, on the ground, as I understand, that any peculiarity of circumstances distinguishing the Highlands, in an educational point of view, from the rest of Scotland, would be found to exist still more specially in the islands.

[1] Donald McNichol, The Old Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol 1. (1791) <https://electricscotland.com/history/statistical/The_statistical_account_of_Scotland1.pdf (last accessed 4th Sept 2023) and Gregor McGregor, The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845) <https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/nsa- vol7Parish_record_for_Lismore_and_Appin_in_the_county_of_Argyle_in_volume_7_of_account_2/nsa-vol7-p223-parish-argyle-lismore_and_appin?search=Lismore%20and%20Appin

1875 (Last accessed 4 Sept 2023).

[1] A. Nicolson, The Report on the State of Education in the Hebrides (Edinburgh, 1866)

[1] J. Scotland, ‘The Centenary of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872’, British Journal of Educational Studies, June (1972), pp. 121-136.

[1] Ibid.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p. 1.

Nevertheless, in apparent contradiction with this mission, he subsequently points out that:

It would probably be a mistake to apply the conclusions resulting from survey of the island school and education to the whole Highlands…
In fact, Nicolson’s detailed data was mainly taken from the larger islands of the Inner and Outer Hebrides, numbering twenty-three in total, of which he was at pains to point out lack of public knowledge:
It would not, perhaps, be far wide of the truth to say that the whole natural history and condition of these islands, with the exception of the more picturesque and fashionable spots, is still as little known to the majority of the British nation as is the geography of Polynesia – perhaps even less so.

The enquiry was conducted by collecting evidence from ‘clergy of the various denominations, intelligent laymen and schoolmasters, working men and women, and the parents of the children who attend the various schools of the district.’ He visited a number of schools and collected statistics on the condition of those schools and the educational state of the population. He also commented on the inappropriateness and unreliability of some of the survey tools or schedules that were not designed to capture the situation for small schools in such poor and rural situations.

The Isle of Lismore in 1866 was part of the larger mainland united parish of Lismore and Appin, and although not visited in person by Nicolson, some basic information about its schooling was collected. The report states that in 1865 there were four schools on Lismore which equated to 1: 213 of the population. These included one principal parochial school with a certificated master, a side-school and two female schools:
Of the latter, one is supported by the Christian Knowledge Society, the other by the United Presbyterian Church, being the only school connected with that Church in the Hebrides. The number on the rolls of the four schools in December 1864 was 164; in attendance, 127. All the buildings are slated houses and said to be in good condition.
The conclusions of Nicolson’s report, which he considered to be generic across the islands, were that, despite the best efforts of benevolent societies and individuals, adult illiteracy and ignorance of the English language were obstacles to educational improvement. To improve this, ‘well organised educational apparatus, tailored to the population’ was needed, and in his view, denominational differences were not a barrier.
To counteract ‘poverty and precariousness of resources; want of organisation and uniformity; and want of control and supervision’ Nicolson set out three remedies. These were: a) the building of new school-houses and teachers’ dwellings, though without increasing the existing number b) fixed provision for teachers’ pay and pension, and c) a uniform system of government with a mixture of local and central representation, the power balance remaining centrally located.
To effect these changes, qualifications would become necessary for holding teaching posts; competition between schools be encouraged, especially to encourage the achievements of senior scholars; and in some populous parishes, a parish school would become a grammar school, with the aim of stimulating education across the district in general. Thus, the Argyll Commission laid out foundations for the 1872 Act.

[1] Ibid, p. 6.

[1] Ibid, p. 8.

[1] Ibid, p.5.

[1] Ibid, p.5.

[1] Ibid, p.72.

[1] Ibid, p. 133.

[1] Ibid, p.133-4.

The 1872 Act

The Scottish Education Act of 1872 sought to create a national education system which provided places for all children; was subject to checks on quality; and was administered at local and national levels. This included improved provision for financing and a system for ensuring the competency of teachers. There continued to be a place for voluntary schools and freedom was given to an individual’s social conscience.

In assessing the effect of the Act, McKinney and Humes point out that there is a tendency in earlier accounts, such as those by Morgan, Knox and Scotland, to present Scottish education as ‘a narrative of continuous progress’. However, several later accounts are critical of this narrative, especially with regard to secondary education which, according to Anderson, was left by the Act in ‘a financial and administrative limbo’.

The 980 school boards set up to control the schools were comprised of between five and fifteen elected members. Whilst Bain says that this indicated local democratic control of schools, McDermid points out that membership of these Boards was dominated by religious representatives, landowners, and local businessmen, with the landowners and businessmen often more concerned with keeping costs down than with improving the quality of accommodation or teaching. Nevertheless, Scotland highlights some of the impressive achievements of the larger boards, especially those of Glasgow and Govan, in meeting the challenge of providing adequate buildings, encouraging attendance and recruiting sufficient teachers. There is evidence, too, in the Baligarve school log that School Board members were very active in carrying out the elected duties which they took over from the minister and heritors.

[1] Scotland, ‘The Centenary of the Education (Scotland) Act’, p. 136.

[1] A. Morgan, Rise and Progress of Scottish Education (Edinburgh 1927); H.M. Knox Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Scottish Education (Edinburgh, 1953); and J. Scotland, The History of Scottish Education, Vols. 1 and 2 (London, 1969).

[1] S.J. McKinney and W.M.Humes, ‘Interpretations of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872’, Scottish Educational Review, 53 (2022), pp. 5-19, 6.

[1] R. Anderson, Education and Opportunity in Victorian Scotland (Oxford, 1983), p.111.

[1] A. Bain, ‘The Beginnings of Democratic Control of Local Education in Scotland’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 23 (2003), pp. 7-25.

[1] McDermid ‘Education and Society in the Era of the School Boards’.

[1] Scotland, ‘The Centenary of the Education (Scotland) Act’.

One of the main priorities of the Act was to improve the quality of teaching, but it did not necessarily improve the security of tenure for the teachers – indeed, the Baligarve school log reveals a period of teaching instability after 1872. McKinney and Humes point out that prior to 1872, schoolmasters in parish schools (and in some burgh schools) enjoyed relative security of tenure, but under the Act any newly appointed teacher could be suspended or dismissed by the School Board. Bone also points out that teachers often had little confidence in the fairness of inspectors or Scotch Education Department officials in seeking a remedy.

Although the Act didn’t set a limit to fees, the Scotch (later ‘Scottish’) Education Department ruled that they ‘should not exceed ninepence per week’. There was, however, provision in section 69 of the Act for fees to be paid or partly paid out of the poor fund for families that could not afford them or could only afford part of the fees.

In terms of omissions from the Act, in addition to the lack of specific provision for secondary education, there was a negative impact on the development of nursery education. Sometimes children under five years old had attended the parish schools, but the strain of making provision for all 5–13-year-olds had the effect of marginalising nursery age children. Similarly, there was no provision in the Act to cater for disabled children.

More significant for the Hebrides in general, and Lismore in particular, was the lack in the Act for Gaelic education. It assumed that English was the medium through which subjects were taught because the geographical destination for pupils was more important than the community from which they came. In other words, English was regarded as the language for advancement in an English-speaking world. This was tempered by Nicolson’s own view as a Gaelic speaker that use should be made ‘at the outset of the only language which the pupil understands’. Nevertheless, the main thrust of the report was that ‘general ignorance of the English language constitutes a special and powerful obstacle to the progress of improvement in the district’, and this meant that Gaelic education was ignored.

Whilst the status of Gaelic language was overlooked, the issue of religion was hotly debated. Morgan argues that through the Act, the state took the place of the Church as the ‘official agent of education’.

[1] McKinney and Humes, ‘Interpretations of the Education (Scotland) Act’.

[1] T.R. Bone, Studies in the History of Scottish Education 1872-1939 (London, 1967) p. 91.

[1] Knox, Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Scottish Education.

[1] McKinney and Humes, ‘Interpretations of the Education (Scotland) Act’.

[1] Ibid.

[1] F. O’Hanlon and L. Paterson, ‘Gaelic Education since 1872’, in R.D. Anderson, M. Freeman and L. Paterson, L. (eds), The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland (Edinburgh: 2015) pp. 304-25.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p.113.

[1] Ibid.

[1] Morgan, Rise and Progress of Scottish Education, p.165.

This meant that Presbyterian religious education required legislative security , as a cultural shift was made ‘from an educational world which was part of Scotland’s religious culture to one which was tied to the state, secular, and pluralistic’. Indeed, we see in the holidays, management, inspection and curriculum, as recorded in the school logs on Lismore and outlined in Section 5, how the influence of the Presbytery gradually diminished.

Most significantly, from the point of view of Lismore, rural education, which had been central to the parish system, was now relegated in importance and overtaken by the scale of urban provision. The rural ideal, of an inspiring local dominie and hard-working scholars aiming for a university education, took a blow. The focus for this paper is what this meant on the Isle of Lismore.

Spatial History
Nicolson records:

LISMORE lies between the coasts of Mull and Argyleshire, a few miles to the north of Oban. It is about ten miles in length by one and a half in physical breadth and has long been celebrated as the most fertile of the description Western Islands, which its name implies. The population in 1861 was 853. It is the seat of a parish church and school and gives its name to the united parish of Lismore and Appin, of which, however, it forms but a fractional part.

When Nicolson compiled his evidence, between 1861 and 1866, the mainland part of this partially insular parish was forty-eight miles in length and ten in breadth. This made the island around three percent of the landmass of the whole. Yet, despite this, the island had four of the overall eighteen schools in the parish which included one school in Kingairloch, to the west of the island with the other thirteen on the mainland areas lying to the east of the island. This area extended from the shores of Loch Creran on the west, to the Moor of Rannoch on the east, and included Appin, Duror, Glencoe, and Ballachulish.

Despite what Nicolson refers to as the ‘difficulties and delay incident to travelling in the Hebrides’, he considered it his duty to attempt to visit ‘even the most remote and inaccessible localities, as being, from that very cause, the most likely to suffer neglect’ and he equates physical obstructions to gaining access to many areas with the difficulties of their social advancement. Nevertheless, in the case of the united parish of Lismore and Appin, he comments on the vast stretch of the wider mainland area representing challenges of accessibility every bit as difficult as that of other purely island parishes.

[1] S.J. McKinney, ‘The Presbyterian Campaign (1923-1930) Against the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918’, in S.J. McKinney and R. McCluskey (eds) A History of Catholic Education and Schooling in Scotland: New Perspectives (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019), pp. 149-174.

[1] R.D. Anderson, Education and the Scottish People, 1750-1918 (Oxford, 1995), p. 296.

[1] McKinney and Humes, ‘Interpretations of the Education (Scotland) Act’, p.16.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p. 72.

[1] Ibid, p. 3.

[1] Ibid, p. 3.

[1] Ibid, p. 7-8.

In 1861, the overall population of the parish numbered 3,595, meaning that the proportion of population to schools on the island was slightly higher than in the rest of the parish. However, in terms of accessibility, children on the island were more likely to be closer to a school than in the mainland parts of the parish which covered such vast distances. Thus, we can conclude that living on the island was distinguished from life in the rest of the parish.

Although the premise of the Argyll Commission was that education on the Hebridean islands would represent ‘a specimen of the Highlands in general’, it is significant that Nicolson stresses the ‘great diversities of condition between different portions of the district so named’ and argues that datum can only be applied to the areas on which it is based. However, in apparent contradiction, he also says that the Hebrides (with small exception) can be seen as ‘homogenous’, and that ‘any one may be taken as typical of the rest’, thereby he makes a distinction between the nature of islands and that of the mainland.

Given that the island (as distinct from the parish) of Lismore is the subject of this study, it is relevant to develop Nicolson’s conclusion that islands are specific cases and consider what that means in a historical context. Campbell outlines that when a study of time and place merges, a notion of ‘spatial history’ follows which focuses on concepts of place and scale, and can ‘serve as methodology, approach and object’. He also makes the point that when the study of geography turned away from social concerns from the 1940s through to the 1960s, social history became the place for spatial studies.

Such historiographical developments led the way for the study of islands, or ‘nissology’, to become an interdisciplinary subject. What is referred to in postmodernism as a ’spatial turn’ argues that social change can only be explained through a reconceptualization of the spatial component of social life. The idea that we think through islands is the underlying premise for scholars of nissology. Yet as Baldacchino points out, such an approach is ‘fraught with epistemological and methodological difficulties’, in terms of whose narrative, both historically and contemporaneously, dominates such study. Whereas Nicolson heavily emphasises the retardation of social advancement on the Hebridean islands in the 1860s, Gillis and Lowenthal say that ‘islands have for the most part shed the association with backwardness and remoteness that seemed in times past to differentiate them from mainlands’.

[1] Ibid, p. 200.

[1] See footnote ^10.

[1] See footnote ^11.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p. 7.

[1] C. Campbell, ‘Space, Place, and Scale: Human Geography and Spatial History in Past and Present’, Past and Present, <https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtw006, p.1 (last accessed 3 Sept 2023).

[1] Ibid, p.1.

[1] M. Low, The City as Experiential Space: The Production of Shared Meaning (2013).

[1] G. Baldacchino, ‘Studying Islands: On Whose Terms? Some Epistemological and Methodological Challenges to the Pursuit of Island Studies’, Island Studies Journal, Vol3, No1 (2008), pp. 37-56, abstract.

[1] J.R.Gillis and D. Lowenthal, ‘Editorial Introduction’, Geographical Review, Vol97, No2 (2007), p. iii-vi, p.iii.

The usefulness of a nissological perspective for this study is that it reminds us that whilst sources linked to schooling prioritise the voices of commissioner, inspector or teacher, there is another viewpoint embedded in the voices of ordinary island people. As Hay points out, ‘island meanings, divergent or convergent, emerge from deeply visceral lived experience’. This voice may be harder to access, but it broadens the purpose of education on an island to include the development of the specific community it serves. The Anglo-Scottish historian of political thought Quentin Skinner made it a central requirement for the historian to focus on the language actually used by the people whose lives are being studied, that is, if the historian wishes to recover those people’s point of view. Therefore, whilst reviewing the evidence from the Kilandrist Parish and Baligarve Public school logs alongside census statistics, evidence from other local sources will also be referred to including: Mary Cameron MacGregor’s (wife of the Minister) diary of 1868; evidence given by James Wilson to the Napier Commission Report; and relevant reports from newspapers such as The Oban Times.

Such cross-referencing builds a picture, not just of Nicolson’s view of islands ‘as a portion of the kingdom eminently in need of legislative assistance in the matter of education’, but also of the community it served. Nicolson was a member of the Napier Commission, and differences between that and his report for the Argyll Commission arise from the priority given in the Napier Report to first-hand testimony from ordinary crofters. Nevertheless, as McKinnon notes, the evidence from the Napier Report was usually an English translation of what had first been said in Gaelic, and ‘access to the nuance in meaning may have been lost (or created) in the process of translation’. In the midst of so-called evidence, we are reminded that access to lived experience is often fatally compromised.

Although islands have been, and often still are, perceived as limiting and ‘insular’ in terms of opportunities for social progress , in the mid-nineteenth century, Lismore was connected by more sea routes than today. These included a foot ferry, probably a rowing boat, to the nearest mainland at Port Appin; a daily steamer which called at Port Appin and carried passengers to Oban on its southward progress; and a packet from the south of the island direct to Oban. Mary MacGregor, the Lismore minister’s wife records the frequent journeys her husband made to the outlying areas of the parish in 1868. What is striking here is that despite being an island, in this period, Lismore was the centre of the parish, and the mainland parts of the parish were subsidiary. However, during this year, as the diary records, the parish became too big for the elderly minister to cover and was broken up, a change that may have signalled Lismore losing its centrality to the parish.

[1] P. Hay, ‘A Phenomenology of Islands’, Island Studies Journal, Vol1, No1 (2006), pp.19-42, p.34. <http://www.islandstudies.ca/journal/ISJ-1-1-2006-Hay-pp19-42.pdf.(last accessed 3 Sept 2023).

[1] Q. Skinner cited in I. McKinnon, ‘The invention of the crofting community: Scottish historiography’s elision of indigenous identity, ideology and agency in accounts of land struggle in the modern Gaidhealtachd’, Scottish Historical Review, vol. 98, no. 1, 4, (2009) pp. 71-102, p.22.

[1] R. Hay, C. Bath and B. McDougall (eds), The Diary of Mary Cameron MacGregor (1868): A Year in the Life of the Lismore Manse, Argyll (Edinburgh: The European Ethnological Research Centre) <https://www.regionalethnologyscotland.llc.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/the_diary_of_mary_cameron_macgregor.pdf (last accessed 3 September 2023).

[1] Napier Commission report of Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Inquiry into the condition of the crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland: with appendices, (Edinburgh, 1884).

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p.7.

[1] McKinnon, ‘The Invention of the Crofting Community’, p.26.

[1] Baldacchino, ‘Studying Islands: On Whose Terms?’ p.49.

[1] This was part of the Glasgow to Fort William service.

Schools on Lismore 1866-1890

Supply
In his report, Nicolson attempts to untangle the supply of schools and estimate the number needed to meet demand in the Hebrides:
I think the approximate number estimate given by the Rev. Dr. Mackay in his evidence before the of new Commission (First Report, etc., p. 361), is probably not far from the mark. He calculates that 200 additional schools are required of schools for the western Highlands and Islands. That estimate proceeds requiring on the assumption that a large number of the existing schools can not be regarded in any sense as permanent institutions.

In 1845, McGregor states in The New Statistical Account of Scotland that there were two parochial schools on Lismore. Other than these, there was one school ‘taught on the teacher’s own adventure’ which was ‘not of a permanent character, as the teachers are employed from time to time by the parents.’ Therefore, although dominated by the parochial system, schooling was also dependent for supply on ad hoc private adventure schools and later societies such as the Christian Knowledge Society (SSPCK).

By 1866 the main parish school continued to be at Kilandrist, fairly central to the island. There was a side school at Baligrundle, further south of the island and two female schools placed at either ends of the island: a United Presbyterian school also at Baligrundle; and a SSPCK sewing school at Achuaran in the north. By 1874 and following the 1872 Act, the main parish schools had become Baligarve (to the north) and Baligrundle (to the south) Public Schools.

[1] Available at: <https://www.regionalethnologyscotland.llc.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-06/the_diary_of_mary_cameron_macgregor.pdf (last accessed online 3 September 2023).

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, pp. 95-6.

[1] McGregor, The New Statistical Account of Scotland, p. 253. Available at: https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/nsa- vol7Parish_record_for_Lismore_and_Appin_in_the_county_of_Argyle_in_volume_7_of_account_2/nsa-vol7-p223-parish-argyle-lismore_and_appin?search=Lismore%20and%20Appin (last accessed 4 Sept 2023).

Teachers and Fees

Rafferty, McDermid and Jones say that from the Reformation in Scotland, law dictated ‘there was to be a school and a schoolmaster in every parish, paid for from the local rates. Fees were charged, but the school was to be provided, the master to be paid a minimum wage, and the children of the poor were to be supported by the local community of ratepayers.’ On Lismore, in 1845, Rev. Gregor McGregor records the source of the income for the schoolmasters’ salaries on Lismore as: Principal school of Lismore, stent L17; Queen Anne’s mortification, L10; probable amount of school fees, L10. Second school of Lismore, stent L19; probable amount of school fees, L12’.

The issue of fee-paying by parents and in some cases, the lack of it, provoked comment from both Nicolson and Grant respectively. Nicolson considered that ‘there is less hesitation in neglecting what is not paid for …. where nothing is paid, the value set on the commodity is of course, reduced.’ As a result, he suggests that ‘the more [payment of fees] is increased, the more will education be prized’. Grant has a similar view, saying that: ‘It is contended that parents value so little the education they get for nothing, that they take no trouble to make proper use of the privilege they enjoy.’

Anderson states that fees accounted for 37% of all parish school income in 1851 and remained the same income percentage in 1871. Thus for at least two decades prior to 1872, parents paid less than half the market fee of schooling. However, the proportion of other contributions to income had changed; parliamentary grants to public schools in 1871 accounted for 31% of the overall income, up from 10% in 1851, with the proportion of endowments reducing to from 35% in 1851 to 10% in 1871. The place of endowment had been particularly important for the parochial system in that the salary paid to the teacher was the vital point, and subsidy was able to maintain quality whilst reducing fees. In the reduction of endowment and increase of parliamentary grant, there was a significant movement towards state intervention in Scotland’s schooling between 1851 and 1871.

[1] D. Rafferty, J. McDermid and G. Jones, Social Change and Education in Ireland, Scotland and Wales: Historiography on Nineteenth-Century Schooling, History of Education 36, 4-5 (2007), pp. 447-463, p. 449.

[1] McGregor, p.254. Available at: https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/nsa-vol7-Parish_record_for_Lismore_and_Appin_in_the_county_of_Argyle_in_volume_7_of_account_2/nsa-vol7-p223-parish-argyle-lismore_and_appin?search=Lismore (last accessed 4 Sept 2023). The ‘stent’ or parochial tax was an assessment of land levied by the heritors; the principal landowners in each parish and the ‘mortification’, another Scots legal term for an endowment, was a royal grant to each parish dating from Queen Anne, the wife of James VI. See: Anderson, ‘Education and the State in Nineteenth Century Scotland’, The Economic History Review, Vol.6, No.4 (Nov. 1983), pp 518-534, p520.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education and J. Grant, History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland, (London, 1876).

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, pp.104-5.

[1] Ibid p. 106.

[1] Grant, History of the Burgh Schools, p.503.

[1] Anderson, ‘Education and the State in Nineteenth Century Scotland’, p.527.

[1] Ibid, p.520-2.

In 1862, Lismore tried to attract a teacher with the enticement of ‘a considerable sum of school fees.’

‘SCHOOLMASTER WANTED, for the PAROCHIAL SCHOOL at KILLENDRIST, in the Parish of LISMORE, Argyleshire. The Salary is £35, besides the half of the Interest of £500 of Mortified Money. There is a good House, and the neighbourhood is thickly peopled, affording the prospect of a considerable sum in School Fees. The Schoolmaster is Session-Clerk and Registrar. Applications, with Certificates of character and qualifications, to be lodged with the Rev. Gregor Macgregor, Lismore Manse, Appin, Argyleshire, on or before the 25th of July next.’

Even if fees were ‘considerable’, by 1866, Nicolson thought that teachers shouldn’t be reliant on them, saying that ‘a respectable fixed provision for the maintenance of teachers’ was needed. He also thought that a supplementary remuneration for efficiency, and a retiring allowance, related to the length of a teacher’s service would bolster teaching quality. In 1876, the new Lismore School Board agreed, on the application of the teachers, ‘to pay their salaries, and also the salaried of the other officials of the Board, quarterly after Martinmas next.’ The “grant” for the school had been £33 0s 10d for the past year.

Between 1866 and 1890 there were at least six teachers at the main school on Lismore, with varying qualifications:

1866-1870: John McWhannel 1871-1874: John McGregor Campbell: East Ch Training College Edinburgh 1874/5-1876: John McCowan Oct. 1876-1877: John Gregory as interim schoolmaster: Certificate of the first division of the first class. 1877 – unknown: J A McKennie as substitute 1881-1901: James T Wilson: Student of Theology.

It is notable that prior to the 1872 Act there were two schoolteachers in post for around four years each, but after 1874, several years of substitute teachers occurred. However, board members mostly served for many years which may have provided some continuity for the school. For example, Dugald MacIntyre is recorded as clerk to the school board from 1880 until 1890.

Although under the Act teachers were to be better rewarded, their tenure was still insecure and subject to board decisions. Unattractiveness of an island post may also have played a part in the teaching gaps that occurred on Lismore from 1874 up to 1881.

[1] The Inverness Courier, Thursday 26 June 1862.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p. 134.

[1] The Oban Times, Saturday 24 June 1876.

[1] The Oban Times Saturday 30 December 1876.

[1] Lismore school logs and census data, reference to be added.

[1] Scotland, ‘The Centenary of the Education (Scotland) Act’.

McDermid says that it was difficult to entice male graduates to parish schools in highland areas, a phenomenon that led Nicolson to believe that female teachers ‘would be perfectly adequate to take charge of boys as well as girls, while they would impart special instruction to pupils of their own sex in sewing and other female work.’

The first record of a female public schoolteacher on Lismore was at the school at Baligrundle; Anne C Kennedy was twenty-three years old and born in Aberdeenshire. Most female teachers during the period were limited to the role of sewing mistress and signs of the difficulty of appointment are evident in the school log in 1877. On Jan 1st, Miss Jean McCormick commenced her duties as sewing mistress, but two days later she had resigned! When J. McKennie took over as substitute teacher in the November, the log entry gives more hints of the disruptive period.

Dec 27th: Lessons given in the usual order and the progress made is beginning to please the parents as well as myself
Dec 30th: People are getting resigned to my substituteship and are sending the children to be taught…

Despite the teacher’s challenges, this is evidence of parents’ positive involvement in their children’s education. It is unclear how long the substitution lasted, but an unsettled period of staffing continued until 1880 when the HMI report states that the new teacher has effected a great improvement in its condition.

Buildings

McNichol states in 1791 that ‘The school-house in Lismore is very bad’. However, no reference to the state of school buildings is made by McGregor in 1845 or in the Lismore school log prior to the 1872 Act. The first reference to buildings in the log in 1875 states that:
It is very desirable that the walls …and the roof which has lost a considerable part of the plaster should be somewhat repaired.

[1] J. McDermid, Gender and Geography: The Schooling of Poor Girls in the Highlands and Islands of Nineteenth-Century Scotland, History of Education Review, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2003), pp. 30-45, p.36.

[1] Nicolson, Report on the State of Education, p.110.

[1] 1881 Census, Lismore, reference to be added.

[1] Baligarve Public School log, 3 Jan 1877.

[1] Ibid.

[1] Ibid, 19 August 1880.

[1] D. McNichol, p.493. Available at: https://electricscotland.com/history/statistical/The_statistical_account_of_Scotland1.pdf (last accessed 4 Sept 2023).

[1] G. McGregor. Available at: https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/nsa-vol7-Parish_record_for_Lismore_and_Appin_in_the_county_of_Argyle_in_volume_7_of_account_2/nsa-vol7-p223-parish-argyle-lismore_and_appin?search=Lismore (last accessed 4 Sept 2023).

The following year it is recorded in the log that:

The ceiling has lost part of its plaster and is in a dilapidated state – altogether the building seems neglected and in consequence the efficiency of the school is impaired…My Lords hope that the conditions of the premises will be improved otherwise next years grant may be reduced. (Article 32(13))

In fact, estimates for two new buildings at Craiganich (Baligrundle) and Baligarve had already been sought from contractors, and it was reported that tenders from Messrs McCullum at Fort William and Messrs Henderson and Macinnes at Ballachulish had been accepted for the erection of new schools at Baligrundle and Baligarve respectively.

Six months later, the Lismore school buildings were making good progress, but after completion, the state of buildings continued to be a focus in the log. In 1889: Some necessary repairs are about to be executed. The windows should be made to open. And the following year, a caretaker role is created, separate to that of the teacher:
Wrote some time ago to Clerk of Board resigning caretakership of premises on account of remuneration being insufficient. Have got no written reply but the Chairman of Board has engaged a person to keep the premises with instructions to me to report to Board when the condition of the premises may be in any way unsatisfactory. Have accordingly reported walls and windows needing attention to Clerk.

Concern for cleanliness continued in 1891:
Care should be taken to see that the school room and classroom are regularly cleaned and ventilated. The furniture is greatly in need of being washed. In view of HM Inspector’s report, my Lords are unable at present to recognise this school as a centre for the purposes of Article 21 (a).
The 45th section of the Act, authorising school boards to borrow the money required to provide or enlarge school buildings and teachers’ houses enabled many improvements (Grant, 1876). Scotland (1972) also points out that in the first thirty years of the Act, over ten million pounds was spent on school buildings. Nevertheless, from the log evidence, the Lismore school board struggled to meet the standard required for school buildings under the Act.

Holidays
School holidays were frequent and were given for multiple reasons of tradition, agriculture, religion and inspection. At the beginning of the period 1866-1890, the influence of the Presbyterian church on agricultural issues was evident on holiday patterns. For example: There was no school today owing to the day being kept as a day of Humiliation on account of the cattle plague. Later in the period, religious influence on holidays lessened, and the number of days given were fewer.

In 1866, the school closed in early August and started in early November, but in 1867 until 1876, it closed in late August. By 1876, the school vacation was set at six weeks, including a week at Christmas, and the log shows that the holiday had been pushed back to start in mid-September until the end of October. However, in 1877, the school year didn’t start until mid-November, maybe because a new substitute teacher had to be found. By 1880 the new school year started on October 11th and closed at the end of August.

From 1881, the new school year was recorded as starting at the beginning of July. This was signalled by the school inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) which occurred in July (except for 1882 when it was on August 7th). The inspection became increasingly a significant event and itself an occasion for another holiday.
Between 1866 and 1872, the yearly inspection by a deputation from the Presbytery of Lorn incurred a holiday in mid to late March. Added to this, from 1866 up to 1890, a ‘Sacramental Fast Day’ and holiday occurred between May and mid-June, and in 1872, this was an extended holiday that lasted from 20th to 24th June.

Apart from the additional holidays linked to Presbyterianism, there were older traditional reasons for celebration. The first entry in the log records: A holiday owing to Old Handsel Monday being at hand and which is kept here as New Year. This was a two-day holiday which was kept up to 1890. From 1872 it appears alongside a New Year’s Day holiday on 1st and 2nd January, although the substitute teacher (clearly ill-informed) in 1878 records: No holidays at new Year in this region. Added to these New Year holidays, Old Christmas was kept on 5th January until a half holiday for Christmas on 25th December started from 1882. Gradually, school holidays shortened during the period, reflecting changing traditions and demands on the school board for improved examination results.

Governance, Inspection and Curriculum

The election of the first school board of seven members for the united parish of Lismore and Appin is recorded in the Kilandrist log as taking place on 3rd May 1873, with the teacher acting as Presiding officer. However, The Oban Times reported that the election had been fixed by the Minister and Heritors for 9th May, with John Fraser Sim as Returning Officer for that Election. In practice, school boards solely represented middle class members of the parish, with teachers and women excluded. However, when questioned about the school board by the Napier Commission on 13th August 1883, the Lismore schoolmaster, James Wilson, defended the board’s democratic legitimacy:
37132. Have there been any contested elections?
—Yes, the last election was contested.
37133. What do the contests turn upon; upon personal preference or upon any question connected with religion or politics?
—There was no question of religion brought to the front last time.
37134. So that it is a simple question of personal preference?
—Yes. The people here divided their votes between two candidates from the island, and both these were carried. They did so in order to get the island represented by two members.
37135. You have reason to believe that the School Board as at present constituted is agreeable to the people and represents their wishes fairly?
—Yes.
37136. No constraint is exercised by proprietors or farmers?
—Not that I am aware of; I never heard of such a thing.
In 1868, the minister’s wife writes:
I went with Mr McGregor to see the school examined & was much pleased with the proficiency of the children.
However, after 1872, the decline of Presbyterian influence on schooling meant that annual inspections on Lismore by the Presbytery of Lorn gradually merged with school board duties, and by 1885, members of the school board had taken on religious examination, as evident in this entry:
Visited school this date and examined children in shorter catechism and scripture knowledge at 2.30 pm according to the instructions of the Sch Board given at last meeting… A McColl member A Mackay MD member and Dugald McIntyre member.
An annual inspection of the school was also carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMI), usually in July. In the parish school era, this was often brief and sometimes recorded in the log by the Inspector himself, but by 1880, the Clerk of the Board had taken over summarising a longer report and specifying the grants that had been given. In this way, the school logs begin to show more the perspective of the school board and less that of the teacher.
McGregor cites the school curriculum in 1845 as comprising ‘Gaelic and English reading, writing, arithmetic and book-keeping, also English Grammar and Latin, and occasionally the elementary parts of mathematics’. The first mention of curriculum in the school logs appears in the Inspector’s report for 1866 which says: The instruction in Geography, Grammar and the shorter catechism is sound and well suited to the age of the children. The next year reports a ten percent failure rate in examination, with the standard in writing and arithmetic declining, although geography and religious knowledge remained pretty well, as far as they go. Geography was an important subject during this period and at the start of the public school era, a junior geography class was formed.
As discussed earlier, despite Gaelic reading in the 1845 curriculum, the Gaelic language was not regarded as a subject in its own right after the 1872 Education Act, neither was it seen in the school log as a positive acquisition for children’s educational achievement. Although Nicolson thought that the use of Gaelic could help children to acquire English, his report also reinforced the idea that too much emphasis on it would create a deficit for learning English. In 1870, the log records that the vernacular is a potential barrier to success, and ten years later: Progress fair except in understanding of lessons. The children’s lack of English militates against this.

.
Whilst Gaelic was overlooked on the curriculum, classical languages were not, and the log records: Latin commenced in Standards four and five. The Napier Report, later addressed this disparity by saying that it was ‘neglect’ of Gaelic on the curriculum that had caused language problems, and that more Gaelic-speaking teachers were needed to remedy the situation. In the early 1880s, subtraction of vulgar fractions, Decimals and Compound proportion were taught, though not always successfully: Stan VI feels Proportion hard the children being young. And in 1887, the HMI report starts to criticise teaching methods such as reading style and the use of fingering in arithmetic. In 1890, the inspection report mentions repetition of Poetry and Elementary Science indicating that during the 1880s the curriculum was extended.
Alongside the growth of the academic curriculum, a gender divide was still dominant. Sewing and domestic economy were generally only taught to girls, although McDermid suggests that highland parents were not always supportive of its practical use. The 1891 inspection summary refers to problems with girls completing the sewing course and obtaining the grant. McDermid also points out that the limited resources in Highland and Island schools sometimes meant that there was less emphasis on domestic subjects than in the Lowlands and because of the absence of older pupils, teachers sometimes offered traditionally masculine subjects such as Latin, mathematics and agriculture to girls, as well as boys.

In 1895 the first achievement specifically by a girl is recorded in the Lismore log:
Catherine MacKenzie has gained a higher grade leaving certificate in Arithmetic and a lower grade leaving certificate in French at the LC exam of this year. This pupil is but fifteen years of age.
The same pupil later passed the exam in Moral Philosophy and Logic for the degree of MA in Glasgow University, meaning that under the board system the democratic ideal of the ‘lad o’ parts’ became reality for a Lismore lass.

School Attendance
Causes of non-attendance on Lismore
The major theme of the school logbooks on Lismore, both before and after the 1872 Act, is that of children’s attendance at school. Mason asks whether non-attendance in nineteenth century Scotland was caused by lack of places or lack of motivation to attend. His point, and that of other economic historians, is to establish whether schooling was constrained by supply or demand. In response to Mason, Anderson suggests that the affordability of school fees and the congeniality of schools were major factors for school attendance rates, and it was these that set the demand for schooling too low and justified the 1872 Act.

There is evidence that education was valued by some Lismore parents during this period. The 1861 census shows that Dugald and Cathrine McIntyre’s children, Dugald (18) and Duncan (16) and Agnes (12) were still at school when few island children had more than a few years of elementary teaching. Mary McGregor also makes frequent mention of children’s attendance at Sabbath schools. Nevertheless, at the time of the Argyll Commission, of the 164 children on roll in the four schools, only 127 attended and many of those irregularly, so it is important, as Anderson says, to investigate what affected the demand for places. For islands like Lismore with a rural economy, McDermid says that the dominant factors to affect demand were children’s involvement in agriculture¬¬¬¬¬ and girls’ roles as general servants.

Nicolson blames parents for the irregularity of children’s attendance:
‘Having themselves generally but a hazy conception of what education is, they but inadequately, if at all, realize the injury their children suffer by the interruption of their lessons … they have but a defective appreciation of the importance of punctuality and perseverance in work of any kind, and much less do they understand it in reference to intellectual pursuits’.

McDermid cites school log evidence that it was mainly the Hebridean mothers who decided on children’s school attendance, because girls stayed absent to help with domestic work. However, the Lismore logs only cite home work once as a cause for absence. More often, log entries talk of the effect of agricultural demands on children’s educational progress. For example, in 1885: Some of Standard VI and III backward on account of small attendance. They herd half the day.
The planting and securing of potatoes are most frequently recorded as a cause of absence, often linked to weather. For example:
The attendance very irregular owing to the poor weather the children in Standard III were engaged in potato cleaning.
Then:
Only two scholars turned up. I hear that the raising of the potatoes has only just commenced and that I must not expect the children to come for sometime. The weather is terrific – an uninterrupted succession of violent storms.
And a week later:
Attendance still almost nil. It seems that owing to the wet and tempestuous weather the people cannot make progress in getting up their potatoes, and the children cannot get to school until the potatoes are secured.
Most years, comments are made about the impact of spring work. For example:
One or two has left for service. As soon as spring work commences, the most of the more advanced drop away.
Even in 1890: Attendance not so good as might be spring work beginning.

Throughout spring and early summer, work at the seashore is mentioned, and ploughing is another reason for absence. For example: Some of the older scholars have left attending school owing to ploughing apparatus being put in order for work. And: Small attendance. Ploughing match in the District. Less frequently, children were needed for herding. In spring 1880, there was a cattle sale and children were kept from school to act as drovers. Fuel-cutting is mentioned once in summer 1873 when many children were absent because of it.
As well as constant agricultural demands, bad weather was always a factor for attendance, and in 1884, The Napier Commission reported that it should be taken into account:
…no humane person can blame those who keep their children at home on days when they could not go a quarter of a mile without being wet to the skin. The number of such days in the Highlands and Islands is considerable, and so is the number of children whose clothing is scanty and poor.

The Lismore census returns between 1841 and 1901 provide an overall picture of school attendance during the period. They tell us that although the number of 5-13 scholars dropped by 13% between 1861 and 1871, it rose by 22% between 1871 and 1881. The corresponding number of 14-16 scholars only rose by 16% between 1871 and 1881 and did not significantly improve from the numbers in 1861. This means that overall attendance improved for elementary aged children but not for older children in the years following the 1872 Act. Since the Act only made education compulsory for children from five up to thirteen years old, this is perhaps not surprising, even though parish schools had often taught subjects beyond elementary level. Teachers were often frustrated that many older children left school to start work and in 1880, two pupils on Lismore were withdrawn for work: one of these a little under thirteen reported to Officer. In 1883, the teacher again expresses his dissatisfaction: All the big fellows are leaving for work … Absence continued … It discourages one very much.
Table 1.

Subsistence agriculture and compulsory schooling

Whilst Nicolson had nothing but harsh words for parents whose children missed school because of agricultural work, it is also important to acknowledge the fundamentally important role farming played in the community. Caird and Mosley point out that ‘agricultural operations are carried out within a social and structural framework inherited from a former subsistence agriculture; the basic unit of agricultural production, the farm, is still equated with the basic unit of rural population, the family … It is clear that farming has social, as well as economic, functions.’ Set against the broader backdrop of Hebridean clearances and land agitation during this period, farming had profound significance for families on Lismore.

At least one schoolmaster understood this significance; when James Wilson was interrogated by the Napier Commission, he had to tread a fine line of political impartiality over his role in supporting tenants with grievances against landlords:
37125. And you lend your assistance to them?
—Yes, simply to put the thing in proper form for any person who wishes it done. It is understood I am neither pulling one way nor another.
37126. You simply act for their convenience and their benefit?
—Yes; I know my business is not that of an agitator of any sort.
Wilson was also quizzed about his view of the school board:
37127. Are you quite satisfied altogether with the management of the school; do you find the School Board attentive to their duties and anxious to give you every assistance?
—They are attentive enough in everyway except in the enforcement of the compulsory clause; they are a little lax in that way.

By 1884, any laxness had waned and a systematic approach to the absentee ‘defaulters’ is more evident in the school log. For example: Had to send officer to defaulters this week. Got some of them in, and: Several of those taken away to herd returned in consequence of citations from Clerk of Sch Bd.

The theme of dealing with defaulters enters the log more and more frequently. To reinforce this, the 1887 HMI reports:
Every case of prolonged absence from school should be duly brought under the notice of the School Board in order that steps for securing regularity of attendance may be taken without any unnecessary delay. Arch. Mackay MD Correspondent.

Following this, throughout November and December 1888, officers visited at regular intervals and the teacher records that One of the defaulting children has come to school, followed a week later by Most of the scholars are now attending school. Finally, A Mackay MD, correspondent for the school board, visited another couple of weeks later and recorded that attendance was good. However, it is worth remembering that December and January were months when attendance was comparatively good anyway.

Sickness and ill health
The Lismore logs chart ill-health and disease as another common reason for missing school. There are accounts of whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, chickenpox, skin disease, scarlatina, tonsilitis and the common cold. In 1874, the decision to discontinue school for a fortnight because of diphtheria was taken by a member of the board and in 1876, the chairman of the board closed the school for four days because of chicken pox.

By 1884, it was the role of an officer to inform the teachers of an epidemic of skin disease and in 1890, a medical officer sent a note to the teacher to close the school for a fortnight. The shift to local bureaucracy for making decisions about health issues thereby occurred in parallel with the creation of the school board.

In 1883, the school was closed owing to teacher’s boy being suspected of having measles and the HMI report the same year cites irregular attendance and failures being numerous, saying also that the master’s health has not been so good of late. Indeed, the only fatalities to be recorded in the log are that of the teacher’s own children. The log records twice (presumably by the teacher himself) that there was no school owing to the death and funeral of the teacher’s (his) child.

The teacher whose children died, James Wilson, was in post for twenty years from 1881 to 1901 and he had, in total, thirteen of his own children. It is of note that his evidence to the Napier Commission included the state of housing on the island and its link to the health of the children:
—Is the accommodation in any of the houses so bad as to have any influence upon the health of the people?
—I should say it is; at least I would not like to live in the houses.
37105. Has there been any outbreak of fever or any infectious disease in the country?
—Yes, during the past season there have been measles, but there has been an epidemic over the whole district. But in winter the children are very apt to catch colds, which I attribute principally to the house accommodation.
37106. Do you mean that the houses are so close?
—That they are so open; so many draughts; too much ventilation.
37107. That they catch cold in their own houses?
—Yes.

This testimony affords additional insight, alongside the log, which demonstrates that the teacher’s position, both before and after the Scottish Education Act, was inextricably linked to the prevalent social conditions of the time. Teachers like Wilson were advocates for community improvement and even Nicolson on his trip around the Hebrides speaks of the assistance and information he received, as well as the cordial reception he got from ‘the teachers of various schools, without any exception’.

Summary
The influence of school board over Lismore parents’ approach to education must be considered at least double-edged. That the state took over what the church had previously provided, had both positive and negative consequences. Whereas the parish was more content, or perhaps complicit, with the heritors, to work alongside a pattern of seasonal agricultural rhythms, the subsequent efforts of the board to force greater school attendance had minimal effect, except to punish people already working on the agricultural margins. However, investment in new school buildings brought more educational consistency and girls joined the mainstream educational fold, albeit still to concentrate on domestic skills and sewing. That the Act failed to significantly improve education for children both before and beyond elementary age is well documented, but the Lismore log demonstrates that there were more curriculum opportunities, if children did remain at school beyond thirteen.

The context of the period in question was one of rapid social change on Lismore. James Wilson’s main statement to the Napier Commission focused on the decline of population and their ‘little means to keep a family’. Hay also confirms that household size steadily decreased, with younger islanders emigrating for work and many families consisting only of grandparents and grandchildren. Popular local literature of the period echoes the state of affairs with impassioned rhetoric such as: ‘How can this suicidal system be stopped, except by insisting on the younger generation to clear out and leave the country to their aged parents…’

Such depleted families placed additional burden on children to work and it was this that the Act sought to address by making schooling compulsory. Whether such compulsion significantly improved the quality of educational achievement is less clear from the school log evidence. What is clear is that children continued to support their families regardless, but also that parents did want them to attend school when possible.

Ultimately what the log reveals is that during periods of both Parish and Board Schools, it was the teachers who were critical for the success of schooling on Lismore. Whether it’s the voice of John McWhannel in 1867 celebrating winter as a time of educational plenty or James Wilson in 1883 lamenting its tedium, both were long serving in the community and recorded the everyday life of the school as a fundamentally human endeavour.
January 21st, 1867: The attendance was good today and the school is now well filled, fully the winter attendance.
January 29th, 1883: One week is so much a repetition of another that one is gravelled for lack of matter for keeping the log.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Comann Eachdraich Lios Mor for the excellent work done in preserving and recording the Gaelic heritage of Lismore and especially to Dr Robert Hay for his extensive research and writings. Thanks also to Laura Gloag for her genealogy expertise, and to Douglas Breingan and Stephen Green for their archival research of local newspapers.