Educating for the women&#39;s sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline&#39; in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Lindy Moore

This chapter provides a detailed account of the campaign to ensure that all Scottish girls took sewing as a school subject, followed by pressure to ensure that other domestic economy subjects such as cookery, laundry and hygiene were introduced into the girls’ curriculum. The working-class family was seen as the basic socialising unit, centred around the wife and mother who had received a moral, religious and domestic training, preferably in separate ‘female schools of industry’, where they learnt needlework and where possible, cookery, laundry work and cleaning, under the management of upper and upper-middle class women. Throughout the century there was also considerable opposition to this educational development. This was partly due to a belief that intellectual discipline was the best means of developing an intelligent, moral and cultured individual, but it also resulted from the inertia of custom, opposition of teachers and initial shortage of female teachers, lack of funding and the tradition of mixed elementary schools. The ensuing debate involved members of the nobility, gentry, school inspectors, civil servants, educationalists, the Churches, parents and middle-class women. The conflict between demands for a better intellectual education for girls and demands for a specifically domestic training for them led to ambiguities and inconsistencies on the part of both individuals and institutions. It was a subject women were prepared to speak out about and while conservative women wished to maintain the existing social and gender hierarchy at a time of political unrest, the movement was also supported towards the end of the century by middle-class feminists who wanted to raise the overall status of women’s domestic role. A campaign to introduce sewing into girls’ schooling began in the 1820s and in the 1850s an influential ladies’ society was formed for this purpose. Financial pressure was put on the denominational teacher training colleges by the London-based Privy Council. Two-year supplementary courses for pupils who remained at elementary schools after the age of 12 were introduced in 1903 and these finally achieved a syllabus in which the girls spent most of every afternoon in domestic economy. These various schemes impacted on the academic curriculum of both female pupils and female teachers and the appointment of female teachers was part of the feminisation of the girls’ curriculum, rather than a perception of school mistresses as equal academic and professional colleagues.

Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’ DRAFT VERSION. The utility of an academic education for women In eighteenth-century Presbyterian Scotland an academic schooling which might encourage women to think independently was generally considered irrelevant to or even irreconcilable with women's subordinate role. Elizabeth Mure commented that: the women's knowledge was gained only by conversing with the men, not by reading themselves...The men thought justly on this point, that what knowledge the women had out of their own sphere should be given by themselves and not picked up at their own hand in ill-chosen books of amusement.1 Nevertheless, at an academic level a gradual change in attitudes became discernible under the influence of Enlightenment perspectives.2 As a strategy for the maintenance of communal cohesion within a society eighteenth-century Scottish literati saw as becoming increasingly individualistic, fragmented and unethical, they propagated a 'new view of women as the catalysts and managers of sensibility within the protected haven of the domestic and private sphere'.3 While conservatives believed the discipline of book-learning would endanger women's natural and valuable sensibility4 and make them discontented with domestic duties, liberals suggested that women should be educated in a manner which would make them rational as well as sensitive and virtuous companions for men.5 Though the nineteenth century produced a growing number of individuals who argued for women's absolute right to education, views on what constituted woman's sphere and what education this necessitated, continued to be more influential. Early nineteenth century Scottish writers on education were influenced by Enlightenment theories about the development of the individual. If the earliest intellectual, moral and physical experiences of a child had as powerful and lasting effects as was claimed, then it was the mother who wielded the greatest influence on a child's future character. The issue of 'education for motherhood' was taken up A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 2 by by liberal Scots who looked to an intellectual education which would provide women with both the knowledge and the logic necessary to make rational and therefore moral decisions and train their children to do likewise.6 Educationalists also became concerned about mothers' factual knowledge. Surveys revealed the high level of infant mortality and more importantly, its variation by social class, which indicated that it was largely the result of social rather than inherent physiological causes and was therefore preventable, while scientific discoveries were permitting a greater and more wide-spread understanding about the causes of disease and ill health:7 The Creator has taught the inferior creatures to rear their young successfully by instinct, but he has not conferred this guide on the human mother. One of two conclusions, therefore, appears to follow. He has intended either that she should use her faculties of observation and reflection, in acquiring all the knowledge requisite for the proper treatment of offspring, or that she should recklessly allow a large proportion of them to perish.8 Evangelical Elizabeth Hamilton, who was sufficiently concerned to write The Cottagers of Glenburnie in 1808, parodying the lack of working-class housewifery in the Scottish Highlands, believed that gender-related preconceptions internalised by girls before school age were responsible for working-class women's inability to retain and therefore teach their own children what they themselves learnt at school. She viewed needlework as as a form of laziness since it could be performed mechanically; the solution lay in an intellectual education which incorporated a thoughtful religion:9 In proportion as the female mind has been emancipated from the fetters of ignorance, the female character has risen in respectability. Whenever religious principle has been made the basis, it has been seen that a liberal system of education, instead of producing a dislike to, or dereliction of peculiar and appropriate duties, has enabled women, without infringing on any duty, to enlarge their sphere of usefulness, and to extend, beyond the narrow precincts of the domestic roof, the beneficial influence of maternal solicitude and maternal tenderness.10 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 3 In the utopian 1830s, when education was seen as the panacea for all social ills, several of the Scottish educational reformers emphasised the value of an intellectual education for future working-class wives and mothers.11 George Combe's views were widely publicised in lectures, journals and publications and put into practice at the William's Secular School in Edinburgh, where subjects such as physiology were taught to both sexes.12 James Simpson proposed a national system of education for children from five to fourteen, including subjects such as civil history, physiology and civil rights, for both working-class and middle-class children, boys and girls; while David Stow believed a syllabus which included geography, civil and Biblical history, geometry, drawing and natural history for boys and girls aged eleven to fifteen, would produce 'good fathers, good mothers, and respectable citizens, — in one word, real Christians'.13 More compatible with the presbyterian temperament and beliefs than the "intellectual system" of teaching (which involved pupils actually understanding what they were taught) was the idea that exposure to the process of an academic education was as important as the content learnt. Intellectual study developed a mental discipline which could be used to control 'the passions' and regulate behaviour.14 As the human faculties existed for the service of God it was also positively virtuous for the individual to develop them as fully as possible, and since learning required hard work and discipline, educational success proved the individual's moral worth. In the pre-Disruption years both Moderates and Evangelicals in the church supported the English Bible and catechism as the basis of elementary education but 'it was universally acknowledged that 'secular' subjects like history, literature, and elementary science benefitted religious education wherever they could be taught.'15 To insist that no good could come from secular knowledge was to confuse religious instruction with dogma: 'We have long believed that intelligence and religion are near of kin' said the Reverend John Robertson in 1860.16 More extreme Evangelicals considered literacy and elementary education merely the tools for knowledge, which could be for good or ill depending on the content. They argued for a specifically religious education incorporating moral and occupationally-orientated instruction which would teach the working-class their place in the divine order. But men such as James Begg and William A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 4 Hetherington believed that education should consist of both teaching and training; while the latter might be aimed at girls' presumed domestic future, the former involved the capacities of an immortal being and, although there was no necessary connection between intellect and morality, education, per se 'was a blessing'.17 Thus while English ladies were supported by churchmen, the nobility, and many of the school inspectors when they criticised too much academic education for working-class girls because it gave them ideas above their station and recommended training in domestic economy as an antidote to intellectual vanity, similar views expressed by their Scottish counterparts18 gained much less support. The idea that girls were being educated for the 'woman's sphere' was no less prevalent in Scotland but academic instruction was deemed a necessary part of the process. Even institutions such as the Glasgow Magdalene Institution, or the Haddo House Club formed by Lady Aberdeen for north-east servant girls in 1881, used intellectual education as a means of moral training.19 Socialisation through domestic training Nineteenth century social problems created by industrialisation, trade depression and crop failure combined with political unrest and chartist agitation did cause many of the upper and middle-class to look for alternative educational approaches, however. Throughout the 1840s and early 1850s the problem of social order was discussed by the Scottish press and the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church. The home mission approach adopted reflected the churches' tendency to see self-improvement and personal responsibility, rather than state intervention, as the solution. Belief in the importance of the family as the basic socialising unit led to the concept of social control of the working-class through the domestic training of future working-class wives and mothers. Female 'schools of industry'20 would provide training in domestic skills (needlework and where possible cookery, laundry work and cleaning) and religious instruction under a trained and selected female teacher. The proposed curriculum was similar to that of the numerous “dame schools” which had sprung up as the educational control of the presbyteries slipped in the eighteenth century, but the A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 5 schools of industry would be under upper-class rather than working-class control. The rules for the Female Subscription School at Athelstaneford, drawn up by two men in the 1850s, neatly summarised the juxtaposition of moral, religious and domestic objectives. Needlework, sewing, knitting and shaping of garments should be taught: It would also be desirable if the teacher could give occasional addresses or instructions in the general management of a household and in such branches of female domestic duties as are suited to the rank in life of the children and can be practically taught in the school.... Particular attention is to be paid to the Religion, and the moral training of the children. Also to their general behaviour and deportment - the teacher enforcing cleanliness and urging upon them the necessity of becoming acquainted with, and paying the greatest attention to their house duties - also of always conducting themselves with courtesy, civility and propriety'.21 Girls often had religious works read to them, or sang hymns and psalms whilst sewing - 'to beguile the tedium and monotony of their manual employments' as one minister expressed it, without conscious irony.22 Domestic training was thus seen as providing both practical training and a moral element. It would improve working-class living standards and also inculcate middle-class virtues such as cleanliness, tidiness, thrift, industry, perseverance and steadiness of character.23 Enforced by religious teaching it would spell out for working-class women that their role was domestic; housewifery and providing for husbands and children were their responsibility. As wives, the provision of tidy, welcoming houses and well-cooked meals would encourage their menfolk to stay at home away from the temptations of the public house and the brothel.24 As mothers their job was to cater for their children's health, their religious, moral and intellectual education and provide a role model for them (especially daughters), to follow. And more pragmatically, if women did have to do paid work, they would be ready-trained as seamstresses and domestic servants.25 Ladies' committees were considered essential for the success of girls' schools or female industrial schools. A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 6 ... the nobility and gentry have been great public benefactors in the cause of female education. The money expended is only part of the benefit. It is most gratifying to see the increasing number of ladies of rank and wealth who take quite a personal interest in the education of the daughters of the poor. This personal interest on the part of the upper classes...is life and soul to a girls' school.26 As Inspector Middleton's remark indicates, the committees were required not so much for technical reasons as to provide models of middle-class femininity and to ensure that the requisite morals and habits were being inculcated by the girls. Such committees were necessary if the schools were to survive, or at least to survive in the approved form, since in many areas they needed support in the form of funding, provision of materials and selling outlets, and everywhere the schools were inclined to lapse into ordinary day elementary schools, which were probably both more interesting and more lucrative for the female teachers, if they were not prodded in the right direction. The influence of the committees or the proprietors' wives was also necessary to encourage girls' attendance through personal persuasion, rewards (usually in the form of prizes) and even compulsion. As the difficulty in raising funds was to indicate however, not all 'ladies' were as concerned about the subject as could be wished and the lack of supporting committees, even for sewing classes, was a frequent complaint.27 Ladies' committees continued to be encouraged by the school boards established throughout Scotland following the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act, though some women considered the presence of women on the boards themselves was even more beneficial:28 As regards School Boards, surely it is a definite loss to the children attending them to be deprived of the influence of cultured ladies who would take an interest in their manners and morals in a way no man can do. These lady members, again, could charge themselves with the appointment of recognised lady managers, who would regularly visit the girls' schools, become the friends and trusted advisers of the women teachers and of the children, and take special supervision of the teaching of such subjects as sewing and domestic economy. A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 7 The debate The attempt to impose middle-class morality on working-class people through the practical training of women in femininity was not new in Scotland. In the eighteenth century the upper-classes had introduced spinning schools for working-class women, to train them in a domestic economic industry which would prevent them doing unsuitable outdoor work and to keep them busy; at that period a high premium was placed on being actively occupied at all times.29 In the early nineteenth century there were many examples of schools largely or wholly concentrating on domestic subjects supported by upper and middle-class women. Ministers writing in the New Statistical Account noted the moral benefits of such institutions.30 Moreover, those with a strict Calvinist outlook uninfluenced by Enlightenment ideas had always considered an intellectual education incompatible with any woman's domestic duties.31 In the mid-nineteenth century there was, however, concern about disrupting the existing educational system. There were also doubts about the suitability of teaching practical work in schools. And given the widespread belief amongst the educated middle-class that an intellectual education performed a cultural, moral and religious function, the idea of concentrating on practical training in domestic subjects was not accepted by everyone as being the best method of educating girls for domesticity. It was no coincidence that when the Aberdeen and Banffshire Mutual Instruction Union offered a prize for the best essay on 'female education in relation to the wants of the age, with special reference to the rural districts' in 1851, the winner, emphasising women's maternal influence, strongly advocated an intellectual education which would enable women to set a moral and rational example, care for their children's health and encourage their intellectual development.32 Although there was an increasing emphasis on moral discipline rather than intellectual freedom, academic teaching was still regarded as the main purpose of the school, even by advocates of domestic training. Ideally, parents should provide moral training and the church religious instruction; any non-academic support provided by the school was seen as a purely temporary measure.33 The conflict between demands for a better intellectual education for girls and demands for more specifically domestic training for them resulted in ambiguities and inconsistencies on the part of both A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 8 individuals and institutions. Simon Laurie, secretary of the Church of Scotland Education Committee and later Professor of Education, believed, for example, that education should consist of a balance between instruction and mental discipline, but above all he believed education should be ethical. Although he considered that language was the only subject to incorporate both intellectual discipline and knowledge and that the vernacular language was the key to all other education, he was prepared to sacrifice even this to ensure the ethical training he considered specially necessary for girls: 'the deficiencies of "mistress's grammar" are far more than counterbalanced by the prominence given to industrial skill, — itself both a womanly accomplishment, and exercising a feminine influence.'34 At a later date arithmetic was often mentioned as the subject most suitably sacrificed to domestic subjects.35 The impact of the intellectual yet patriarchal tradition of Scottish education on academic opportunities for girls has been examined elsewhere.36 The remainder of this chapter examines the campaign initiated by the Scottish upper-classes and the English education authorities to make practical training in sewing and domestic economy an integral part of the education of elementary schoolgirls in Scotland and the reaction this provoked. The campaign for the introduction of sewing In 1824 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland established a committee to examine religious and educational provision in Scotland. Four years later the committee referred to the importance of educating girls in those peculiar branches of education which are proper to their sex, and suited to the stations in life for which they are destined, and of the means of acquiring which, in the Highlands and Islands, there is a grievous deficiency, - it may be almost said, an entire want.37 The committee had been influenced by the action of several eminent Church of Scotland women who had formed an association to promote female industrial education in the schools, and had obtained the support of the Duchess of Clarence. The Church's attempt to attach 'industrial schools' (part-time sewing teachers) to its existing schools was unsuccessful, but the purpose, the method, the tepid A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 9 enthusiasm of the Church and the more energetic support of upper-class Scottish ladies presaged attempts to come. The first Scottish school inspectors, appointed in the 1840s, promoted sewing both as a practical means of raising the living standards of working-class homes (though the potential impact was much exaggerated) and for the inherent moral and cultural values it was seen as developing in the pupils themselves. The second point was especially promoted by HMI John Gordon, previously the first secretary of the Church of Scotland Education Committee. He observed approvingly that at one school the girls were taught to sew and shape clothes 'to habituate to thrift and reliance on their own industry quite as much as to give the lesson in handicraft'.38 HMI John Gibson suggested there was a general need for industrial education taught by well qualified women; as no such education was given in the parochial schools (women being legally prohibited from teaching at them), sewing was left to private enterprise and therefore often unavailable and even more often badly taught.39 Although it was supposedly the practice for girls to 'go on' to sewing schools after 'completing' their elementary education, this was more often a counsel of perfection. However, in the mid-forties Gordon detected an increase in the number of schools of industry being established and supported by ladies, 'who are no strangers to the cottages of the poor, and who would endeavour by instruction of this sort to improve their domestic condition'. Gordon ascribed this to the fact elementary education was becoming more practical and as girls did not need such a high literary standard as boys, there was time for them to study domestic economy. 40 The new attitude was reflected in an increasing number of personal endowments for female schools,and by the case of the Fife Philp bequest. Philp, who died in 1828, had left money for the academic education of the poor, without any reference to domestic training; but in 1846, by a Deed of Incorporation, a clause was included permitting the managers to use part of the funds to provide for the instruction of girls in sewing and knitting.41 The 1845 House of Lords Select Committee asked several witnesses leading questions about the value of either separate schools for girls or of sewing schools. The convenor of the education committee, William Muir, confirmed that the Church of Scotland wished to encourage 'female' schools, not as a substitute for the ordinary public school, but as an additional department for needlework and domestic economy.42 Little was done A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 10 however, until 1849 when Muir had the opportunity to inspect several sewing departments during a visit to the Highlands. Impressed, both by the 'endless disorder and filth' in which the Highlanders lived and by the appearance and behaviour of the girls attending the sewing schools, he was converted to a belief in the importance of such schools as a means of inculcating 'order and cleanliness' in the home. That year the General Assembly made a special request for what it called 'a new class of schools' which were: calculated to impart to a most influential class of the rising generation habits of industry, order, and domestic economy, and to promote in a high degree not only domestic happiness, but social prosperity and religious principles among many thousands of future generations.43 A women's association was established to raise funds for the Church of Scotland's scheme, but grass-roots support was weak; the active campaigners were based in Edinburgh and Glasgow and despite their efforts fund-raising proved difficult.44 The educational census returns for 1851 illustrated the lack of importance attached to the subject by most Scots despite the increasing interest amongst the upper-classes; only 17% of all Scottish schoolgirls were learning sewing compared with 39% of English and Welsh girls and the difference was even greater when the elementary public schools alone were compared.45 In 1852 a more powerful and influential society, The Scottish Ladies Association in Support of Female Industrial Schools (SLA), was formed. Its object was: so to educate the female children of the labouring classes as both to fit them for discharging aright the appropriate duties of their station, and to animate them with a spirit which shall oblige them to these duties by the binding sanctions of religion.46 This was to be achieved by adding a suitable training in sewing, knitting, spinning, laundry work, kitchen work, and household economy to girls' usual curriculum and: through the agency of properly educated and Christian teachers, to cultivate in the pupils the various qualities which constitute true character; and, above all, a deep sense of personal responsibility for the use which they make of every talent which God bestows upon them. A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 11 In order to ensure a source of 'properly educated and Christian teachers' an informal committee was formed to supervise female teachers attending the Church of Scotland Edinburgh training college. For several years about a dozen female students were recruited and given additional training in domestic economy. In 1853 the arrangement was formally taken over by the SLA and a boarding house was established, initially accommodating eighteen of the female Normal School students, at which they could learn to cook, do laundry work and household management as well as sewing (which was also formally taught at the training college).47 In 1858 Louisa Hope, the leading figure in the SLA, organised a petition signed by 130 of ‘the principal ladies of Scotland’ to complain ‘in the strongest possible language’ about the deficient teaching of needlework.48 The petition argued that female teachers were currently being trained 'too fine', with insufficient emphasis on domestic economy and needlework and that in schools taught by certificated teachers needlework was subordinated to 'mere head lessons'. Not surprisingly, since the sentiments echoed those of the English Privy Council, the petition presented by 'a deputation of noblemen and commoners' was courteously received 'and not quite uninfluential'. The same year government regulations were introduced requiring needlework and domestic economy for Queen's Scholars training to be teachers. In view of the new regulations and the success of the unofficial boarding house the Church of Scotland decided to take over the house and extend it, with the assistance of a sub-committee of ladies. But supportive, both as a corporate body and via its individual members, as the Church of Scotland had been of attempts to encourage domestic economy in the schools, it felt it was being unduly pressured by the Privy Council. A major difference of opinion on the relative value of intellectual and domestic training became evident when Lingen, Secretary of the Committee of Council on Education Board, implied that the marks for domestic economy alone would be sufficient to judge the standard of the female candidates for teacher training: the [Church of Scotland Education] Committee - while of opinion that practical instruction in cooking and sewing is essential to every young woman, and is to female teachers especially A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 12 most important, as enabling them more efficiently, through book instruction or otherwise, to influence the habits of the district in which they labour - have thought it necessary to urge the necessity of maintaining in due prominence the literary education of female teachers. The fact is, that the acquirements expected both in male and female teachers in England are much below what have been always found necessary in this country, where the labouring and middle classes of our rural parishes are taught together. Their Lordships' term of 'schools for the poor', however applicable in England, both as a description of the elementary school, and as suggesting the principle on which instruction given in them is to be regulated, and the status of the teacher is to be fixed, has never been recognised among us....49 However it was the Privy Council which held the purse strings and could have the last word. Regulations were introduced requiring the provision of sewing lessons as a condition of the government grants to schools. The General Assembly Committee insisted that it supported the aim of this regulation, but that as it was impossible for more remote or poorer mixed schools under masters to comply with the regulation, the teachers would lose the existing augmentation of their salary and therefore move to schools where facilities for sewing could be provided, leaving the most needy regions both without sewing provision and in the hands of untrained teachers.50 Lingen's response indicated the priority the English authorities attached to sewing: Their Lordships consider that a temporary reduction in Scotland of the number of mixed schools able to claim augmentation for masters ... would be fully compensated by increased attention to the industrial education of girls.51 As a concession the Privy Council agreed that mixed schools where no sewing was provided could be counted as boys-only schools for capitation purposes: Their Lordships think this will be allowed to be a very moderate method of marking the importance which they attach to the industrial instructions of girls in schools for the poor. Lingen concluded with a threat directed at the existing arrangements for female teacher training: A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 13 unless the present system can be shewn to be practically consistent with the industrial training of girls, there will be a successful reaction against the intellectual instruction which female students in Normal Colleges now usefully receive. Meanwhile the upper-class women continued to press for yet more domestic training for girls and teachers. The Social Science Association, which met in Scotland in 1860 and 1863, was used to press the point further with papers by Mrs Gordon, daughter of the principal of Edinburgh University, Louisa Hope, daughter of an ex-president of the association and Mrs Hamilton. The veteran educational reformer, Lord Brougham, supported them in his opening address to the Glasgow meeting, arguing that training the working-class for their future occupations (which for girls meant domesticity), should have priority over other education, and if necessary rewards and pressure should be applied by school patrons to ensure this.52 Institutional response Forced to act from the need to obtain the government grant if many of its schools were to survive, the Church of Scotland Education Committee took over the SLA's female and sewing schools. A special three-yearly national church collection was approved, but the first was a total failure, reflecting the lack of widespread Scottish support. Individuals — in the form of such unrepresentative Scottish figures as Miss Burdett Coutts, the Duke of Sutherland and the Bell Trustees — helped to offset the disappointing public response, and by 1864 the Church of Scotland was supporting fifty sewing departments in connection with their 170 mixed schools under masters while another twenty-three sewing schools were supported from other sources.53 One consequence of the campaign to introduce sewing into Scottish schools was an amendment of the law restricting parochial schools to male teachers, but two years later Gordon estimated that only one in eight of the parochial schools in his district had taken advantage of the 1861 Act to establish sewing departments.54 Meanwhile the Free Church encountered even greater difficulties organising classes as more of its members were in the poorer Highland areas and it had smaller financial resources. Frequent references to the value of sewing schools in the A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 14 remotest areas were balanced by other references to the lack of funds to establish more; often a class could only be established if one elsewhere was closed. As a long term solution, it was suggested that where mixed schools were the norm, expense would be saved and greater efficiency introduced if an "infant and industrial room" under the supervision of a female teacher was added to existing buildings rather than a separate school being erected, a recommendation which had already been made by the school inspectors.55 The question was investigated by the Argyle Commission, but as it was ambiguous on this, as on many other occasions, whether the term 'industrial school' included sewing classes or referred only to departments providing practical training in all forms of housewifery, the answers were of doubtful value. The Assistant Commissioners did note that there was unnecessary duplication in many areas since schools were compelled to provide at least sewing classes to obtain the grant, even though there might also be a satisfactory (and grant-aided) separate school of industry serving the locality.56 It also became evident that in areas where schools were too poor to support more than one teacher the appointment of a trained woman would enable schools supported by voluntary organisations not only to obtain a sewing teacher but obtain a certificated teacher more than competent to teach other subjects.57 These co-educational female schools should be distinguished from those deliberately established for girls only. The latter were part of a more extreme movement which saw total separation of girls from the contaminating influence of boys and the permanent presence of a female teacher for both academic as well as practical domestic training, as the means of feminising working-class girls and in particular, as a specific solution to the issue of immorality which was highlighted by the publication of the illegitimacy figures in the 1850s.58 The school inspectors reported on some of the desperate stratagems employed to meet the Privy Council's regulations. Often sewing lessons were provided by a female relative of the master. If none was suitable local seamstresses or dressmakers or even the schoolmasters' domestic servants might be pressed into service.59 In many cases the arrangements were left to the master who was seldom enthusiastic and finding suitable accommodation proved more problematic than had been anticipated,60 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 15 but finance remained the chief difficulty. Sometimes fees were charged to cover the cost (though this could be self-defeating when the pupils were unenthusiastic anyway) and in some cases it was worthwhile for the master to pay for the lessons himself, while in the parochial schools some sewing teachers' salaries were paid for by the heritors.61 Funds were also needed for materials; one inspector attributed a decline in sewing classes to the increased price of cotton during the American Civil War.62 The classroom response Even where some form of sewing provision was organised, it did not prove easy to persuade the potential pupils of its value. Throughout the fifties and sixties philanthropic upper- and middle-class associations, school managers and school inspectors reported that the purpose of teaching girls plain needlework was not "duly appreciated by those whom it is intended to serve."63 Many parents felt it was a waste of precious school time which should be spent on the book-learning which would enable their children to get on in the world 64; others wanted to know if the pupils would be paid for their work.65 Many of those who did intend their girls to learn sewing expected to follow the old tradition of successional learning of subjects and to send them to classes after their elementary 'academic' education was completed.66 Teachers were faced with the need to enforce attendance and no means of doing so. 'What is to be done in such cases?' asked a master, when a parent refused to permit his daughter to go to sewing lessons.67 An Aberdeenshire teacher reminded his pupils that all girls over the age of seven were expected to attend the sewing lessons. They promised to do so and for a few weeks there was a better attendance before numbers again dropped off.68 The first Edinburgh School Board found that several of its schools had not introduced sewing on the grounds that it would not be popular with parents and noted that even where it had been introduced, holding the lesson at the end of the day evaded the issue as it was then outside the four hours which counted for school attendance.69 The content of the lessons was also disputed. The upper-classes wanted only plain sewing to be taught to emphasise the utilitarian objective.70 Inspectors criticised the lack of mending and darning and A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 16 were keen to encourage more practice in cutting out, without which they felt girls would be unable to make clothes for the family.71 Understandably, the girls and teachers preferred knitting and fancy work72 and possibly skills such as embroidery offered the prospect of some economic return in the future; several writers testified that plain sewing did not73; and sometimes parents refused to permit their daughters to learn it. A school manager commented that: parents grudge every hour spent at school in plain sewing, and very rarely allow their girls to remain long enough to acquire anything but the rudiments. When their services are required at home any part of the day, it is the general custom to request the teachers to send them home at the sewing hour, as the least important.74 Rural and town schools suffered a similar experience of at best erratic and often very poor attendance for sewing lessons. Sometimes quite half the class arrived without any 'work', an excuse one teacher blamed firmly on the parents, though it was accepted as genuine in poverty-stricken areas.75 Excuses for non-attendance at sewing classes received by the Aberdeen School Board included ill-health, bad eyesight, home duties, and want of work. The Board dealt with the last problem by arranging to provide sewing materials for the poorer pupils.76 The Scotsman sympathised with parents who objected to their daughters being forced to learn sewing at school: In England it is assumed that without a sewing class no girls' school can be complete...In Scotland, however, there has been considerable difficulty in getting the sewing-class generally introduced. Dr Woodford says there is a great prejudice in some places against them: "parents object to needlework at the common school and in early years as a waste of time which they wish to be otherwise employed." Mr Gordon naively says that "there is less difficulty in 'establishing the sewing mistress' than in procuring the attendance of the children to take her lessons, even when given without charge." We confess to a considerable sympathy with the good old Scotch pride of those disobedient parents who "maintain, with a livelier feeling than might have been expected, that the family can educate to the needle quite as well as the school." A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 17 This lively feeling was carried so far that an attempt to enforce attendance at a sewing-class resulted in the withdrawal of the girls from school altogether!77 The secretary of a small voluntary school summarised the attitude of many sections of Scottish society when he commented that the school taught 'what is in my opinion even more important - namely, reading and writing, with Religion and the other ordinary branches of elementary education'.78 When a male member of the Edinburgh School Board recommended that sewing should form a 'prominent' part of the girls' curriculum, Flora Stevenson objected that the girls' intellectual education should take priority: 'While she regarded sewing a very important thing, she was not of opinion that it was the main object of their education. If there was a proper system of instruction, very much less time would do to teach girls all that was required in this branch.'79 Few mixed Scottish day schools seem to have adopted the more common English practice of taking girls apart all afternoon for sewing. It occurred most often in Episcopal schools, the Roman Catholic schools in Glasgow,80 and in single sex girls' schools where the sewing was often superior to that in mixed schools, but academic standards poorer and subject options fewer, due in part to the influence of the ladies' committees.81 It was significant too, that whereas the sewing teachers attached to the Church of Scotland's mixed schools were not expected to provide more than an hour's lesson a day, the General Assembly wanted teachers at its girls-only schools to spend "a large portion of each day" on "industrial" subjects.82 Not all schools provided daily sewing lessons, but in the majority where girls spent one hour a day on sewing, this constituted a fifth of their total school time. Opposition to the introduction of sewing, and of domestic economy, can be over-emphasised. Local differences in educational traditions, provision and personalities resulted in enormous variations in the educational expectations of different Scottish communities. Parents had fixed ideas about the subjects to be learnt at the local school and at some schools objected as strongly to their daughters being taught grammar or geography as to their learning sewing in others.83 Often the objection was to the change in procedure or to learning the subject in a different school, rather than to the subject itself. There were A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 18 references to pupils' keenness and in some cases girls attended school only, or primarily, for the sewing lessons. Stow had to restrict girls under the age of ten to one hour a day in his female industrial school, to ensure they also attended the ordinary school. Teachers in Gaelic-speaking areas, where girls seldom stayed long enough to gain more than a smattering of English before they left to learn sewing elsewhere, asked for funds for sewing departments so as to persuade the children to stay longer at their academic subjects.84 And one of the most successful female teachers, whose pupils subsequently passed the university local examinations and on one occasion the Aberdeen University Higher Certificate for Women, started in the 1880s by persuading girls to stay on at school for sewing lessons.85 She did, however, entice them with the fancy work and embroidery so criticised because of its middle-class connotations rather than with plain sewing. It was female teachers who most often recorded pupils attending school for sewing only, which may have been because they were now seen as the equivalent of the old sewing school to be attended after reading and writing classes at the parochial school taught by the master. Undoubtedly, sewing lessons were introduced against the wishes of a large number of girls, parents and teachers but the exact balance of support for, or opposition to, needlework is difficult to estimate since most of the information was provided by middle-class witnesses. For example, the widespread 'indifference' which was reported may have been precisely that, or it may have been a form of passive resistance. By the eighties the campaign had theoretically succeeded and there were few later references to any opposition. In 1872 68% of the girls in all government-inspected schools were reportedly being taught sewing, although school log books and inspectors' comments throughout the 1870s indicated that the reality seldom matched the theory and there was still widespread absenteeism and evasion.86 Attempts by the Scotch Education Department to standardise and reorganise the sewing syllabus in 1876 led to complaints from teachers about the excessive demands, especially for girls under seven who had previously been exempt. Indeed, until sewing was made a ‘class subject’ in 1886 and the inspector actually watched classes in action, there was little incentive for teachers since the grant did not depend on the standard reached and the subject was consequently often taught very A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 19 superficially, simply 'going through the motions'. In 1866 Sellar and Maxwell had described it more roundly as 'a farce' which had been in large measure forced upon the schoolmaster and sometimes even involved inspectors being shown the same 'completed' garment on successive visits.87 The school inspectors all made gestures of approval about sewing and undoubtedly most of them felt very strongly on the subject; but at the same time they constantly reinforced the message of the higher status of academic subjects. There was continuous calculation of the numbers studying secondary subjects, especially the traditional university subjects and comparisons of 'best' schools excluded sewing, implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, seeing it as a handicap and outside the strictly 'educational' curriculum88 Schoolmasters and even some schoolmistresses were markedly less enthusiastic, one master referring to sewing as 'a great bugbear in the way of the girls'.89 The pressure of the Revised Code examinations meant teachers frequently used the sewing time to drill girls in examinable subjects they were weak in, especially when inspections were looming, while the higher status of other subjects meant the sewing lesson was often 'pushed out'.90 Parochial schoolmasters and more academically-orientated teachers who disliked any detraction from their pupils' school lessons often arranged for the sewing lesson to be outside school hours, perhaps coinciding with an extra-curricular Latin class or lessons for the pupil-teachers.91 In small schools where the master was keen and a female pupil bright, there was little doubt which subject she would be encouraged to pursue; there were four girls in the Latin class at Dyce parochial school in 1875 where the sewing was held at the same time, and girls at Fordyce public school dropped sewing as soon as they moved onto secondary subjects.92 But this required the overriding of gender-related expectations by both teachers and pupils and where the teachers were less committed, or in the larger schools where pupils were often divided by sex this was less likely to occur. Nevertheless, it was relevant that the larger school boards, where the economies of scale would have permitted the establishment of separate boys and girls schools, deliberately chose to set up co-educational schools on academic and moral grounds, although a minority rightly argued that sewing and other gender-specific teaching would be easier to organise in single-sex schools.93 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 20 The campaign for domestic economy The reports of the English school inspectors placed considerable emphasis on the education and training of girls for domestic service, with references to the views of English ladies on the matter. But although upper-class Scottish women held similar views, expressed most publicly and forcefully by Louisa Hope at the 1860 Social Science Association meeting, and although the Glasgow members of the Elders' Daughters' Association formed a separate branch to concentrate on training 'orphans and destitute daughters of the honest poor as domestic servants',94 training for domestic service in the elementary public schools was only discussed once by a Scottish inspector and then unfavourably: the common school cannot be made to serve the purpose of an apprenticeship to a trade...it cannot be expected to turn out skilful cooks or accomplished housemaids. I am far from discouraging or making light of elementary instruction in domestic economy... But it is one thing to train a girl to lay out limited means to the best advantage on the food and clothing of her own home. It is a very different thing to prepare her for the duties of a servant in a mansion. These duties must be learned by active service, and there is little reason to fear that they will be ill-discharged, because her mind has been informed and her intellect and her morals cultivated at school.95 Practical domestic training was sometimes found in schools supported by subscription or where the original endowment was insufficient, as these schools were often dependent on the sale of work from the institution for financial support. In the 1850s an inspector reported that spelling at a Glasgow school was poor because the committee of ladies required a large portion of the children's time be given to sewing which contributed to funds for the school and at another school it was reported that girls had to clean, wash, knit and sew for funds, leaving little time for 'education'.96 It was, however, primarily at industrial97 or ragged schools, established as reformatories or to provide for potential vagrants, and at endowed institutions established to aid minority categories, such as orphans, destitute, or deaf and dumb children, that girls were to be found specifically being prepared for domestic service. The school A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 21 inspector reported of one that it was 'not strictly an educational establishment; it is more for the purpose of turning out a decent respectable class of house servant'.98 Girls in these establishments spent much of their time in housework and sewing. At the Boys and Girls' Hospital at Aberdeen the boys cleaned while the girls washed and cooked and then the girls spent the whole afternoon sewing while the boys had lessons in arithmetic, natural philosophy or grammar.99 In 1861 a Madeira gentleman left an endowment for an institution for fatherless or orphan girls in the north of Scotland: The girls shall be taught reading, writing, and some knowledge of accounts for a short period per day; but the chief routine shall be to teach them tidy habits, to sew, cook, wash, and other requisites to make them good working men's wives or efficient domestic servants.100 The Wick trustees could expect little other financial support and so planned for the girls to do sufficient paid washing and sewing for the establishment to be self-sufficient. Even where more enlightened trustees wished to liberalise the education provided in endowed hospital or day schools, it could be difficult to do so without tedious and expensive legal proceedings. In many cases the differentiation to be provided in the education and training of boys and girls had been written into the original settlement and so the trustees were restricted by the over-specific terms of an endowment which no longer reflected contemporary attitudes.101 Despite the efforts of the Scottish Ladies Association and individual proprietors to establish and support separate day 'industrial' schools for training girls in practical domestic economy, few of these survived long and in 1866 a survey of seventeen counties found only six active schools.102 Facilities for practical training in laundry work, cleaning or cooking were not only expensive to establish but then required a continuous supply of provisions for cookery lessons and clothing for laundry work as well as mending for sewing lessons. Nor was expense the only consideration; practical work was too closely related to that of the charitable institutions and of domestic service to be popular.103 Consequently separate industrial schools seldom showed sufficient reward for the cost and effort entailed and it was generally agreed that private provision alone would never be able to ensure adequate domestic training facilities.104 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 22 Attempts to introduce such lessons to the existing schools faced even greater difficulties of organisation105 and greater opposition. A school inspector confirmed that there was: a very foolish prejudice among mothers against allowing their children to take a share in scrubbing the school floor in the way of a lesson. They hold that they do not send their girls to be servants to the schoolmistress, but to learn their lessons'.106 Parents and pupils seldom differentiated between courses intended to train girls as servants and those intended to train them as housewives and were hostile to both. A Free Church inspector considered there was little possibility of anything but theoretical study of such subjects in Scottish mixed schools, and even this seldom consisted of more than a few lessons using a class-book such as Tegetmeier's Manual of domestic economy and perhaps one or two essays.107 Nevertheless, there were many who did favour the idea of training girls in domestic economy as a means of improving working-class living standards. Whereas in the fifties and sixties the campaign for practical 'industrial work' concentrated on the introduction of needlework to the curriculum, in the seventies and eighties it extended to other domestic subjects, especially cookery and hygiene. One Scot, writing about pauperism, wanted compulsory schooling in social and domestic economy introduced for female factory workers - to be held in the women's 'leisure' time, not in working hours of course. But failing such compulsory measures, Buckminster, from the Department of Science and Art, concluded that efforts to teach domestic economy to working-class women through lectures were doomed to failure and that it was necessary instead to get at the captive audience of female pupils.108 This was born out at the voluntary domestic science schools which were established in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the 1870s by upper-middle-class women who moved in elite circles but were involved with the women's movement for higher education, suffrage and wider occupational opportunities. These women wanted to raise the standard of working-class housewifery, but they also wanted to raise the status of the domestic role ('home rule for women'), partly by emphasising its scientific aspects. After their efforts to provide demonstrations and classes for working-class women failed, they turned their attention to getting domestic economy accepted as an academic school subject.109 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 23 The establishment of school boards throughout Scotland under the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act had introduced new possibilities; while the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) wanted to hand over its ordinary schools to the school boards and concentrate on extending its 'industrial' operations and developing housewifery courses,110 both feminists and conservatives campaigned for domestic economy to be introduced to the curriculum of the board schools themselves. Miss Guthrie Wright was the leading campaigner in Edinburgh, while Professor Milligan was amongst those who pressed the subject on the Aberdeen School Board.111 HMI Hall argued that the cost of practical classes in cooking, washing and dressing: would be trifling in comparison with the advantages which would accrue to the masses of our population from the adoption of the suggestion now made. Our school boards have the matter in their own hands, and if they can accomplish it for us they will earn the approbation of all who think that the secret to the amelioration of the working man's condition in life lies in no small measure in cheerful homes, clean and neatly mended clothes, and palatable food.112 Feminists felt the subject was equally relevant to boys. Flora Stevenson suggested on a number of occasions that boys should have industrial training, especially in cookery — a suggestion always rejected by the male members of the Edinburgh Board.113 She was not alone however, in considering the subject important for all children; several inspectors raised the issue: 'Much of the "Domestic Economy" is admittedly of more importance than any other subject in the Fourth Schedule. But changing perhaps the name... would the subject not be every whit as suitable and important for boys?'114 The Privy Council's response to pressure for teaching in domestic economy mirrored its reaction to the issue of needlework. Regulations were introduced but no funding for training or facilities was provided. Courses in specific subjects had been established in 1873 as a means of enabling some form of post-elementary education in the grant-aided elementary schools to be continued. In 1876 regulations were issued by the London-based Scotch Education Department (SED) prohibiting girls from being examined in even one specific subject unless they were also taking domestic economy. In 1879 there were further amendments to ensure that girls studied both sections of the syllabus — A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 24 clothing and washing as well as food and its preparation.115 It was expected that most work would be from books, though two hours of cookery a week were permitted to count towards school hours. Teachers objected strongly, the Dundee Educational Institute of Scotland branch passing a motion against compulsory domestic economy; while the Aberdeen School Board disliked the priority given to domestic economy over other academic subjects, and was even more indignant that the school managers were expected to cover the expenditure of providing 'the only instruction in the department of Domestic Economy above-mentioned that is likely to be of permanent value to girls'. Aberdeen appealed to the other school boards to support its complaint and sent a memorandum to the SED, requesting a grant towards the provision of cooking facilities.116 In the meantime, an Instructress in Cookery and Superintendent in Needlework was appointed at Aberdeen, a special sub-committee set up and a centre established, after consultation with Buckmaster, at which cookery lessons could be provided - but only out of school hours.117 Most of the work continued to be from books which fitted the academic ethos but could be very dull. For example, for the specific subjects course girls were expected to know about the composition and nutritive value of foods, which in practice consisted of rote learning of terms such as 'albuminous' or 'nitrogenous'.118 It was not until 1882 that a special grant was introduced for girls over twelve years taking cooking; even then needlework still received more emphasis. In 1893 regulations for the training of specialist teachers, including cookery, were introduced, but again no funding was provided. Nevertheless, as grants were attached to the teaching of specific subjects and about 20% of the pupils in average attendance at board schools studied them, the regulations resulted in the desired increase in the number of girls studying domestic economy. Only 783 pupils were voluntarily examined in the subject in 1875/76, but two years later the number had increased twenty-fold, though the total number of pupils examined in all specific subjects only quadrupled.119 The system of specific subjects was ended in 1898, and higher grade schools were established for pupils studying at least three years post-elementary. Intended initially as science schools, they could also provide a 'commercial' education and special courses, including a curriculum designed for girls which had to include practical training in household economy.120 Despite official A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 25 intentions most of the higher grade schools instead became embryo secondary schools and the clash of their academic pretensions and their original socio-cultural objectives was most obvious in the case of girls. An inspector criticised the schools' tendency to start several foreign languages in the first year which effectively excluded practical courses from the curriculum. This is of prime importance in connection with the work of the girls where Cookery, Housewifery, and even Needlework have been neglected in favour of a study of languages which, in many cases, has been carried no further than the most elementary and, therefore, the most useless stage.121 In 1903 the SED introduced two-year supplementary courses for the majority of pupils who would remain at elementary schools, leaving at fourteen rather than going on to secondary schools. These lasted until 1923 and consisted of core courses on English and civic responsibilities and a choice of one of four special courses — commercial, industrial, rural and inevitably, 'household management' for girls. The inspectors' reports for 1904-05 described the typical supplementary course taken for seven months by 'a clever girl in a good school'. During fifteen hours of morning work per week she studied seven English literature books and wrote precis, memorised a number of poems, read ten library books and wrote a fortnightly essay. Arithmetic included decimals and the metric system and there were courses on citizenship, Colonial history and hygiene. The ten afternoon hours a week were devoted to practical housewifery, cookery, laundry work, needlework and dressmaking, plus music and physical exercises.122 Thus in the twentieth century the English tradition of a girls' curriculum in which almost all of every afternoon was devoted to practical domestic training finally prevailed in the elementary schools of Scotland. Nevertheless, as Helen Corr has noted, the institutionalisation of domestic instruction for girls into the school curriculum throughout Britain was only beginning. In the early twentieth century government reports and the eugenics movement led to anxiety about the health of the nation and child-rearing became a national rather than a moral duty. In Scotland a Glasgow councillor called for 'the training of older schoolgirls in household duties so as to stop the supply of ignorant motherhood' A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 26 and there were demands that cookery should be made compulsory. The voluntary Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen cookery schools were placed under the control of the SED; grants were provided for training teachers in 'household management' subjects; and there was an 'unprecedented expansion' in the number of schoolgirls studying domestic subjects in the years before the First World War.123 The debate Scottish feminists were ambivalent about girls studying the theory of domestic economy. It was advocated by the founders of the voluntary cookery schools, women members of school boards and the inspectresses, appointed from 1902, as a means of motivating girls to widen their intellectual horizons, as well as providing them with a scientific understanding of matters relating to their future household duties.124 Others, like Maria Ogilvie Gordon, deliberately emphasised the domestic relevance in order to get girls admitted to subjects, such as chemistry and physics, generally closed to them.125 But more radical feminists saw the emphasis on domestic science for girls as a retrograde step, which not only emphasised that woman's 'proper' sphere was domestic, but restricted their education to a portion of each academic subject in a way that did not occur for boys.126 As the development of the higher grade schools illustrated, the earlier tension as to whether girls' education should consist primarily of academic learning or practical training still existed. Continuing problems with staffing, accommodation and public opinion meant that even in 1909 the level of provision varied considerably between regions; more than half the schools in Renfrew offered cookery classes but only ten schools out of 166 did so in Argyle. Although some inspectors asserted that the value of cookery classes was appreciated by 'everyone', others complained that it was still 'taken for granted in some quarters that book-learning is the only means of intellectual and moral discipline that should be open to the future citizen.'127 Despite the imposition of domestic subjects and an increasingly sharp demarcation between primary and secondary schooling resulting from government legislation and reflected in the prohibition of academic subjects in the supplementary courses, in 1900 working-class women constituted 21% of the women students at Aberdeen University and 28% of those A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 27 at Glasgow, while 19% of the women at Edinburgh University in 1900 and more than half of those matriculating at Aberdeen in 1902 had been educated solely at elementary public schools.128 Summary Scottish Enlightenment theories gave a new importance to domesticity. The consequent need to improve women's reasoning abilities, scientific knowledge and morality, so that they would be able to fulfil this role led to the promotion of an academic education for both middle-class and working-class girls. Subsequent concern about maintaining order at a time of social and political unrest resulted in schemes to utilise the feminine influence to direct and contain working-class aspirations. Emphasis was placed on training working-class girls in domestic skills, as a means of both raising working-class living standards and providing the opportunity for inculcating appropriate moral, cultural and religious precepts which would be passed on in the family environment. The appointment of female teachers was part of the feminisation of the girls' curriculum, rather than a perception of mistresses as equal academic and professional colleagues; the 1861 Education Act spelt this out when it permitted heritors to appoint women to give instruction in female industrial and household training and 'elementary' education only, in the parochial schools. The response of the Church of Scotland reflected the contradictions resulting from an emphasis on the value of intellectual discipline combined with a belief in the subordinate and domestic role of women. As a result female teacher training students were encouraged to study academic subjects such as French as well as history and geography, but not the traditional secondary subjects, maths and Latin, even though some of them had learnt these while at school. Before 1872 they were seldom appointed to anything but 'industrial' or infant school posts, despite the repeated admission of their academic superiority in those subjects studied by both sexes. This left a legacy of gender-differentiated occupation and status in the teaching profession which was continued by the SED, and survived even the introduction of graduate female teachers.129 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 28 Opposition to the introduction of sewing and domestic economy in Scotland was largely due to the belief that intellectual discipline was the best means of developing an intelligent, moral and cultured individual; but it also resulted from the inertia of custom, the opposition of teachers and lack of funds. The tradition of mixed elementary schools, the teaching of higher subjects in those schools, the attendance of a proportion of middle-class girls, and the initial lack of female teachers, all reinforced opposition. Early attempts to introduce comprehensive training in all aspects of domestic economy failed and even attempts to introduce sewing were unsuccessful until it became a condition of the government grant and hence too expensive to ignore. Widespread practical education in other domestic subjects was not feasible in most areas till the establishment of school boards. The education of girls was a subject many women felt prepared to speak out about. Conservative women criticised the male educational establishment for its opposition to domestic training. The support of Scottish feminists from the 1870s may seem more surprising but reflected an attempt to raise the status of domesticity. Pressure from the English authorities was ultimately responsible for the introduction of domestic subjects into the Scottish curriculum and, as in England,130 the state continued thereafter to promote an increasingly formalised gender-differentiation in the curriculum. Since neither the ethos nor the content of domestic subjects fitted the Scottish ideal of education they have been ignored by historians of Scottish education. Those familiar with the history of educational provision for working-class girls in England may be impressed by the extent of Scottish opposition, both from within the educational establishment and in the classroom,131 and by the widespread belief in the value of an academic education for girls. Those more familiar with the tradition of a democratic, classless, co-educational Scottish education may be struck by the evidence that many Scots actually supported a class- and sex-specific education, intended to restrain, rather than provide opportunities, for the 'lass o' pairts'. A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 29 A revised version was published as Lindy Moore, ‘Educating for the 'woman's sphere'; domestic training versus intellectual discipline’in: Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1830-1950 edited by Esther Breitenbach and Eleanor Gordon (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 10-41. (available online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85958080 ) 1 E. Mure, Some Observations of the Change of Manners in my Own Time, 1700-1790 quoted in J. G. Fyfe (ed.), Scottish Diaries and Memoirs 1746-1846 (Eneas Mackay, Stirling, 1942), p. 66. 2 J. Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France and the United States, 1780-1860 (Macmillan, 1985). 3 J. Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse: Sensibility and Community in Late Eighteenth Century Scotland (John Donald, Edinburgh, 1987), quotation p. 6. 4 'Noctes Ambrosianae', Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, XII, Oct. 1823, p. 493; 'The Sketcher', ibid., XXXV, Feb. 1834, p. 180. 5 'On the influence women have upon society', Scots Magazine, Sept. 1804, pp. 673-5; 'Strictures on the present plan of female education', ibid., Nov. 1804, pp. 835-7 6 'Female schools for cleanliness, morals, and decorum', ibid., Scots Magazine, Mar. 1804, pp. 198-202; Apr. 1804, pp. 249-253; May 1804, pp. 329-333; B. Grant, Sketches of Intellectual Education, and Hints on Domestic Economy, Addressed to Inexperienced Mothers, 2 vols., (J. Young, Inverness, 1812); E. Hamilton, Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education, 2 vols., (Bath, 3rd edition, 1803), A Series of Popular Essays, Illustrative of Principles Essentially Connected with the Improvement of the Understanding, the Imagination, and the Heart, 2 vols., (Glasgow, 1812) and Hints Addressed to Patrons and Directors of Schools (Longman etc., London, 1815); Prof. Leslie (quoted Scotsman, 10 Feb. 1827); Cunningham (quoted Scotsman, 1 May 1833); J. Simpson (quoted Scotsman, 12 Nov. 1842). 7 B. Grant, op. cit.; 'Female schools for cleanliness', op. cit. pp. 250-1 fn; A. Combe, The Management of Infancy, Physical and Moral, revised and edited by Sir James Clark, Bt., (Maclauchlan and Stewart, Edinburgh and London; 10th edition, 1881), vii-x. (The first edition was published in 1840); 'Column for mothers', Chambers' Edinburgh Journal [CEJ], IV, 25 July 1835, p. 208. 8 G. Combe, 'On female education' in Lectures on Popular Education; Delivered to the Edinburgh Philosophical Association in April and November 1833 (Machlachlan Stewart, Edinburgh; 3rd edition, 1848) pp. 50-60. (quotation p. 53). 9 E. Hamilton, 1815, pp. 20-1, 127 and 1812, I, pp. 65-74. 10 ibid., p. 42. 11 Individual writers' definition of 'intellectual' was relative to contemporary practice; in early years it might only mean that all girls should be taught the 3Rs. 12 G. Combe, op. cit. Versions of this were published as 'Education', CEJ, 3 (118), 3 May 1834, pp. 106-108 and 'Woman in her social and domestic character by Mrs John Sandford', Phrenological Journal, VII, (XXXI), 1831-32, pp. 410-427. See also 'Education', CEJ, 3 (107), 15 Feb. 1834, p. 20; letter to The Scotsman from William Bell, 6 Aug. 1851. 13 Necessity of Popular Education as a National Object (Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1834) esp. pp. 183-184 and see his evidence in Report from the Select Committee on Education in England and Wales, Together with the Minutes of Evidence: Appendix, and Index (PP., 1835), Appendix no. 3; D. Stow, The Training System Adapted in the Model Schools of the Glasgow Educational Society (W.R.McPhun, Glasgow, 1836), p. 174. 14 E. Hamilton, 1803, I., p. 202; G. E. Davie, The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and the Universities in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1961), p. 189. For specific examples see Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education [MCCE]. PP., 1841-42, p. 99, and 1846, II, p. 472; Education Commission (Scotland), Report on the State of Education in the Country Districts of Scotland by A. C. Sellar and C. F. Maxwell [hereafter Sellar and Maxwell] (PP., 1867, xxv), p. 159; Report of the Committee of Council on Education; with Appendix [RCCE], PP., 1861-62, p. 216 and 1870-71, p. 312; Education Commission (Scotland), First Report by Her Majesty's Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Schools in Scotland (PP., 1865, xvii), p. 186; 'The importance of the school in connection with the Church', The Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Church of Scotland [HFMR], October 1859, p. 243; Isa M Croal, 'The higher education of women', Educational News, 25 Apr. 1885, p. 271. 15 D. Chambers, 'The Church of Scotland Highlands and Islands Education Scheme', Journal of Educational Administration and History, VII (1), January 1975, p. 16. 16 'The sermon', Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1860 [TNAPSS] p. 2; see also J. Tulloch 'The parish school in relation to plans of national education for Scotland, to the universities, and the Church', ibid., pp. 343-4. 17 J. Begg, National Education for Scotland Practically Considered; with Notices of Certain Proposals on that Subject (Johnstone and Hunter, Edinburgh; 2nd edition, 1850); W. M. Hetherington, National Education in Scotland, Viewed in its Present Condition, its Principles, and its Possibilities (Johnstone and Hunter, Edinburgh; 2nd edition, 1850). 18 Louisa Hope, 'Girls' schools', TNAPSS, 1860, pp. 397-404; Mrs Story, Later Reminiscences. (Maclehose, Glasgow, 1913), p. 12; MCCE, 1853-4, p. 943. 19 L. Mahood, 'The domestication of 'fallen' women: the Glasgow Magdalene Institution, 1860-1890' in D. McCrone, S. Kendrick and P. Straw (eds.), The Making of Scotland: Nation, Culture and Social Change (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1989), p. 151; J. Drummond (ed)., Onward and Upward: Extracts (1891-96) from the Magazine of the Onward and Upward Association Founded by Lady Aberdeen for the Material, Mental and Moral Elevation of Women (Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1983). 20 Not to be confused with 'industrial schools' established for vagrant or criminal children. The term 'female' school simply signified a school taught by a woman; the pupils might be all girls or boys and girls and the subjects taught might be solely domestic, or include the 3Rs or include all subjects. The term caused confusion for contemporaries as well as for historical researchers. Practical courses for boys were also attempted in the 1840s and '50s, but were unsuccessful. They were reintroduced as specific subjects in 1883 and as supplementary courses in 1903. 21 MS. Scottish Record Office, HR 476/1, 'Rules of the Athelstaneford Female Subscription School' in Minute Book of the Athelstaneford Heritors 1857, pp. 44-6. 22 Association for the Religious Improvement of the Remote Highlands and Islands in connexion with the Free Church of Scotland, Ninth Annual Report (1859), p. 7. 23 MCCE 1851-52, p. 1009-10; MCCE 1852-53, p. 1198; J. Gordon, 'On the state of education among the mining population of Lanarkshire', TNAPSS, 1860, pp. 374-5. 24 Report of the Committee of the General Assembly for Increasing the Means of Education in Scotland, Particularly in the Highlands and Islands [RCGA] (Edinburgh, 1849), p. 8; MCCE 1851-52, p. 1009-10; Education Commission (Scotland), First Report, para. 150-1.; editorial, Scotsman, 28 Apr. 1855. 25 'Elders' Daughters' Association', HFMR, XI (1856), p. 153. 26 MCCE 1846, II, p. 477; MCCE 1848-49-50, II, p. 574; MCCE 1853-54, pp. 672 and 1052; MCCE 1856-7, p. 675; RCCE 1860-61, pp. 237 (quotation), 225; RCCE 1861-62, p. 230; RCCE 1862-63, p. 142; E. Lipp, Scottish Aspects of Child Education a Century Ago (Rainbow Enterprises, Aberdeen, 1979), p. 84. 27 MCCE 1846, II, p. 458; RCCE 1860-61, p. 225; RCCE 1862-63, p. 171; RCCE 1863-64, p.251; RCCE 1865-66, p.326; RCCE 1871-72, p. 90. 28 MS. Aberdeen District Archives [ADA], Aberdeen School Board, Minutes of the Board 1873-1876, 9 Mar. 1876; Report of Women's Conference on Women's Work (D. Wyllie, Aberdeen, 1888), p. 41 (quotation). 29 A. F. Tytler, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames.... 2 vols., (Creech, Edinburgh, 1807), II, pp. 13, 64; M. Plant, The Domestic Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1952), pp. 153-5; I. F. M. Dean, Scottish Spinning Schools (University of London Press, 1930), pp. 62, 70-1, 82-87. 30 R. Marshall, Virgins and Viragos; a History of Women in Scotland from 1080-1980 (Collins, 1983) pp. 252-3; MCCE, 1846, II, p. 459; MS. Scottish Record Office, GD 46/17/68, Heads of a plan for establishing a female school at Stornaway, under the patronage of the Honourable Mrs Stewart Mackenzie of Seaforth for the purpose of teaching the female youth of Stornaway reading, writing and needle work and spinning. (22 August 1825); Presbyterial and Parochial Reports on the State of Education in Scotland, 1842 (Edinburgh, 1843), pp. 31, 51, 56, 123. 31 L. Moore, 'Invisible scholars: girls learning Latin and mathematics in the elementary public schools of Scotland before 1872', History of Education, 13 (2), 1984, here pp. 121-4. 32 W. Anderson, Female Education in Relation to the Wants of the Age (Smith, King, Aberdeen, 1851). 33 MCCE 1842-43, p. 323; MCCE 1846, I, p. 489; RCGA, 1850, p. 38. The persistence of this attitude is indicated in Scotch Education Department [SED], Reports, &c. issued in 1909-10 (PP., 1910), section B, p. 40. 34 H. M. Knox, 'Simon Somerville Laurie, 1829-1909', British Journal of Educational Studies, X, (1961-2), pp. 138-52; [S. S. Laurie], Report on Education in the Parochial Schools of the Counties of Aberdeen, Banff and Moray Addressed to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Constable, Edinburgh, 1865), p. 189. Compare also Gordon's criticism of the introduction of industrial training for male pupils (MCCE 1846, II, p. 476) with his support for female industrial schools. 35 G. W. Alexander, 'Primary and secondary education in Scotland' in C. S. Bremner, Education of Girls and Women in Great Britain (Swann Sonnenschein, 1897), p. 245; D. MacGillivray, 'Fifty years of Scottish education' in J. Clarke (ed.), Problems of National Education (Macmillan, 1919), p. 19. 36 L. Moore, op. cit., pp. 121-137. 37 Abstract of the Report of the General Assembly for Increasing the Means of Education and Religious Instruction in Scotland, Particularly in the Highlands and Islands (Edinburgh, 1828), p. 8. 38 MCCE 1848-49-50, II, p. 560 (quotation); RCCE 1862-63, p.169. 39 MCCE 1841-42, p. 102. 40 MCCE 1846, II, p. 511; see also Presbyterial and Parochial Reports...1842, esp. pp. 16, 20, 24, 31-32, 56 and 123 (on Dundee). 41 Eg. E. Lipp, op. cit., pp. 79-85; MS. Scottish Record Office, HR 476/1, 'Rules of the Athelstaneford Female Subscription School' in Minute Book of Athelstaneford Heritors 1857, pp. 44-6; Endowed Schools and Hospitals (Scotland) Commission, Appendix to Third Report, 2 vols., (PP. 1875, xxix), I, pp. 128, 130, 136, II, pp. 1 ff. 42 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords Appointed to Inquire into the Duties, Emoluments, and Present Condition of the Parochial Schoolmasters in Scotland... (PP, 1845, xix.) para. 639, 989, 1147. 43 RCGA 1849, pp. 8-9; RCGA 1850, p. 12 (quotation). 44 'Elders' Daughters' Association for Female Education in Scotland', HFMR, VII, March 1852, p. 52; Scotsman 23 May 1868. 45 Census of Great Britain, 1851. Religious Worship and Education, Scotland. Report and Tables (PP., 1854, lix); Census of Great Britain, 1851. Education, England and Wales. Reports and Tables., (PP, 1854). See also comparative statistics for sewing in MCCE, 1852-53. The term 'public' school is used throughout this chapter in the Scottish sense of a school open to all; after 1872 it technically meant a school controlled by a local authority, such as a school board. 46 'Second Annual Report of the Scottish Ladies' Association for Promoting Female Industrial Education in Scotland, for 1854', HFMR, X, May 1855, pp. 95-6. 47 Ibid.; 'Report to the General Assembly by the Committee on Education', HFMR, IX, 1854, p. 146. (The annual reports were also published separately.) 48 L. O. Hope, letter in The Scotsman, 18 Feb. 1865 and 'Girls' schools', op. cit., p. 401. Louisa Hope had already published her views in The Female Teacher: Ideas Suggestive of her Qualifications and Duties (Paton and Ritchie, Edinburgh, 1853). 49 Quoted in 'Annual Report to the General Assembly by the Committee - May 1859', HFMR, XIV, July 1859. p. 149. 50 'Education scheme. Annual report to the General Assembly by the Committee. May 1860', HFMR, XV, 2 July 1860, p. 150; see also 'Needlework versus popular education', letter, Scotsman, 15 Mar. 1864; Education Commission (Scotland), First Report, p. 193. In 1860 Woodford reported visiting fifty-three mixed schools which were too poor to organise sewing classes and so could not obtain the grant (RCCE 1860-61, p. 217). 51 Letter dated 11 May 1860 quoted in 'Education scheme. Annual report to the General Assembly by the Committee. May 1860', op. cit.; RCCE 1859-60, xxi. 52 L. O. Hope, 'Girls' schools', TNAPSS, 1860, pp. 397-404; 'Opening address by the Right Hon. Lord Brougham and Vaux', ibid, p. 19; Mrs Gordon, 'On the training of primary schoolmistresses', TNAPSS 1863, p. 382; Mrs Hamilton, 'On the industrial training of girls in the humbler classes', ibid. 53 'Female schools and the education scheme', The Church of Scotland Home and Foreign Missionary Record [CSHFMR], New Series, I, November 1862, pp. 195-6; Scotsman 29 May 1862; 'Education Scheme', CSHFMR, III, Dec. 1864, p. 217-8. 54 RCCE 1863-64, p. 238. 55 'Remarks on the General Report by Presbyteries on School Examinations 1853', HFMR, IX, Jan. 1854, pp. 1-3; 'Education scheme', HFMR, XV, 2 July 1860, p. 151; MCCE, 1841-2, 114, 122 and 125; MCCE 1851-52, p. 1084. 56 Sellar and Maxwell, op. cit., Appendix I. and p. 125. 57 Scotsman, 24 May 1864; Education Commission (Scotland), Second Report by Her Majesty's Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Schools in Scotland. With an Appendix. Elementary Schools (PP, 1867, xxv), p. cl. 58 D.F. Sandford, 'On female education and industrial training' in Two Short Lectures (Grant, Edinburgh, 1855), pp. 11-21; Sellar and Maxwell, op. cit., p. 66-67; S. S. Laurie, op. cit., pp. 188-9; 'Female school scheme', CSHFMR, V, 1 May 1866 pp. 25-6. 59 RCCE 1867-8, p. 391; RCCE 1859-60, pp. 235, 248; RCCE 1864-65, p. 258. 60 RCCE 1859-60, p. 273; RCCE 1861-62, 205. 61 RCCE 1859-60, p. 273; RCCE 1863-64, p. 238. MS Grampian Regional Archives [GRA], Log Book of Cairnbanno Madras [Free Church] School 1863-1879, 29 May 1866; MS GRA GR6S/A12/1/1 Bucksburn Public School (formerly Newhills Free Church Congregational School) Log Book 1864-1907, 11 January 1870. 62 RCCE 1864-65, p. 258. See also Association for the Religious Improvement ... Free Church of Scotland, Thirteenth Annual Report (1863), p. 20. 63 RCCE 1858-59, p. 215; RCCE 1863-64, p. 238; MS. GRA, AC5/115/1A, Log Book of Cairnbanno Madras School 1863-1879; MS GRA Log Book of Garvock School 1866-1888; MS. GRA, GR6S/B1/1/2, Log Book of the General Assembly School Aberchirder 1864-1878, 13 May 1867. 64 RCCE 1859-60, p. 273; RCCE 1860-61, p. 217; RCCE 1863-64, pp. 240, 257, 261; Sellar and Maxwell, op. cit., p. 87 fn. 65 RCCE 1859-60, p. 235; RCCE 1860-61, p. 217 66 RCCE 1858-59, p. 273; RCCE, 1863-64, pp. 257, 261; MS. GRA, Garvoch School Log Book 1866-1888, 6 June 1873. 67 MS. GRA, Log Book of Macduff Free Church School 1863-1877, 29 Aug. 1864. 68 MS. GRA, GR6S/A12/1/1, Bucksburn Public School (formerly Newhills Free Church Congregational School) Log Book 1864-1907, 4 and 9 Jan., 18 Feb. and 24 Mar. 1869. 69 Scotsman 5 Mar. 1874. 70 MCCE 1850-51, p. 890; MCCE, 1851-52, p. 1009; RCCE 1860-61, p. 237; RCCE, 1864-65, p. 258; letter, Scotsman, 22 Aug. 1867. 71 RCCE 1867-68, p. 430; MS. GRA 5/68/1 Linhead School Log Book 1866-1889, 31 Jan. 1873. 72 Sellar and Maxwell, p. 111; letters, Scotsman, 11 Feb. 1865, 22 Aug. 1867; RCCE, 1870-71, p. 318; MS. GRA GR6S/B54/1/1, Peterhead Female Parochial School Log Book 1864-1874, 7 July 1869. 73 letters, Scotsman, 9 and 11 Feb. 1865. In a few schools attempts were made to introduce future money-earning skills such as embroidery (RCCE 1858-59, p. 215) but such efforts came under heavy criticism. (eg. 'Report of the Ladies' Association in Support of Gaelic Schools in Connexion with the Church of Scotland', Sixth Report, quoted in HFMR, VIII, 1853, pp. 38-9). 74 letter, Scotsman 9 Feb. 1865. 75 76. MS. GRA, AC5/115/1A, Log Book of Cairnbanno Madras School 1863-1879, 19 July 1866, 31 Mar. 1871, 5 Mar. 1872 and problem noted six more times in 1872; MS. GRA Log Book of Garvock School 1866-1888, 9 June 1869 and 3 Dec. 1869; Association for the Religious Improvement ... Free Church of Scotland, Ninth Annual Report, (1859), p. 17, Fourteenth Annual Report, (1864), pp. 5, 23; Fifteenth Annual Report (1865), pp. 14, 23. 76 MS., ADA, Aberdeen School Board, Minutes of the Board 1873-76, 9 Mar. 1876. 77 Editorial, Scotsman, 23 Aug. 1864. 78 'Needlework versus popular education', letter, ibid., 15 March 1864. 79 ibid., 2 April 1874. 80 RCCE 1862-63, p. 179; RCCE 1863-64, p. 218. 81 MCCE 1853-54, p. 943; RCCE 1864-65, p. 265; RCCE 1869-70, p. 401. 82 'Female school scheme', CSHFMR, V, May 1866, pp. 25-6 83 MCCE 1853-54, p. 958, 963, 978; RCCE 1863-64, p. 261; MS. GRA, AC5/148/1, Overton (Overtown) School Log Book 1869-1915, 3 Dec. 1869, 23 Nov. 1871 (but on the earlier date the teacher noted this was the first such case he had experienced); Sellar and Maxwell, op. cit., p. 87 fn.; MS. GRA, AC5/134/1, Glenbuchat School Log Book, 7 May 1872. 84 Association for the Religious Improvement...Free Church of Scotland, Fourteenth Annual Report (1864), p. 5. A similar reason was given for the establishment of an industrial school at Bridge of Earn (MCCE 1853-54, p. 1037) and see MCCE 1856-57, p. 641. 85 W. Barclay, The Schools and Schoolmasters of Banffshire (Banffshire Branch of the EIS, Banff, 1925), p. 251. 86 letter, Educational News, I, 17 June 1876. 87 RCCE 1872-73, p. 254; Sellar and Maxwell, op. cit., p. 125. 88 MCCE 1855-56, p. 671. RCCE 1864-65, p. 265; RCCE 1871-72, p. 88; Report of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland [RCCES] 1877-78, p. 211. 89 MS. GRA, GR6S/B42/1/1 Log Book of Macduff Free Church School 1863-1877, 16 Feb. 1865; MS. GRA, AC5/115/1A, Log Book of Cairnbanno Madras School 1863-1879, 11 Dec. 1866; Educational News, I, 26 Feb. 1876. 90 MS. GRA, GRA6S/A12/1/1, Bucksburn Public School (formerly Newhills Free Church Congregational School) Log Book 1864-1907, 15 and 26 Sept. 1865; MS. GRA, GR6S/G11/1/1, Cluny School Log Book 1864-1873, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21 and 22 Jan. 1869; MS. GRA, AC5/148/1, Overton (Overtown) School Log Book 1869-1915, 13 June 1870, 31 May 1872; MS. GRA, AC5/115/1A, Log Book of Cairnbanno Madras School 1863-1879, 10 Nov. 1871, 12, 26 Apr., 7 June and 16 Aug. 1872. 91 MS. GRA, GR6S/B40/1/1, Longhaven School (formerly Coldwells) Log Book 1869-1901, 19 Jan. 1877; MS. GRA, AC5/115/1A, Log Book of Cairnbanno Madras School 1863-1879, 14 Mar. 1871, 29 Sept. 1872; MS. GRA, AC5/148/1, Overton (Overtown) School Log Book 1869-1915, 11 Jan. 1871. 92 MS. GRA, AC5/148/1, Overton (Overtown) School Log Book 1869-1915, 24 Feb. 1873, July 19 1875; D. G. McLean, The History of Fordyce Academy; Life at a Banffshire school 1592-1935 (Banffshire Journal, Banff, 1936), p. 73. 93 Scotsman 2 Apr. 1874; Aberdeen Journal, 25 Aug. 1874; G. W. Alexander, op. cit., p. 244. 94 'Glasgow Elders' Wives and Daughters' Association', CSHRMR, IV, April 1865, p. 14. 95 RCCE 1860-61, pp. 255-6. See also R. A. Bayliss, (ed.), Aberdeen School of Domestic Science: an outline history (Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology, Aberdeen, 1979), p. 12. 96 MCCE 1851-52, p. 1057; RCCE 1860-61, p. 219. 97 Not to be confused with schools of industry. 98 Endowed Schools and Hospitals (Scotland) Commission, First Report (PP., 1873, xxvii), 736. 99 ibid., esp. p. 721; R. A. Bayliss, op. cit., pp. 7-11. 100 Endowed Schools and Hospitals (Scotland) Commission, Appendix to Third Report. 2 vols., (PP., 1875, xxix), II, p. 277. 101 cf. problems encountered by the trustees of the Edinburgh Merchant Maiden Hospital. 102 Sellar and Maxwell, op. cit., p. 166 and Appendix I, evidence of D. Middleton. 103 'Report of the Ladies' Association in Support of Gaelic Schools', HFMR, VIII, Feb. 1853, p. 38-9; RCCE 1859-60, p. 249; C. L. Warr, Principal Caird (Clark, Edinburgh, 1926), p. 127; L. J. Saunders, Scottish Democracy 1815-1840: the Social and Intellectual Background (Edinburgh, 1950), p. 269. 104 RCCE 1862-63, p. 142. 105 MCCE 1855-56, p. 671. 106 RCCE 1859-60, p. 235. 107 RCCE 1861-62, p. 237; RCCE 1860-61 p. 226; RCCE 1863-64 p. 240. 108 G. King, Modern Pauperism and the Scottish Poor Laws (Murray, Aberdeen, 1871), p. 61; 'The practical teaching of cookery in board schools', Educational News, II, 27 Oct. 1877, p. 531; H. Corr, 'The schoolgirls' curriculum and the ideology of the home, 1870-1914', in Glasgow Women's Studies Group, (ed.) Uncharted Lives: Extracts from Scottish Women's Experiences, 1850-1982 (Pressgang, Glasgow, 1983), p. 81. 109 H. Corr, op. cit., pp. 74-97; E. T. M'Laren, Recollections of the Public Work and Home Life of Louisa and Flora Stevenson (Andrew Elliot, Edinburgh, 1914?); E. Miller, Century of Change 1875-1975: One Hundred Years of Training Home Economics' Students in Glasgow (Queen's College Glasgow, Glasgow, 1975); A. C. Geddes, The Forging of a Family (Faber and Faber, 1952), pp. 135-6. See also P. Blyth, 'An experiment in the practical training of domestic economy' Life and Work, I, September 1879, pp. 141-3. Flora Stevenson and Phoebe Blyth were members of the first Edinburgh School Board. The Scotsman had suggested training institutes for cookery should be established under a 'professor' in 1855. 110 Endowed Schools and Hospitals (Scotland) Commission, Second Report (PP., 1874, xvii), paras. 8473-5. 111 A. M. Milligan In Memoriam: William Milligan D.D. (Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1894), pp. 25-6; MS., ADA, Aberdeen School Board Minutes 1873-76, 14 Jan. and 13 May 1875. 112 RCCE, 172-3, p.255. 113 H. Corr, op. cit., p. 93; Scotsman 2 Apr. 1874; M. Burton, 'Sewing in public schools', TNAPSS 1880, p. 495. 114 RCCES 1877-78, p. 211, quotation; See also Report by J. Macleod, RCCES 1880-81. 115 SED, Code of Regulations for the Day Schools of Scotland, (PP., 1876), Article 21 (e); SED, Education (Scotland) Reports, (PP., 1878-79), p. 102. 116 Educational News, I, 14 Oct. 1876 and 3, 26 Oct. 1878; MS. ADA, Aberdeen School Board Minutes 1876-1879, 9 Nov. 1876, 8 Feb. 1877, 14 Dec. 1878. Greenock, Paisley, Govan, Perth and Dundee School Boards also petitioned the SED. 117 ibid., 12 Apr. 1877, 13 Dec. 1877, 14 Feb. 1878, 4 Apr. 1879; 'The practical teaching of cookery in board schools', op. cit. For some of the subsequent developments at Aberdeen and Glasgow see R. A. Bayliss, op. cit., and E. Miller, op. cit.. An account of the Glasgow School Board contains no reference to the subject, apart from one photograph (J. M. Roxburgh, The School Board of Glasgow 1873-1919 (University of London Press, 1971). 118 T. R. Bone, School Inspection in Scotland 1840-1966 (University of London, 1968), p. 113. 119 Calculated from N. A. Wade, Post-Primary Education in the Primary Schools of Scotland 1872-1936 (University of London Press, 1939), pp. 58, 60. 120 ibid., p. 106. 121 SED, Reports, &c., Issued in 1909-1910, Section C, pp. 62-3 (quotation); section H, p. 17. 122 J. Scotland, The History of Scottish Education, 2 vols., (University of London Press, 1969) II, p. 57. 123 H. Corr, op. cit.; E. Miller, op. cit., p. 27; A. Wright, The History of Education and of the Old Parish Schools of Scotland (Adams, Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 246-248. 124 SED, Reports, &c., Issued in 1909-10, Section B, pp. 49-50; Mrs Bannatyne, 'Teaching of Domestic Science: some practical aspects', Educational News, 12 July 1912; E. Fish, 'The interests of girls in elementary and continuation schools' in J. Clarke, op. cit., pp. 76-100, esp. pp. 91-2. 125 M. Ogilvie Gordon, On the Teaching of Girls (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1904), p. 12. 126 F. Melville, 'The education of women' in The Position of Woman: Actual and Ideal (J. Nisbet, 1911), pp. 118-134. 127 SED, Reports, &c., Issued in 1909-10, section C, pp. 60-61 (quotation), Section D, pp. 12-13. 128 R. D. Anderson, Education and Opportunity in Victorian Scotland: Schools and Universities, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983), pp. 303-4, 312-5; University of Aberdeen, Record of the Arts Class of 1902-1906 (Aberdeen, 1927). Of course allowance for the relative size of the different social classes shows the chance of such educational opportunities was heavily weighted against working-class girls. 129 H. Corr, ‘The sexual division of labour in the Scottish teaching profession, 1872-1914’, in W. M. Humes and H. Paterson (eds), Scottish Culture and Scottish Education 1800-1980 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1983), pp. 137-150; M. G. Clarke, A Short Life of Ninety Years (privately published, 1973), pp. 30-40. 130 Eg. C Dyhouse, ‘Good wives and little mothers: social anxieties and the schoolgirls curriculum, 1890-1920’, Oxford Review of Education, 3 (1), 1977, pp. 21-35; A Turnbull, ‘Learning her womanly work: the elementary school curriculum, 1870-1914’, in F. Hunt (ed.), Lessons for Life: the Schooling of Girls and Women 1850-1950 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), pp. 83-100; M. Gomersall, ‘Ideals and realities: the education of working class girls, 1800-1870’, History of Education, 17 (1), March 1988, pp. 37-53. 131 As the above works show, opposition did also occur in England.

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Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

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Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.

Educating for the women's sphere: domestic training versus intellectual discipline' in: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds), Out of Bounds: Women in the Public Domain in Scotland 1830-1950 (Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 10-41.