First report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the endowed schools and hospitals (Scotland) : with evidence and appendix / [chairman, Sir Edward Colebrooke].

  • Scotland. Endowed Schools Commission.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the endowed schools and hospitals (Scotland) : with evidence and appendix / [chairman, Sir Edward Colebrooke]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    allow them to get instruction in Latin and Greek and mathematics at the 1^,v-^r- Elgin Academy, but still remaining in the house. If that could be done, Mack'9' I think it would be a matter of considerable importance. 4698. But you think the boys should still be boarded in the hospital ? —Yes. 4699. And receive their books free, I suppose?—Of course. 4700. Would you object, in lieu of their boarding in the hospital, to their receiving a sum towards their board and maintenance outside? —The system in the hospital is entirely a family system, and the advantages of it to the boys are incalculable, and greatly superior to the advantages of a boy living in a private house, or boarded out with people in that condi- tion of life. There is an attention paid to religion and to morality in the hospital which they would not have in a private house. 4701. What staff is there at the hospital ? Are there several resident teachers ?—No; there is only one master. 4702. Is there a matron ?—There is a matron, and there is a teacher for the female department. 4703. Are these three persons able to make it sufficiently like a family, so as to give the advantages you speak of?—I think so. 4704. What is the number of boys and girls in the hospital ?—Fifty. 4705. Have they much liberty to go outside the house ?—They have quite enough,—just as much as I had when I was a boy at St. Andrews, or that anybody would have who was boarded with the late Mr. Smeaton, or any of the masters there. 4706. Do they ever get home?—Yes; they get home three weeks in midsummer, and also at another part of the year. 4707. Then, so far, the hospital is just like a boarding school?—It is more like a boarding school than anything else. 4708. You also spoke of cheapening the education at the Free School for small tradesmen and people of that class ?—I think what I said was, that for the children of the labouring classes who are not able to pay the fees, and for the poor tradesmen with large families, if one or two teachers could be added to the staff at Anderson's Institution, who could educate children for limited fees, a great boon would be conferred on the industrial classes who are struggling to get their children taught without having recourse to charity schools where no fees are exacted. If that could be done, I think it would be a mighty boon. 4709. When you say at Anderson's Institution, that is the same thing with the Free School?—Yes. 4710. Is the hospital in the same building ?—They are all connected together, but the children who go to the Free School enter by a separate avenue. 4711. Then in that case the children paying a small fee would, I sup- pose, associate with the children from the hospital ?—Yes, they would; in their playground. . 4712. And they would be in the same classes according to their abili- ties?—They would not be in the same classes as the children in the hospi- tal. The children in the hospital are taught by a separate master altogether. The children in the Free School are taught by Mr. Brown, who was at the Normal School here; but the children all meet together in the playground. , 4713. Would it not rather tend to economy, and have other advantages, if they mixed in the class as well as in the playground ?—The only answer I can give to that question is just this, that that is not what General Anderson intended. , 4714. Does it clearly appear from his will that he objected to tne