An interesting book find, “Three hundred years of education in Campbeltown” by William Crossan (Kintyre Civic Society, 2003). The sub-title is “Looking back, looking forward”. Needless to say, the “looking back” is of greater interest for the likes of us.
In the mid-18th century, the local grammar school appointed John Hastie, formerly of George Watson’s School in Edinburgh, as its new Rector:
Hastie found the school to be in a poor way. The pupils he described as having been ‘indulged in a most uncommon degree of Licentiousness’ and therefore ‘ferocious and rebellious’. This he set about to change, and successfully for he was commended for raising the standard of work in the school. His methods, however, were so severe that there were complains about them to the [school] Council, which admonished him to: “be more moderate in his Chastisements and employ a taws in place of beating his tended Pupils with wooden Squares”.
(I know a fair few young ladies today whose hatred of the paddle is such that they would probably concur with this recommendation).
Eventually, the “severity of his treatment of pupils” led to Hastie’s dismissal. He appealed, and the case ended up in the House of Lords in 1772. His counsel, the famous James Boswell, recorded in his diary that
‘the charge is, that he used immoderate and cruel correction. Correction, in itself, is not cruel; children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear’.
One of his successors also deserves a mention here. Zachary Ross, Rector in the late 1870s, kept a log recording the efficacy of his methods:
Several rather nomadic pupils have gained a clear perception of the value of punctuality and the criminality of truantism by a liberal supply of the strap. The present attendance and regularity are the most examplary in the school.