Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge - SSPCK in Scotland

SSPCK in Scotland

The Scottish wing, the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK), was formed by royal charter in 1709 as a separate organisation with the purpose of founding schools "where religion and virtue might be taught to young and old" in the Scottish Highlands and other "uncivilised" areas of the country, thus countering the threat of Roman Catholic missionaries achieving "a serious landslide to Rome" and of growing Highland Jacobitism.

Their schools were a valuable addition to the Church of Scotland programme of education in Scotland which was already working with support from a tax on landowners to provide a school in every parish. The SSPCK had 5 schools by 1711, 25 by 1715, 176 by 1758 and 189 by 1808, by then with 13,000 pupils attending. At first the SSPCK avoided using the Gaelic language with the result that pupils ended up learning by rote without understanding what they were reading. In 1741 the SSPCK introduced a Gaelic-English vocabulary, then in 1767 brought in a New Testament with facing pages of Gaelic and English texts for both languages to be read alongside one another, with more success and in this year also changed the language of instruction in their Highland schools from English to Gaelic. In the early 19th century their activity declined and the work was taken over by the Gaelic Societies of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness.