Letters to the Editor of ‘The Glasgow Herald’: July 1874, “Mr. Kidston and the Teaching of Music”

On Tuesday the 14th of July, page seven of The Glasgow Herald, has a letter from ‘A CERTIFICATED TEACHER’, which is dated the 10th of July 1874, and reads:

 

“SIR, – Can nobody control the irrepressible Ferniegair? A few years ago he and his friends were constantly telling the Education Department that their standard was too low for Scotland. The Department believed them, and the consequence is that Scotch teachers have to do a great deal more work than English ones for the same money. One of the first acts of the Glasgow School Board was to send a deputation to the Department, asking them to give less stringent measures for such schools as those of Glasgow. But they practically refused, and the ratepayers will have to make up the sum thus lost. Mr Kidston is now saying the same thing about music, and in every probability with the same results. He says the Department standard for music may do very well for the country at large, but is too low for Scotland. A most astounding assertion! There has been a musical examination in the English schools for some years, but none in Scotland; and how Mr Kidston knows that the Scotch schools are so advanced puzzles me. I know that a good deal of plucking has already taken place, and I shall be very much astonished if all the Glasgow schools pass the ordeal as Mr Kidston predicts. At all events, the last persons to call out that the Department is giving too much money are the members of school boards. …”