Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge

Last updated

The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, or the SSPCK, was a group established in Scotland to ensure the better understanding of the principles of the reformed Christian religion, principally through the established Church of Scotland.

Contents

Founded in 1709, the Society had similar aims to the English Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which being made up of Anglicans did not concern itself with Scotland. [1] Its main activity was in evangelizing the predominantly Catholic Scottish Highlands, sending ministers to Scottish emigrant communities overseas, and sending missionaries to convert native peoples to christianity. [2]

The Society began to establish schools in the Highlands with the aim of reducing Jacobitism and resisting the rise[ dubious – discuss ] of Roman Catholicism. [3] The first school was opened on St Kilda in 1711. [4] By the end of that year, the SSPCK had five schools, by 1715 twenty-five, by 1758 176, and by 1808 189, by which time 13,000 children were attending the schools. [5]

At first, the SSPCK strongly avoided using the Gaelic language in its schools, which has led to the claim that pupils learnt by rote, without understanding what they were being taught. [6] A Society rule of 1720 required the teaching of reading and numbers, "but not any Latin or Irish", [7] a common term for Gaelic in both Ireland and Scotland. In 1741, the SSPCK introduced the Galick and English Vocabulary compiled by the poet Alasdair MacDonald, [8] but in 1753 a rule of the Society forbade children "either in the schoolhouse or when playing about the doors thereof to speak Erse, under pain of being chastised". [9] The desired effect was to strengthen the Church of Scotland and the English language. [3]

John Lorne Campbell wrote in 1997 "Too often Scottish writers, and particularly writers on the history of the Scottish Highlands, have confused 'education' with 'Calvinist indoctrination', such as was given in the S.P.C.K. schools in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, where the Westminster Confession of Faith , the Shorter Catechism , Vincent's Catechism, the Protestant's Resolutions, Pool's Dialogues, and Guthrie's Trials, all in English, formed the bulk of an unattractive list of school books." [10]

In 1766, the Society allowed its Highland schools to use Gaelic alongside English as a language of instruction. [9] It published a New Testament in Gaelic in 1767, with facing pages of Gaelic and English texts. [8] This was followed by the Old Testament in Gaelic, published in four parts between 1783 and 1801. [11]

It was not until after the final defeat of the Jacobitism at Culloden in 1746 that the Society had begun to consider publishing a Bible in Scottish Gaelic, and it initiated a translation project in 1755. [12] The New Testament translation was led by James Stuart (1701–1789), minister of Killin in Perthshire, [13] and the poet Dugald Buchanan. [14] Stuart worked from the Greek, while Buchanan improved the Gaelic. [15] The work on the Old Testament translation was largely by Stuart's son John Stuart of Luss (1743–1821). [16]

Dedpite the SSPCK's Gaelic language work, in 1790 one of its preachers still insisted that English monolingualism was one of its goals, [17] and ten years later some SSPCK schools were still using corporal punishment on children speaking Gaelic. [7]

By the early 19th century, the Society's activity was declining. Its work in schools was taken over by the Gaelic Societies of Edinburgh, the Glasgow Gaelic School and a group based in Inverness.

In 1879, the Society boasted that through its work "barbarity and the Irish language ... are almost rooted out". [18]

In 1880, the Society formed a commission to revise the Gaelic Bible, including members of the Free Churches as well as the established Church of Scotland, chaired by Norman Macleod. By the time the New Testament was completed the affairs of the Society had come under the investigation of a Royal Commission for alleged financial mismanagement, and in 1883 the work of revision was suspended, to be resumed some thirteen years later in 1896[ citation needed ]. In 1902 the new revision of the Bible was adopted by the National Bible Society of Scotland, later renamed the Scottish Bible Society.

The Society continues to exist as the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. [19]

Notes

  1. ↑ Sian Collins, "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK)", Cambridge University Library, 16 March 2017, accessed 23 October 2023
  2. ↑ Kenneth J. Stewart, "Calvinism and Missions: the contested relationship revisited" in D. A. Carson, ed., Themelios , Vol. 34, Issue 1 (2015), p. 75
  3. 1 2 "St Columba Gaelic Church, Glasgow", highlandcathedral.org.uk, accessed 23 October 2023
  4. ↑ Ian Westbury, Geoff Milburn, Rethinking Schooling: Twenty-Five Years of the Journal of Curriculum (Routledge, 2006), p. 32
  5. ↑ Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 (University of California Press, 1977, ISBN   9780520035126), p. 113
  6. ↑ Anthony W. Parker, Scottish Highlanders in Colonial Georgia: The Recruitment, Emigration, and Settlement at Darien, 1735–1748 (University of Georgia Press, 2010, ISBN   9780820327181), p. 33
  7. 1 2 Marcus Tanner, The Last of the Celts (Yale University Press, 2004, ISBN   0-300-10464-2), p. 35
  8. 1 2 Ken MacKinnon, Gaelic: A past and future prospect (Saltire Society, 1991), p. 56
  9. 1 2 John Mason, "Scottish Charity Schools of the Eighteenth Century" in Scottish Historical Review , 33, Issue 115, pp. 1–13 JSTOR   25526234
  10. ↑ "Introduction" in Frederick G. Rea, ed. John Lorne Campbell, A School in South Uist: Reminiscences of a Hebridean Scoolmaster, 1890-1913, (Birlinn Limited, 1997), p. xvii
  11. ↑ "Bibles", National Library of Scotland, accessed 23 October 2023
  12. ↑ Margaret Szasz, Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans: indigenous education (2007), p. 100
  13. ↑ Gilbert Foster, Language and poverty: the persistence of Scottish Gaelic (Memorial University of Newfoundland Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1988), pp. 184-185
  14. ↑ The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. 3 (1975), p. 173
  15. ↑ Richard D. Jackson, "Buchanan, Dugald (1716–1768)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi : 10.1093/ref:odnb/3835
  16. ↑ Donald E. Meek, "LANGUAGE AND STYLE IN THE SCOTTISH GAELIC BIBLE (1767-1807)" in Scottish Language, Issues 9-12 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1990)
  17. ↑ J. Macinnes, The Evangelical Movement in the Highlands of Scotland, 1688 to 1800 (Aberdeen, 1951), p. 244, cited in Tanner (2004)
  18. ↑ "Our Gaelic Bible", The Celtic Magazine , vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1879), p. 43, cited in Tanner (2004)
  19. ↑ Funding Scotland The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish Gaelic</span> Goidelic Celtic language of Scotland

Scottish Gaelic, also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Goidelic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish. It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by the Gaels of both Ireland and Scotland until well into the 17th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language place names.

Norman MacLeod, known in Gaelic as Caraid nan Gàidheal, was a Church of Scotland minister, poet, and writer. He was Chaplain to Queen Victoria and Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland.

Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, legal name Alexander MacDonald, or, in Gaelic Alasdair MacDhòmhnaill, was a Scottish war poet, satirist, lexicographer, and memoirist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge</span> UK-based Christian charity

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) is a UK-based Christian charity. Founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, it has worked for over 300 years to increase awareness of the Christian faith in the UK and worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manx literature</span>

Literature in the Manx language, which shares common linguistic and cultural roots with the Gaelic literature and Pre-Christian Celtic mythology of Ireland and Scotland, is known from at least the early 16th century, when the majority of the population still belonged to the Catholic Church in the Isle of Man. Even so, Manx orthography departs so radically from Irish or Scottish Gaelic orthography that it is all but illegible to literate native speakers of both languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible society</span> Non-profit organization devoted to translating the Bible

A Bible society is a non-profit organization, usually nondenominational in makeup, devoted to translating, publishing, and distributing the Bible at affordable prices. In recent years they also are increasingly involved in advocating its credibility and trustworthiness in contemporary cultural life. Traditionally Bible society editions contain scripture, without any doctrinal notes or comments, although they may include non-sectarian notes on alternate translations of words, or variations in the different available manuscripts.

Scottish Bible Society (SBS), founded in 1809 as the Edinburgh Bible Society, amalgamated in 1861 with the Glasgow Bible Society to form the National Bible Society of Scotland, is a Scottish Christian charity that exists to make the Bible available throughout the world.

Mark Hiddesley or Hildesley was an Anglican churchman. He served as vicar of Hitchin in Hertfordshire and later as Bishop of Sodor and Man between 1755 and 1772, where he encouraged Bible translations into Manx and collected from the local oral tradition lays in the Manx language from the Fenian Cycle of Celtic Mythology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish Gaelic-medium education</span> Education delivered in Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic-medium education, also known as Gaelic-medium education (GME), is a form of education in Scotland that allows pupils to be taught primarily through the medium of Scottish Gaelic, with English being taught as the secondary language.

Scottish Gaelic literature refers to literary works composed in the Scottish Gaelic language, which is, like Irish and Manx, a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. Gaelic literature was also composed in Gàidhealtachd communities throughout the global Scottish diaspora where the language has been and is still spoken.

Dugald Buchanan was a Scottish poet writing in Scots and Scottish Gaelic. He helped the Rev. James Stuart or Stewart of Killin to translate the New Testament into Scottish Gaelic. John Reid called him "the Cowper of the Highlands".

The Bible was translated into the Manx language, a Gaelic language related to Irish and Scots Gaelic, in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The New Testament was first published in Scottish Gaelic in 1767 and the whole Bible was first published in 1801. Prior to these, Gaels in Scotland had used translations into Irish.

James Kirkwood was a Church of Scotland minister, advocate of free parish libraries, and promoter of Scottish Gaelic language literacy. He was behind the Bible translations into Scottish Gaelic of Robert Kirk.

James Stuart or James Stewart (1701–1789) was a Scottish cleric. He was a minister in Killin and worked with poet Dugald Buchanan on the Scottish Gaelic New Testament published in 1767. His son, John Stuart (1743–1821) of Luss, continued to work on the Old Testament published in 1801. His daughter married James McLagan, minister at Amulree.

John Stuart (1743–1821) was a Scottish minister, Gaelic scholar, and reviser of the New Testament in Gaelic of his father James Stuart of Killin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish Protestant missions</span>

Scottish Protestant missions are organised programmes of outreach and conversion undertaken by Protestant denominations within Scotland, or by Scottish people. Long after the triumph of the Church of Scotland in the Lowlands, Highlanders and Islanders clung to a form of Christianity infused with animistic folk beliefs and practices. From 1708 the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) began working in the area. In 1797 James Haldane founded the non-denominational Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home. Dozens of lay preachers, divinity students and English preachers were sent to the region. In the early nineteenth century a variety of organisations were formed to support evangelism to the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British literature in languages other than English</span> Literature from Britain not written in English

In addition to English, literature has been written in a wide variety of other languages in Britain, that is the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. This includes literature in Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Latin, Cornish, Anglo-Norman, Guernésiais, Jèrriais, Manx, and Irish. Literature in Anglo-Saxon is treated as English literature and literature in Scots as Scottish literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Scottish Gaelic</span>

Scottish Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language placenames.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Oran's Church</span> Church in Edinburgh, Scotland

St Oran's Church was a Gaelic-speaking congregation of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. Originating in the early 18th-century, the congregation continued until 1948, latterly meeting at Broughton Street.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.