Once upon a time, we Scots could console ourselves with the thought that what we might lack in numbers we made up for in quality. Never was this conceit more obvious, or more tenaciously held, than in the field of education.
By comparison with England, Scottish education was more democratic and so it was better. And it was also more moral because it was more democratic. For a long time there really was something to this. As a small place, Scotland could not afford to squander its people’s potential. Improvement was something to be celebrated and, indeed, insisted on.
All of this was relative, of course, for that older Scotland was not without its shortcomings, many of them serious. But the spirit of “getting on” was real and so was a commitment to excellence, at least for some. The “democratic intellect”, in truth, only touched a few but the theory and the aspiration behind it were neither worthless nor baseless.
