THE new Museum of Scotland has noble objectives. Housed, thankfully, in a new architectural statement, the whole enterprise will attract comment and debate while it wobbles to its adolescent educational feet. (The primary purpose of a museum is education, I presume.)
As commented on by John Sutherland today, the educational section of the new museum is lamentable. As reported, the professions of the Army, the Church, and Medicine are all well-represented. However, to represent Scottish Education with the sole item of a disembodied hand being belted is more than immature, it is outrageous.
Mark Jones, the Director of the new museum, has responded that ''if anyone has another object which could better represent Scottish Education this century do please let us know''. Presumably Mr Jones thinks the belt is representative for the time being?
Let me make a suggestion.
There is an educational institution that is housed in a building that is acknowledged by all as the birthplace of the modern movement in international Western architecture. A model of this modest building and an explanation of its philosophy would be representative of Scottish education at its best.
The building I have in mind has educated for nearly 100 years some of the nation's greatest achievers in engineering, naval architecture, the arts, and of course the various inventive design professions. There is a huge list of internationally known people who have had a Scottish education in this very Scottish building. Many names continue to be added to its list of achievements - some of them strange and obscure.
Recently in a private New York home I saw a painting by the ''Glasgow Boy'' John Lavery. This self-portrait showed him (complete with large palette and brushes) shaking hands with the child-star Shirley Temple of all people. Lavery, educated in Glasgow, had been invited to Hollywood to advise on colour theory in the move from silent black-and-white to colour talkie movies. This was written about by Shirley Temple in her autobiography.
It is doubtful that Clyde shipbuilding (and maybe Manchester United?) would have had the same kind of impact without the contribution made by naval architects educated at Lavery's alma mater. Today, engineers and designers (in numbers and talent bigger than Scotland can currently hang on to) are educated and sought after by major design-focused corporations worldwide.
Invention, pragmatism, social inclusion, and long hours of hard work are the backbone of all Scotland's successful educational heritage. Religion, through the Scottish Reformation, played a vital all-embracing role in delivering an education to kings and paupers (sadly not for girls until much later). With four ancient universities, and a small population, Scotland compared well to England with its two universities and many more brains to feed.
To reduce Scottish education in our new Museum of Scotland to the display of a ''tawse'' shows a philosophical grasp of the dugout-canoe variety of thinking.
The museum could do worse than show a modern and accurate model of diverse educational output as represented by one single object: a model of Glasgow School of Art.
I can think of no other educational focus that has embraced all that we have been good and fine at in the last 100 years.
Michael Healey,
8 Lauderdale Gardens, Glasgow.
December 12.
AT first I thought Dr Ian Morris was describing capital punishment by using words like ''hanging'' and ''disembodied'' but was relieved to discover it was just corporal punishment he was writing about in his letter (December 12). He is, however, being rather too politically correct when calling for the belt to be replaced as a symbol of education at the new Museum of Scotland.
We should not ''tawse'' out what to many former pupils was a part of everyday life. The fact that discipline is breaking down in the classroom since its abolition is a separate matter, but one cannot rewrite history.
He suggests displaying a copy of the 1872 Act or other pieces of paper. Hardly gripping stuff for visiting contemporary schoolchildren. Perhaps he would prefer a display of pages and pages of lines: ''I must be politically correct. I must be politically correct . . .''
Dr David Carvel,
13 Edgemont Street, Glasgow.
December 13.
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