The Contribution of the Religious Orders to Education in Glasgow during the period 1847-1918

The impact that the religious teaching congregations made upon Glasgow's educational landscape has been a neglected theme in Scottish history. Whilst some attention has recently been directed towards the female communities, Scotland's male congregations appear even more elusive. This topic has tremendous potential for further exploration, and the wealth of untapped material in the community and congregational archives will no doubt inspire further research and scholarship. Frank O'Hagan presents an analysis of the contribution that five religious congregations made to Catholic education in Glasgow. His multi-disciplinary study includes seven chapters that incorporate religious, political and sociological elements, and although labelled an historical work, it has a distinctively social science flavour.

Importantly, O'Hagan highlights the formidable impact that the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, the Sisters of Mercy, the Marist Brothers, the Society of Jesus and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur had on influencing the 'social, educational and cultural' history of Scotland. More specifically, he points out that each congregation saw education as central to the overall improvement of Glasgow's Catholic population. The idea of 'mission' played a central role in permitting the religious to embark upon such an endeavour, and his emphasis on this concept also helps paint a picture of Catholicism in the city before the Catholic hierarchy was restored in 1878. Of significant value is the detail he provides on organisations such as the Catholic Poor Schools Committee, but equally useful is his discussion on how the Education (Scotland) Act became a vital catalyst for change in a system that was 'unable to compete' due in large part to a shortage of funds and certificated teachers. His approach to these points in particular clearly illustrates the obstacles confronting Catholic education in Glasgow and the need for the religious teaching congregations.

A number of problems are apparent in O'Hagan's approach. Firstly, the author does not provide any discussion on where a study like this fits in with the existing literature or how it specifically connects with broader themes in Scottish history such as national identity and social welfare. Secondly, his preoccupation with sociological and educational theory detracts attention from the main focus: the religious congregations and their contribution. This book is actually a study of Catholic education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the reader does not become well-acquainted with the religious themselves – part of the problem is that very little archival material from the congregations was used. For all except the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, O'Hagan relied almost exclusively upon their own published histories, and in the case of the Franciscan Sisters on an unpublished manuscript. Thirdly, at times the chapters are chronologically and topically disjointed, reading too much like a thesis, with numerous large block quotes that should have been omitted entirely or reduced considerably. Fourthly, his analysis often requires more depth. An example comes from the second chapter wherein he links education to social control, but fails to take this beyond a couple of paragraphs. In another instance, while noting that some Protestant children were educated in Catholic schools, he provides no examination of the broader theme of proselytisation or any discussion on the Church's efforts at conversion through education. It must be stated, however, that his discussion of the perception of Catholicism's dependency culture is an important exception which emphasises that what the religious congregations accomplished in the way of schools, educational methods and Catholic community development, forces a reconsideration of the hitherto accepted 'ghetto model'. This section should instigate a broader debate about the relationship between the institutional Church and the people, and will hopefully provoke scholars to consider more critically Catholicism's place in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Scotland.