DAVID STOW A Sort of Amateur Schoolmaster

Although born in Paisley, at the age of 18 David Stow moved to Glasgow to work as a clerk in his brother-in-law’s firm. He joined the Tron Church, where his minister, Thomas Chalmers, instilled in him a passion for social responsibility. When Chalmers moved to the newly-created St John’s Parish to initiate the renowned social and economic experiment for the alleviation of poverty among the urban poor, Stow became an enthusiastic activist. At Chalmers’ request, he established a Sabbath School class in the Gallowgate and there, amongst the rags and squalor, he honed the teaching skills, philosophy, and attitudes to children which were to make him one of the most influential educators of his generation.Stow soon realised that a few hours of schooling on a Sunday were insufficient to halt the appalling ignorance and poverty which were the hallmarks of the early years of the industrial revolution. He formed the Glasgow Infant School Society which, in 1828, opened a day-school in the Drygate with a radical ‘fun’ approach to learning.Soon Stow was the driving force behind the Glasgow Education Society and when the need for trained teachers became urgent, Stow undertook to be not only the secretary, but the fundraiser, site-selector, building supervisor, liaison-officer and staff appointee - in effect organising whatever was necessary. On October 31st 1837 the first teacher-training college of its kind in Great Britain was ceremoniously opened in the New City Road. It was called ‘The Normal College’ after the French word ‘norma’ meaning a rule or system. Teachers trained in Stow’s ‘system’ were sent out to schools throughout the United Kingdom and the Colonies taking his approach across the world. Eventually, the Glasgow Normal College, and its sister, The Free Church Training College, merged to become Jordanhill College of Education – now the School of Education in Strathclyde University.Although remaining a city merchant/manufacturer all his life, Stow devoted all his spare time to the philosophy and practice of teaching and teacher-education. The eleven editions of ‘The Training System’ illustrate a growing confidence in his educational ideas, developed from his own experience and in conjunction with David Caughie, one of Scotland’s greatest teachers. What makes Stow different is his contribution to the growing demand for a national, universal and eventually compulsory system of education during the course of the nineteenth century.Stow understood childhood as a discrete period in human development, to be acknowledged and respected by adults and enjoyed by children. He emphasised the necessity of considering the child as a whole and of developing her/his intellectual, physical and, particularly, moral character. He came to recognise that educational provision had outgrown the parish and burgh structure and must move beyond its limited, parochial, agricultural and rural context to meet the needs of the densely populated, industrialised large towns and cities. To complement the new demand for educational provision in this urban expansion, he refined the specialised craft of the teacher - that body of knowledge, skill, strategies, conduct and duties which marks the professional. He raised the status, salary and conditions of teachers by improving their selection, training and evaluation and by constantly arguing for increased remuneration commensurate with increased worth. Above all, he contended that the burgeoning middle classes, like himself, who benefitted from the industrial and mercantile improvements of the period, had a duty - philanthropically, politically and nationally - to provide for the working classes who, by contrast, suffered from such economic advance. His contribution to history of education arises from a life devoted consistently and strenuously to the furtherance of a clearly conceived idea. Read more