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=== SSPCK in Scotland ===
{{Main|Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge}}
The Scottish sister society,<ref name="Tanner 2004">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AXyq-Umw9DgC&q=%22Society+for+the+Promotion+of+Christian+Knowledge%22 |title=The Last of the Celts |last=Tanner |first=Marcus |publisher=Yale University Press |date=2004 |isbn=0-300-10464-2 |page=35 |url-access=limited }}</ref> the '''Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge''' ('''SSPCK'''), was formed by royal charter in 1709<ref name="Tanner 2004"/> as a separate organisation with the purpose of founding schools "where religion and virtue might be taught to young and old" in the [[Scottish Highlands]] and other "uncivilised" areas of the country. It was intended to counter the threat of Catholic missionaries and of growing Highland [[Jacobitism]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Porter |first=Andrew |title=Religion Versus Empire?: British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ldQxO_yIPSEC&pg=PP9 |year=2004 |publisher=Manchester University Press |page=9 |isbn=9780719028236 }}</ref> The SSPCK had five schools by 1711, 25 by 1715, 176 by 1758 and 189 by 1808, by which time 13,000 pupils were attending.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hechter |first=Michael |title=Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-aGO5ZxnjDMC&pg=PA113 |year=1977 |pages=113''ff'' |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520035126 }}</ref>
According to [[John Lorne Campbell]], "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 ''[[Westminster Shorter Catechism|Shorter Catechism]]'', ''[[Vincent's Catechism]]'', the ''[[Protestant's Resolutions]]'', ''[[Pool's Dialogues]]'', and ''[[William Guthrie (minister)|Guthrie]]'s Trials'', all in English, formed the bulk of an unattractive list of school books."<ref> Frederick G. Rea (1997), ''A School in South Uist: Reminiscences of a Hebridean Scoolmaster, 1890-1913'', edited and with an introduction by John Lorne Campbell, [[Birlinn Limited]]. Page ''xvii''.</ref>.
At first, the SSPCK avoided using the [[Scottish Gaelic|Gaelic language]], with the result that pupils ended up learning by rote without understanding what they were reading.<ref>{{cite book |author=Anthony W. Parker |title=Scottish Highlanders in Colonial Georgia: The Recruitment, Emigration, and Settlement at Darien, 1735–1748 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xNydb93XUMC&pg=PA33 |year=2010 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |page=33 |isbn=9780820327181 }}</ref> SSPCK rules from 1720 required the teaching of literacy and numeracy "but not any [[Latin]] or Irish"<ref name="Tanner 2004"/> (then a common term for Gaelic on both sides of the [[Irish Sea]]), and the Society boasted "that barbarity and the Irish language ... are almost rooted out" by their teaching.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Our Gaelic Bible |journal=The Celtic Magazine |date=1879 |location=Edinburgh |volume=4 |page=43 }} Cited in Tanner (2004).</ref> In 1753, an act of the Society forbade students "either in the schoolhouse or when playing about the doors thereof to speak Erse, under pain of being chastised".<ref name="Mason 1954">{{cite journal |last=Mason |first=John |date=1954 |title=Scottish Charity Schools of the Eighteenth Century |journal=Scottish Historical Review |volume=33 |issue=115 |pages=1–13 |jstor=25526234}}</ref>
In 1741, the SSPCK introduced the Gaelic-English vocabulary compiled by the poet [[Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair]], then, in 1767, introduced a ''New Testament'' designed with facing pages of Gaelic and English texts for both languages to be read alongside one another,<ref>{{cite book |last=MacKinnon |first=Kenneth |author-link=Ken MacKinnon |title=Gaelic: A past and future prospect |publisher=Saltire Society |year=1991 |page=56 }}</ref> with more success. In 1766, it allowed its Highland schools to use Gaelic alongside English as languages of instruction.<ref name="Mason 1954"/> In 1790, a Society preacher still insisted that English [[monolingualism]] was a Society goal<ref>{{cite book |last=Macinnes |first=J |title=The Evangelical Movement in the Highlands of Scotland, 1688 to 1800 |location=Aberdeen |date=1951 |page=244 }} Cited in Tanner (2004).</ref> and a decade later Society schools continued to use [[corporal punishment]] against students speaking Gaelic.<ref name="Tanner 2004"/> In the early 19th century, the Society activity declined. Its educational work was taken over by the [[Gaelic medium education in Scotland|Gaelic Societies of Edinburgh]], [[Glasgow Gaelic School|Glasgow]] and [[Inverness]].
=== Prominent members ===
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