Scottish Court of Session Decisions

In this petition (reported ante February 3, 1903, 40 S.L.R. 345) presented by the Rev. J. G. Sutherland, minister of the parish of Beith, and others, the trustees and committee of the management of the Gateside School, the petitioners now moved the Court to approve of a scheme for the administration of the trust prepared by them. It was intimated that under the power conferred by an interlocutor of 3rd June 1903 the school buildings and schoolmaster's house had been sold, and that the trust funds now consisted of the proceeds of such sale, amounting to about £550, and an annual rent of £25 per annum.

The original deed constituting the trust whereby the school was founded and partially endowed proceeded on the narrative of the founder “being sensible of the benefit of extending religious education to the children of the working classes, and having in consequence of the increase of population in the village of Gateside, near Beith, considered it advisable that additional facilities should be afforded for the education of the children of the inhabitants,” and it contained this direction as to religious education—“And it shall be a fundamental regulation and practice of the said school that the Bible be daily read therein by the children, but no child shall be required to learn any catechism or other religious formulary, or attend any Sunday-school or place of worship to which respectively his or her parent or guardian shall on religious grounds object, and the selection of the Sunday-school and place of worship shall in all cases be left to the free choice of such parent or guardian without the child's thereby incurring any loss of the benefits and privileges of the foresaid school.”

The scheme submitted to the Court proposed to authorise the committee of management to apply the funds at their disposal, after meeting the annual expenses of the trust (Article 2), “in any one or more of the following purposes as may seem in the discretion of the trustees to be most desirable for the time being, viz., (1) in promoting instruction in the Bible and in Scripture knowledge to be given in or near the village of Gateside; (2) in establishing and maintaining a Sunday-school library in connection with the Sunday-school at Gateside; (3) in providing prizes to the children attending the said Sunday-school; (4) in providing such technical instruction in any of the following subjects as the funds will permit, viz., 1. technical instruction in manufactures; 2. instruction in agriculture and dairy work; 3. instruction in ambulance work and first aid to the injured.”

The scheme also contained the following provision:—“(8) The committee shall have power, subject to the approval of the School Board, to establish evening classes in the Board School at Gateside for boys, girls, and adult persons, under such regulations as may be made from time to time by them.”

Counsel for the petitioners moved for approval of the scheme, and referred to Kirk Session of Prestonpans v. School Board of Prestonpans, November 28, 1891, 19 R. 193, 29 S.L.R. 168.