The West Highland Free Press is a vehicle often used by the Professor Donald Macleod to air his views. In an article published on January 16th, he attacked The Highland Christian Schools Trust, and indeed the whole concept of independent Christian schools. He accused those involved in Christian education as "grossly exaggerating" the anti-Christian nature of state schools. He also accused the Highland Christian Trust of wanting to establish institutions that would turn out "little prigs high on a cocktail of creation science, capital punishment, Textus Receptus (The Prof doesn't like the AV), and exclusive Psalmody. That is a prospect that would fill all Christians and most Highlanders with horror. Such organisations have a vested interest in grossly exaggerating the anti-Christian nature of our schools."

The Professor aimed his most venomous remarks at Rev. & Mrs. Ivan Foster who run a Christian school at Kilskeery, Co. Fermanagh, and who had addressed a meeting on the subject of Christian education, organised by the Highland Christian Schools Trust, in Stornoway, last December. "To those impertinents who come from other parts of the UK to insult us, our reply is clear: We don't want your little prudes and bigots. We want children in the image of the crucified, not crucifiers. We want schools which promote sweetness and light; we want schools which produce humility, tolerance and self-denial; which are particularly sensitive to the needs of the disabled and the disadvantaged; and which are as relevant to the carpenters as to the rabbis. We want schools in which no child is made to feel inferior because of his parents , his colour, his religion or his achievements: schools which glory in the fact that their pupils are meek and merciful and are driven by a passion for social justice." Evidently, Professor Macleod, judging by the tone of his remarks, did not have the privilege of attending such a school and, presumably, he thinks that such schools turning out such pupils are now to be found in the state system. But when we consider an article by the said professor, written in the Monthly Record in 1986, we find that he held rather different views on the subject.

"But elsewhere there is real cause for concern. Indeed, one feels increasingly ashamed when discussing education with Christians overseas ... The problem is much deeper even than the present irresponsible disruption (reference to a teachers strike then taking place) deeper even than the irritation caused by the pre-occupation with Darwin in the science lab, the Russian revolution in the history class and sofi porn in English lit. State schools, are no longer providing the kind of education Christians need. Peer group pressure is almost entirely hostile to our faith. So are the assumptions, instincts and sneers of the teachers. Even more important, curriculum development is set on a course which fills Christians with despair. To read our own sacred books and seminal literature we need, as a community, a knowledge of Latin and Greek: our schools are no longer providing that. To understand our institutions and culture we need to know the history of the Reformation, the Great Rebellion and the Covenanters: our schools are no longer providing that. To speak our language with precision and elegance we need to be immersed in the English classics: our schools are no longer providing that. To live with confidence on the intellectual frontier we need to know Christ's lordship over creation: our schools are no longer providing that.

Education is repudiating its Christian base and thirling itself to materialistic values of government and the anarchic aspirations of embittered teachers. If 'the situation is not quite intolerable it is very close to it and the idea of the alternative, Christian education will have to be examined very closely... .

Past surveys have shown little enthusiasm on their (parents) part for separate Christian schools. But as the situation worsens (or as they begin to realise how bad it is) more and more are going to demand an alternative. Then anything will become possible. It should not be difficult to create in Glasgow a Protestant School Association, with an unanswerable case for the same kind of financial assistance that is currently available for Catholic schools. To deny such assistance would precipitate a Constitutional crisis. But even if 'government help were withheld, the thing could still be done by means of Association membership fees, legacies, and Deeds of Covenant (to say nothing of sales of work).

The only impediment is ourselves. Segregated education goes against our whole Protestant grain. But if Mr. Pollock and the Scottish Education Department have their way for much longer we may soon have no alternative. The only question is whether there will be anything left for us to be alternative to."

So what has changed for the better in state schools since 1986? The answer is, as far as moral and Christian matters are concerned, nothing! In fact, things are considerably worse. Why then this outburst of invective from the Professor, writing, as he has, in a manner clean contrary to what he first wrote? It can only be due to the spiritual declension that has apparently overtaken him. There have been other outbursts on other matters which point to this, which, I hope, DV, to include in the next issue. (A leaflet has been printed by Mr Foster and is obtainable from 51 Old Junction Road, Kilskeery, Omagh, Co Tyrone, N Ireland. BT78 3RN.)