6—' The Kirk Session then'
G. S. PRYDE
The object of this talk is to explain how Scotland, hampered by narrow conceptions of governmental responsibility, permitted and encouraged the Reformed Kirk to cater for such social needs as were then recognised. The Kirk Session was a convenient administrative unit; it was popularly elected, it was trusted ; there was approximately one to each parish, and there was, owing to the defective machinery of local government, no possible alternative. But the Disruption of 1843 destroyed the universality and efficiency of the Kirk-Session system. Other arrangements had to be made. Poor relief in rural districts was entrusted to parochial boards in 1845, that were transformed into parish councils in 1894. Education was put under popular elected school boards in 1872, Episcopalian and Roman Catholic schools being left to their respective denominations. Schools boards survived until 1918, parish councils until 1929.