Scotland's education system has been claimed by many to be one of the most successful in the world and its alleged decline in recent decades has generated a great deal of controversy. This book is the first full account of the history of twentieth-century Scottish education, by Lindsay Paterson, a leading specialist in the area.Scottish Education investigates Scotland's response to the key question faced by all mass systems of education. How can democracy be reconciled with the necessity of selection - both selection of culture in the maintenance of excellence, and selection of people, allocating them to differentiated occupations while also preparing them for life as equal citizens in the common culture of the community?Paterson argues that the Scottish answer to this has been recurrent attempts to give wide access to common types of educational institution, but continuing to define that education in fairly traditional academic terms. This is then also Scotland's attempt to reconcile the tension be