ABSTRACT
William Thorn, 1710-90, was awarded a master’s degree by the University of Glasgow in 1732. Three years later he was “licensed” by the Church of Scotland at the presbytery, or district, level, obtaining authority to perform all clerical functions except the administration of sacraments. Thorn was fully “ordained” in 1748, at the direction of the churchwide Assembly, following nearly two years of parishioner protest to his faculty-sponsored candidacy. The Presbyterian clergyman became well-known in his day for “eccentric sayings and sarcasms” that according to a source of that year were often still recalled in 1920. Instead, Thorn recommended a very broad academic curriculum that did not include writing, arithmetic, or bookkeeping, fields that in his opinion could be left to already existing private commercial schools.
