This paper explores the unheeded religious roots of the modern conviction to standardised, scientific education policy and its inherent sciento-social epistemology. In doing so, it traces the discursive roots of this hierarchical but non-governmental idea of social governance from its 16th century Scottish Presbyterian predecessors to its advocates at Teachers College, Columbia University around and after 1900 and ultimately to its global spread in the later twentieth century via the OECD.

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Even though the interrelation of the emergence of modern mass school systems andprocesses of nation-building in the modern era has evoked academic interest, suchresearch endeavours are generally exemplified by case studies of established nationstates.Conversely, this article demonstrates the pertinence of widening the researchscope beyond the synthesis of the nation and the state, by focusing on the particularcase of Scotland as a nation without a state and the role schools played in creatingScottish national identity in the wake of the Union of Parliaments in 1707. Therebyfocus is put on textbooks as a materialisation of curricula and an extended armof school governance. The article concludes with insights that can be derived fromthis case study for the case of Scottish nationalism as well as its significance for thestudy of nationalism, education and their interrelation in general.Key words: loyal national citizens; nation-building; school system; Scotland.

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