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Consequences of this policy in action can be seen in a letter written by the Duke of Atholl to Lord Balfour, the Secretary of State for Scotland in 1901. The Duke had been trying to encourage the use of Gaelic amongst his estate workers. He complains about the attitude of the local schools inspector.

I find that this Mr Thomson, who has inspected the schools in this neighbourhood ... does all he can to oppose and cry down the Gaelic ...

(Ó Murchú 1989 56)

In a memorandum to the Secretary of State from Sir Henry Craik, the Secretary for Education in Scotland, attempted to explain the situation.

To encourage the children at the elementary school to waste time that might be better spent, on fantastic nonsense such as this, is about as pernicious a way of spending money as his Grace could devise.

(ibid 56)

The timing of the Act, can be examined in parallel with census data, which had begun to record information about Gaelic speakers from about the same point.

In 1881 and 1891, Gaelic was spoken throughout the Highlands. Only in Caithness and in towns bordering the Moray Firth, along the southeastern edge of the Grampians, in south Kintyre and on the east coasts of Arran and Bute, was there less than 50% of the population speaking the language. Nearly a quarter of a million Scots spoke Gaelic in Scotland in 1891, over 6% of the population. Between 1901 and 1931 the number of Gaelic speakers declined from 230,806 (4.5% of the population) to 136,135 (2.8%). By 1951, only in the Hebrides (excepting north and east Mull), Morar, Sunart and the western margins of mainland Inverness-shire, Ross and Sutherland did a majority of people speak the language. Less than 2% of the nation’s population were now Gaelic speakers. Of the four core counties in the Gàidhealtachd, Argyll and Sutherland proved the least resilient to linguistic erosion. Given the monoglot agenda of the education authorities, it is not surprising that parents did not think it worthwhile to pass on their language to their children. ‘Gaelic will get you no further than the ferry pier’ was a common admonition in the Hebrides.