From its early days Scalan began accepting boys as paying ‘lay boarders’, students not planning to follow a priestly vocation but who wished the kind of Catholic education that was unavailable elsewhere since it was still outlawed in Scotland.
Normally these boys stayed for four or five years, in which case Scalan performed the role of Grammar school for them; for the very few who chose to stay longer its role was more like that of the lower years of a university.
At any given time, therefore, the Master might have half a dozen students in his care, of diverse ages, following a variety of courses, and with different ends in view. In short, though Scalan soon became principally a Junior seminary, it was often in practice something of a hybrid.
