10
Industrialisation
The coming of industrialisation to Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had an enormous impact on attitudes towards religion, politics, economics, social problems and, not least, education. Another important aspect of this change was that it led to the formation of new social classes, the industrial and commercial middle classes and a large working class. The Industrial Revolution, which resulted in the establishment of factories employing labour in methods of mass production, relied heavily on children to carry out some of the more tedious processes. They were often apprentices, living in quarters under the supervision of the mill owners or, if still living with their families, were frequently herded into small and unhealthy dwellings in the new or expanding manufacturing towns. Britain is a good example of these changes.
Reformers began to pay serious attention to the physical, religious and moral well-being of the young and to the lack of provision of education to ameliorate the situation. The Sunday School movement, started by Robert Raikes in 1785, inspired evangelicals to address themselves to the problem. 'I cannot think,' wrote Mrs. Sarah Trimmer, the wife of a brick fields owner, 'of little children who work in manufactories, without the utmost commiseration.' She subsequently opened a school at Brentford, Middlesex, in the hope of civilising street Arabs, and publicised her work in a book, The Oeconomy of Charity (1787). Her views were by no means overly sentimental. When she was given a spinning wheel for a Sunday School, Mrs Trimmer had the idea of forming a spinning school, to be conducted on weekdays, in order to 'inure them (the children) early in life to industry'.1 This notion, of linking work and education, spread, with the popularly held conviction that schools of industry in each parish, sustained by a parish rate, would provide a satisfactory means of combating possible evils. Attempts to make this possible by legislation were made by Samuel Whitbread in 1797 and Lord Brougham in 1820, but both were unsuccessful.
Apart from moral and religious considerations, there was a growing belief from the 1780s that the working classes should receive and benefit from some sort of education as a good in itself. G.H. Bantock has pointed out that the traditional technical arrangements brought about by the Industrial Revolution inevitably affected the whole culture. The comparative stability of a folk culture was transformed by industrialisation and involved considerable impoverishment in the texture of everyday existence. This led to a unique experiment, the setting up of a system of education intended to lead to universal literacy.2
Raymond Williams has described the growth of industry and of democracy which brought about a debate on the concept of education. It was seen that education was a good in itself but the industrial argument led to a definition of education in terms of future adult work, with teaching geared to the formation of social character, such as habits of regularity, self-discipline, obedience and trained effort.3 These considerations were fired by the political, economic and social philosophy of the day. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a leading proponent of Utilitarianism, in his Fragment on Government (1776) propounded the principle of the happiness of the greatest number. If this could not be achieved by individual effort, he argued, then governments and laws should be reformed. Bentham believed that morality was an exact science. As man is governed by the avoidance of pain and the maximisation of pleasure, the principle of utility could be employed in punishing wrong-doers. For this reason he became interested in prison reform. Bentham promoted and designed the building of a Panopticon, a circular prison where all the inmates could be supervised by a small body of warders. He extended this idea to schools, publishing a plan for a Chrestomathic School (1815-17), with pupils graded into different classes and with minimal staff. Fortunately, the building never materialised, but Bentham's principles were carried into practice by Bell and Lancaster.
A devoted follower of Bentham was James Mill (1773-1836). Mill's main contribution to Utilitarian psychology, which was to be of importance in educational thought and practice throughout the later nineteenth century, was his theory of the association of ideas. This theory will be discussed further in a later chapter of this book, but it may be noted here that it stresses the intellectual processes of a child rather than the emotional and was too mechanistic an approach. His son, John Stuart Mill (1806-73), although subscribing to Utilitariansm, differed from Bentham and his father in stating that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable than others. He also distinguished between two aspects of education whatever helps to make the individual what he or she is, or hinders him or her from being what he or she is not, is part of his education; and the other, that education consists of the culture which each generation gives to its successor, if possible raising the level of attainment.
Although there was a clash of viewpoints between Utilitarians on a range of issues, there was widespread agreement on the need to provide education. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, for example, had considered education as a profitable investment for society. Though the cost could be high, this would be rapidly repaid by the increase it would bring in production. Education was also seen as a social good, preventing crime, and it was essential, he believed, if people were to make intelligent political choices. Smith considered that the State should be responsible for 'the most essential part of education - namely, reading, writing and arithmetic'.4
The role of the State in providing education proved to be a contentious issue. Much less so was the means by which education should be conducted: this was seen broadly as the application of factory techniques to schools and the children. In 1796, Sir Thomas Bernard, one of the founders of the Society for Bettering the Conditions of the Poor, stated that the monitorial system was 'the division of labour applied to intellectual purposes. The principle in schools and manufactories is the same.' At the beginning of the nineteenth century this system was applied in day schools, sponsored by voluntary effort, by two rival bodies, the Institution for Promoting the British System for the Education of the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes of Society of Every Religious Persuasion, shortened in 1814 to the British and Foreign Schools Society, and one established by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, the National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, known as the National Society. Dr Andrew Bell (1753-1832) a former chaplain to five regiments in Madras, had employed a bright pupil to teach his colleagues to write and read in the sand. Bell was engaged by the National Society to carry out education on a mass scale in England. Joseph Lancaster (1758-1838), for the British and Foreign Schools Society, employing similar methods, claimed to educate 1,000 children with one teacher and the assistance of monitors. Bell wrote
The advantages of this system, in its political, moral, and religious tendency; in its economy of labour, time, expense and punishment; in the facilities and satisfaction it affords to the master and the scholar; can only be ascertained by trial and experience, and can scarcely be comprehended or credited by those who have not witnessed its powers and marvellous effects.
Like the steam engine, or spinning machinery, it diminishes labour and multiplies work, but in a degree which does not admit of the same limits, and scarcely of the same calculations as they do. For, unlike mechanical powers, this intellectual and moral engine, the more work it has to perform, the greater is the facility and expedition with which it is performed, and the greater is the degree of perfection to which it is carried.5
The Lancasterian system, which was similar in many respects, represented the Nonconformist educational effort. The only reading material employed was extracts from the Scriptures, which served also for Scripture lessons. William Allen, the Treasurer of the Society and author of Scripture Lessons for Schools on the British System for Mutual Instruction, spelt out the aims of such teaching, which was to produce biddable dutiful pupils:
We have made them (the Scripture Lessons) to bear upon those duties in a very striking and prominent way without any comment whatever; but merely in the words of the Scripture; such as the duties of subjects to government in the words of Scripture; the duties of servants to masters in the words of Scripture; the relative duties of husbands and wives, and parents and children in the words of Scripture. They were most anxiously calculated to bring out those great and important duties, and to engrave them upon the minds of the children.
The work ethic was particularly emphasised on every possible occasion. For example, in one of Mrs Trimmer's texts for schools, published in 1824, a passage read:
Though this worthy woman had such pious thoughts, it was not her wish to be reading and praying all day long, because she knew that it was the duty of poor people to labour for their food and raiment: she therefore resolved to be industrious, and to go out washing and ironing, as she used to do.6
Another aspect of the school regime, common throughout the nineteenth century, was that little money should be expended on the schools. Dr Bell had declared, 'It is not proposed that the children of the poor should be educated in an expensive manner, or even taught to write and cipher.' The 'useful arts' and manual labour were to form the major part of the curriculum, but the factory analogy was seen at its best in the teaching methods used. The master would give a system of signals, by using a semaphore fixed to his desk, to the monitors who then transmitted the command to the pupils. The consequences of such a system was described by one inspector:
Of the mechanical character of such teaching the following may serve as an illustration. On entering a large school, I requested that the instruction of the children might go on, according to its accustomed course - that I might judge of the means daily called into operation before I proceeded to inquire into the results. Astonished to find that some time elapsed before the machinery could be put into motion, I proceeded to inquire into the cause, and found that the monitors were in the act of placing the finger of each individual boy upon the first word of the lesson to be read. This accomplished, and the monitor having read one word of the lesson, and the boys simultaneously after him, each boy advanced his finger one word, and the process was repeated.7
Criticism of such an education was voiced by Radicals, especially those associated with the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Only slow progress had been made towards universal provision, but two small steps were taken to ameliorate the situation in 1833. A Factory Act stipulated that factory children should receive two hours of instruction daily; in the same year, the first government financial assistance towards the building of schools was made. Even at the highest level, this minimal provision of education was viewed with scepticism. In a conversation with the young Queen Victoria which she recorded, Lord Melbourne, then prime minister, stated:
I don't believe there's anybody who doesn't know what is wrong and what is right. He doubts education will ever do any good; says all Government has to do 'is to prevent and punish crime, and to preserve contracts.' He is FOR labour and does not think the factory children are too much worked; and thinks it very wrong that parents should not be allowed to send their children who are under a certain age to work.8
Nevertheless, there was a growing awareness both within the British and Foreign and National Societies and generally, that an education based on the Bible alone was an inadequate preparation for a future work force. Moral education, for instance, was hardly taught. With the introduction of secular readers from the early 1840s, it was realised that the poor could be introduced to the newly fashioned science of economics. Lessons in thrift, better health, the avoidance of the pawnbroker and economical shopping could be conveyed through appropriate text books. Official bodies eagerly embraced an education which could reflect these desiderata. By 1861, the Newcastle Commission on the State of Popular Education in England was able to pronounce that 'the knowledge most important to a labouring man is that of the causes which regulate the amount of his wages, the hours of his work, the regularity of his employment and the price of what he consumes.'9
Robert Lowe and Payment by Results
A good illustration of the effects of industrialisation on educational thought and practice can be seen in the life and work of Robert Lowe (1811-92). Born at a time when the experience of the French Revolution was still fresh in the minds of his contemporaries, Lowe had, at an early stage in his career, developed a dislike of 'mobocracy'. He was hostile to trade unions and 'to any violation of economic laws to the inevitable detriment of society, by whatever means'. He had entered the House of Commons in 1852 and became vice-president of the Committee of Council for Education seven years later.
His speech in the Commons on the First Reading of the Representation of the People Bill in March 1866 displayed his contempt for the lower classes:
Let any gentleman consider -I have had such unhappy experiences and many of us have - let any gentleman consider the constituencies he has had the honour to be concerned with. If you want venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness and facility for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you want impulsive, unreflecting and violent people, where do you look for them in the constituencies? Do you go to the top or to the bottom?10
In an address given in Edinburgh in the following year, Primary and Classical Education, Lowe dealt more centrally with the education of the working classes:
The lower classes ought to be educated to discharge the duties cast upon them. They should also be educated that they may appreciate and defer to a higher cultivation when they meet it; and the higher classes ought to be educated in a very different manner, in order that they may exhibit to the lower classes that higher education to which, if it were shown to them, would bow down and defer.11
It is not surprising, given Lowe's philosophy, that when the Newcastle Commission was appointed to 'consider and report what measures, if any, are required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary education instruction to all classes of the people', he agreed with the underlying premiss in the Commission's remit that costs should be kept to a minimum. The details of the scheme known as 'Payment by Results' which Lowe implemented after the Commission's report are not important here so much as the philosophy underlying it. Briefly, the system made the schoolmaster's salary dependent on the performance of each pupil at an annual examination in a range of subjects. It fitted in well with the laissez-faire climate where competition brought out the best in both individuals and in business and industry. Examinations similarly would have a stimulating effect which would produce the best efforts in pupils. Thirdly, as certain standards were set in ability for the 3Rs and other subjects, comparability could be achieved and targets set. Finally, the factory analogy was complete with the insistence on measurable output, with its emphasis on quantity and, hopefully, quality. One of the most perspicacious criticisms of the system came from Palmerston, who was prime minister at the time. In a letter to Lord John Russell he wrote:
It is easy to say that Payment is to be regulated by the number of children who on Examination shall be found able to read, write and cypher well. But the attainment of a child in writing, reading and arithmetic cannot be measured by a fixed and certain standard like his height and weight, and besides the objection with respect to the time which such examination will take, will not each examiner find it difficult to draw the line which is to separate sufficient from insufficient attainment, and is it not likely or indeed certain, that different examiners will apply different standards, and that thus inequalities will arise which will cause complaint.12
These arguments are pertinent to the present time, where a similar system of virtual payment by results for teachers is about to be introduced and where league tables of attainment and examination performance exist.
Nationalism
We have seen the effects of industrialisation on educational thought and practice. An equally potent source for change was the rise of nationalism in the later part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth. The starting point was the French revolutionary and the Napoleonic wars which were closely allied to liberal conceptions of political rights. Other countries, inspired by the spirit of French nationalism, followed suit. Nationalism also brought with it calls for democracy in growing industrial societies. Universal education was a necessity for individuals if the full military and economic strength of a nation was to be realised. Prussia was an example of the extreme development of nationalism in education with its heavily centralised system. France displayed a type of accommodation between the demands of nationalism and those of democracy, whilst in Britain there was a more conservative response.13 The existence of the British Empire up to the middle of the nineteenth century was not unduly emphasised in schools. When entry to the Indian Civil Service was by public examination after the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1853, public schools changed their curriculum to accommodate subjects which would prepare their students for such professions. The French invasion scares in 1859 and 1860 led to the establishment of the Volunteer Movement to repel any possible attacks on this country. Among the Volunteers were such figures as W.E. Forster and A.J. Mundella, both future vice-presidents of the Committee of Council on Education in the 1870s and 1880s. The latter, in advocating more technical education in England, compared the working men of England to 'badly drilled soldiers fighting with antiquated weapons'.14
The link between nationalism, imperialism and education became clearer after 1870 when the great European powers, England, Germany, France and Italy, indulged in large-scale imperial expansion. The creation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India and the purchase of the Suez Canal were manifestations of this new situation. The historian J.A. Froude, writing in 1871, sought to justify the need for an Empire:
When we consider the increasing populousness of other nations, their imperial energy, and their vast political development, when we contrast the enormous area of territory which belongs to Russia, to the United States, or to Germany, with the puny dimensions of our own island home, prejudice itself cannot hide from us that our place as a nation is gone among such rivals unless we can identify the Colonies with ourselves, and multiply the English soil by spreading the English race over them.
Disraeli, in his speeches from 1872 onwards, stressed the need to develop a strong link between Britain and her colonies. Schools were encouraged to promote a knowledge of and pride in the Empire. An important example of this attitude can be seen in the Education Code of 1878 issued to Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools by Viscount Sandon, Disraeli's vice-president of the Committee of Council on Education. Called by the inspectors 'Sandon's Sermon', it stated:
As regards history and geography, you will encourage, as far as you can, such teaching as is likely to awaken the sympathies of the children, to the lives of noble characters and to incidents which tend to create a patriotic feeling of regard for their country and its position in the world; and while they should be acquainted with the leading historical incidents that have taken place in their own neighbourhood, and with its special geographical features, an interest should be excited in the colonial and foreign possessions of the British Crown.15
A typical school text book of the time, The British Possessions (1882), translated these sentiments into words. One chapter begins:
We have said that our possessions in the Mediterranean are chiefly important as holding the keys to India ... One of the most remarkable facts in English history is the conquest and possession by the little island of Britain of all the great countries that make up India.
To reinforce the links between Britain and the Empire, emigration societies such as the British Women's Emigration Association were established. Working-class girls, particularly unmarried women, were encouraged to settle in the colonies and provide partners for men already working there. The Girls' Friendly Society, an association of Christian women concerned with the moral and religious welfare of the young, was involved at home and overseas in preparing members of the Society for their future role. As late as 1913, the Society's president, the Honourable Mrs Ellen Joyce, speaking at the Society's Imperial Conference, declared:
The two points that I want to press today are, first, that the true aspect of GFS makes for Patriotism - and its larger interpretation, Imperialism. Secondly, that those who care most for purity, for country, for King, for God, have an enormous organisation in their hands for developing, deepening, expanding, these influences, and that it is of vital importance they should use it in the right direction. The genius which the world admits to belong to the English, is the genius of Colonisation; this genius carries with it the privilege, the intention, the responsibility of evangelisation.16
Another initiative which reflected the growing campaign for the inculcation of patriotism in the young was the Empire Day Movement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Reginald Brabazon, Earl of Meath, a former diplomat, put forward the idea of celebrating Empire Day on St George's Day, 23 April, each year, by holding ceremonies in Britain and in self-governing and Crown colonies around the world. Meath described its aim as 'the subordination of selfish or class interests to those of the State and the community, and the inculcation in the minds of all British subjects of the honourable obligation which rests upon them of preparing themselves, each in his or her sphere, for the due fulfilment of the duties and responsibilities attached to the high privilege of being subjects of the mightiest Empire the world has ever known'. Meath argued that as the Empire constituted one-fifth of the world's population, it should make its influence felt throughout the other four-fifths of the earth's inhabitants. There was another country whose education system provided an appropriate model to follow - Japan:
The virtues of loyalty, of patriotism, of obedience to authority, and of self-sacrifice in the public interest since 1867 have, by order of the State, been daily taught in the schools of Japan under the name of 'Bushido'. Some credit for the extraordinary united, lofty, patriotic, and self-sacrificing spirit of the people must therefore be given to the schoolmasters of Japan, who for years have been at work systematically and daily teaching their school-children to reverence their Emperor, to love their country, and to remember that the greater the sacrifice made by the State of the individual, the greater the honour. The Empire Day movement proposes to breathe into the soul of the subjects of the King-Emperor a spirit conceived on lines we hope shall be of equal and even of greater power to inspire to noble deeds - both in peace as well as war - than that of 'Bushido'.17
The movement was widely adopted. Union flags were hoisted on public buildings but schools became the main focus for the activities connected with the Day. A school manager of a rural school at Badby, Northamptonshire, Lady Knightley, described one such ceremony in 1907:
Went down to Badby and had a little ceremonial to celebrate the day. The movement, inaugurated by Lord Meath, has spread wonderfully. The children marched in, saluted the flag, and sang Rudyard Kipling's Song of the Children:
Land of our birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be,
When we are grown and take our place
As men and women with our race
Mrs Scratton (the vicar's wife) and I made little speeches. We sang God Save the King and I distributed buns. The children have been learning the Empire Catechism all the winter and took up my points in several places.18
In addition to Empire Day and school lessons, there was a growing volume of literature, novels and poems for children with Imperialist themes, such as the books of G.H. Henty and the works of Sir Henry Newbolt and Kipling.
The nationalist philosophy which prevailed from the last quarter of the nineteenth century made an impact on educational thought and practice through official pronouncements, administrative memoranda, textbooks and popular literature aimed at the young, and pageants and displays on appropriate national occasions, such as Empire Day, which promoted imperialism.
Militarism
Closely bound with the spread of Imperialism was militarism. The nineteenth century was a period of expansion of the British Empire through the use of force, for example the Maori Wars, the conquest of the Sind, the two Sikh Wars, the intervention following the Indian Mutiny, the Ashanti War and the Zulu War. In addition, the Crimean War had demonstrated the need for an efficient fighting army. Although the public schools had set up their own rifle corps in the 1860s, the impetus for introducing drill into the elementary schools came after the Education Act of 1870 and the founding of school boards.
The notion of Christian manliness which underlay this aspect of the curriculum served two purposes. One was that drill provide a suitable physical exercise which would improve the boys' (and to a lesser extent, girls') physique. The second was to instil compliance and obedience and co-operation as preparation for soldiering, to maintain a military force for the Empire. However, it is significant that from 1872, schools offering girls drill did not receive grants for this activity.
A matter for much debate was the form which such drill should take, that is, whether ordinary or military drill. The latter became popular with teachers in elementary schools. The War Office approved Militia and Volunteer sergeants drilling boys in nearby schools and publications such as The Schoolmaster's Drill Assistant. A Manual for Elementary Schools (1874), were popular. The drillmaster of the Home and Colonial Society, W.S. Glover, produced a widely used manual, School Drill, which had gone through three editions by 1877; this included a chapter on military drill for boys, and sections on marching, the formation of squads, wheeling and company and battalion drill.19
There was opposition to military drill from a number of quarters. The Trades Union Congress in 1885 expressed its concern that military drill was a 'cunningly devised scheme by which military authorities and a number of Board schools have been, step by step, preparing the way for the pernicious Continental system of conscription'. It urged working-class ratepayers to frustrate the design of the promoters and leave school boards to their proper task, 'to develop the intellectual and moral faculties of children committed to their care'.20
Whilst most schools offered physical exercises rather than military drill, by the late 1890s, the Boer War brought the issue once more to the fore. Organisations based on semi-military lines, such as the Boys' Brigade, the Church Lads' Brigade and the Lads' Drill Association had been formed to develop conservative, conformist attitudes and attracted many recruits.21 After the War had ended, the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration (1904), a body set up to examine the causes of physical deficiencies in the male population, encouraged the military training of the young. Pressure came for universal military training for youths, and senior military figures encouraged rifle practice in the elementary school curriculum. The newly formed Board of Education took a stand against this activity and political opposition from the Labour Party prevented legislation on the matter. The only success of the campaign was a scheme, in 1910, for a national cadet force, to be called the Officer Training Corps, with military and financial support from the War Office. This vestige of militarism survived until well after the Second World War in secondary grammar and public schools; gradually, alternatives, such as social service work, were introduced as the ethos of militarism in schools diminished.
Efficiency
The expansion of industrialism and nationalism in Britain during the nineteenth century gave rise to a third element which had an impact on educational thought, namely, the quest for efficiency.
By mid-Victorian times in the 1850s and 1860s, it became clear to reformers and politicians that there were many areas of public life which needed investigating. Parliamentary reform in 1832, the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1836 and the creation of County Courts in 1846 had been early indications of this desire for change. The professions also came under scrutiny; for example, the Medical Act of 1858 which laid down strict rules for qualification to practice. Social issues, such as prostitution and workplace conditions were also subjected to close examination. Centralisation, with the creation of new bodies or departments, was a major feature. The change from patronage to merit in public life was seen in the reorganisation of the Civil Service, which opened the way to promotion through competitive examinations. Such change had many critics. One, Sir James Stephen, a high-ranking, retired official, told the Northcote-Trevelyan Commission that he opposed the new system as 'In every age, and land, and calling, a large share of success has hitherto been awarded to the possession of interest, of connexion, of favour, and of what we call good luck.' Regulation was not the only path pursued. Samuel Smiles' Self Help, which was published in 1859 and became an immediate success, summed up the spirit of the time: that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility for individuals to succeed by their own efforts. In the same year, Darwin's On the Origin of Species appeared. Its message, summed up in Herbert Spencer's phrase, the survival of the fittest, neatly complemented those of Smiles. The mid-Victorian era, therefore, was characterised by a collectivist tendency alongside a regard for laissez-faire principles, a balance which the historian W.L. Burn has called 'The Age of Equipoise'.22
These elements are well-illustrated in attitudes towards education. We have already seen that the Newcastle Commission on Popular Education, reporting in 1861, had recommended the provision of 'sound and cheap elementary education' by the State. Herbert Spencer, in his Social Statistics (1851), had earlier condemned such provision by the State as a totalitarian attempt to mould children into a moral and intellectual pattern:
Legislators exhibit to us the design and specification of a state-machine, made up of masters, ushers, inspectors and councils, to be worked by a due proportion of taxes, and to be plentifully supplied with raw material in the shape of little boys and girls, out of which it is to grind a population of well-trained men and women who shall be 'useful members of society'.23
On the other hand, Matthew Arnold, in his survey Popular Education of France, with notice of that of Holland and Switzerland (1861), believed that the State's greatest service was ensuring that schools were respected as well as inspected. This, he said, was particularly necessary at a time when there was a massive explosion in the population rate and a diminution in the use of child labour in factories.
Efficiency in education was by no means confined to the elementary sector. There was a Royal Commission on the Universities (1850-52) which brought about reforms at Oxford and Cambridge. From 1861 to 1864, the Clarendon Commission investigated the nine leading public schools; it favoured a more liberal approach to the education of the elite, denouncing the exclusiveness of classics in the curriculum and recommended that more time should be devoted to modern languages, mathematics and natural science. Although the Public Schools Act of 1868 encouraged modern studies and recast governing bodies and the antiquated statutes of these institutions, change was slow in coming.
An even more root-and-branch reforming body followed with the Taunton Commission (1864-68), which investigated over 800 endowed grammar schools. Unlike the elementary schools, there was no central authority responsible for the oversight of secondary education, and the commissioners, appointed by a Liberal government, revealed the corruption of masters and the misappropriation of endowments. New schemes were drawn up, often in the face of fierce local opposition, and the schools were placed on a new footing, both financially and academically. The effect was undermined by the subsequent failure to introduce legislation, because of the lobbying of a group of public school headmasters, which would have set up a Central Board to supervise and inspect endowed schools. The Taunton Report was also weakened by the educational philosophy of the Commission itself, which declared:
The education of the gentry has gradually separated itself from that of the class below them, and it is but natural that this class in their turn should be unwilling to be confounded with the labourers they employ.
These class differences were reflected in the system of efficient schools which were created by the Endowed Schools Act of 1868; the first grade, the classical schools, would prepare boys for an elite education; the second grade schools were for boys leaving at the age of 16 with more general curriculum, and the third grade was for future artisans leaving school at the age of 14.
The educational thinking underlying the work of the Education Commissions arose from a combination of factors, particularly the need for a more bureaucratic approach if efficiency were to be obtained for a population who needed to be educated, and given the skills required in an industrialised nation. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there emerged an 'efficiency' group, consisting of academics, politicians, administrators and writers who set out, in the their own words on 'the quest for National Efficiency'.
There were a number of reasons for this renewed interest in efficiency. Until the 1860s, Britain's natural leadership in Europe was unquestioned. The rise of Bismarck, the Dual Alliance between France and Russia and the re-armament race which followed, raised questions of national security and the need to provide an efficient fighting force. Naval construction, the basis of sea power, was dramatically increased in the 1880s. Observers noted the technological superiority of German shipyards and an acceleration in their naval output. The birth rate in England suffered a comparatively greater decline than in other European countries in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the Great Depression in agriculture and industry raised public alarm. Britain's industrial supremacy was now in doubt, being overtaken by America and Germany in particular, especially in the science-based industries.
At the same time, in politics there was a growing disillusionment with Liberalism. There was a reaction away from a neutral Civil Service, the prevailing belief in a liberal education and a higher education system which did not prepare undergraduates for the world. The ideology of efficiency brought together three separate strands of thought. Imperialism, especially the example of India, had demonstrated the necessity of central autocratic administration in order to carry on successful government - no such opportunity existed in Britain. The second strand lay in the Broad Church tradition of social philosophy which was antagonistic to atomistic and mechanisitic modes of thought; a more acceptable mode would be for a National Church, which would make known its views on issues with authority. The third strand was the firm belief in science which was so crucial in a modern nation and which would be disseminated through a well-planned, centralised education system.24
If education was to be the cornerstone of a policy to halt England's economic decline, there was much work to be done. A Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, chaired by the Duke of Devonshire, had reported in 1875. It recommended more science teaching in elementary schools, and suggested the training of more teachers to carry out the work. It also highlighted the need for the Education Department and the Science and Art Department, both of whom provided for the subject, to co-ordinate their activities. The scientist Thomas Huxley, giving evidence before the Commission, stated, 'I must confess that I think the present state of affairs is an anomaly which could only exist in our country. Separating the teaching of science from education is like cutting education in half' .25
Similarly, a Royal Commission on Technical Instruction (Samuelson), set up seven years later as a result of worries about foreign competition, drew attention to the variety of bodies offering this subject and the lack of co-ordination between them. More science and art teaching was recommended and it was suggested that local authorities should be given powers to establish technical and secondary schools for the study of natural science, drawing, mathematics and modern languages. It was left to the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, chaired by James Bryce in 1895, to recommend a central authority for secondary education under a Minister of Education and with responsibility for elementary education. This led to the Act of 1899 which established a Board of Education, with is own president, to co-ordinate the education system.
The setbacks suffered by the British forces during the Boer War and the subsequent national inquest as to its causes have already been mentioned. The War confirmed the worst fears of the national efficiency group. The word 'group' is perhaps misleading as indicating a number of people sharing a homogeneous political ideology. In fact at the turn of the twentieth century there were various groupings, such as the Liberal Imperialists and the Liberal League, both consisting largely of politicians. There was also an informal group, the Co-Efficient Club, begun by the Webbs in 1902 to work out a programme for a 'Party of Efficiency', which brought together 12 distinguished individuals, all men, from different fields, politicians, academics, administrators and social theorists; these included Sydney Webb, L.S. Amery, R.B. Haldane, Edward Grey, Halford Mackinder, Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells.26
The Education Bill of 1902 was seen by these different groups as an attempt to educate the Liberal Party in using the criterion of efficiency in its judgement of policy. They argued that educational reform would transform the economy and the same time help to produce a new class structure, based on achievement in education:
The elementary school raises our people to the level at which they may become skilled workers. The secondary school assists to develop a much smaller but still large class of well-educated citizens. But for the production of that limited body of men and women whose calling requires high talent, the University or its equivalent alone suffices.27
The subsequent Education Act of 1902 sorted out the administrative muddle of the education system, sweeping away the School Boards and replacing them with county and county borough councils which were responsible for both elementary and secondary education, working through the newly formed Local Education Authorities. Each LEA was required to 'consider the educational needs of their area and to take such steps as seem to them desirable, and after consultation with the Board of Education to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary, and to promote the general co-ordination of all forms of education'. They were also 'to have regard to any existing supply of efficient schools and colleges and to any steps already taken for the purposes of higher education'. The Act was an impressive triumph for the efficiency group; a national system could now be formed which would, it was hoped, help to re-establish Britain's economic and technological superiority once more. Furthermore, a ladder of opportunity was made available with links between the elementary and the grammar schools for talented youths which was the beginnings of a meritocracy in education.
The belief, during the century considered in this chapter, that the failure in British industrial efficiency and performance could be directly attributed to an inadequate educational system is now seen as too simplistic. There are complicated cultural, political and economic factors which are of considerable importance and it cannot be assumed that education and training are the main influences. Nor is it clear that earlier educational ideas of schools as providers of vocational preparation are valid - the question 'Preparation for what?' requires an answer. To many, a liberal/humane education is perhaps equally valid as a preparation for good citizenship.
References
1. W.H.G. Armytage, Four Hundred Years of English Education (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1964), p. 76.
2. G.H. Bantock, Culture, Industrialisation and Education (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), pp. 11-12.
3. R. Williams, The Long Revolution (Penguin Books, 1961), p. 162.
4. A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1875 edn), p. 621.
5. P.H.J.H. Gosden, How They Were Taught (Blackwell, Oxford, 1969), pp. 6-7.
6. J.M. Goldstrom, 'The Content of Education and the Socialization of the Working-Class Child. 1830-1860', in P. McCann (ed.), Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century (Methuen, 1977), p. 97.
7. Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, PP 1844, xxxviii, vol. 2, p. 511.
8. Viscount Esher (ed.), The Girlhood of Queen Victoria (Murray, 1912), vol. 1, p. 148.
9. Newcastle Commission on the State of Popular Education in England, PP 1861, xxi. Report, p. 127.
10. Hansard, 3, 182, 13 March 1866, cols. 147-8.
11. R. Lowe, Primary and Classical Education (Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh, 1867), p. 32.
12. D.W. Sylvester, Robert Lowe and Education (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1974), p. 48.
13. E.H. Reisner, Nationalism and Education since 1870 (Macmillan, 1922), p. 37.
14. W.H.G. Armytage, 'Battles for the Best: Some Educational Aspects of The Welfare-Warfare State in England', in P. Nash (ed.). History and Education. The Educational Uses of the Past (Random House, New York, 1970), p. 296.
15. Education Code, 1878, Viscount Sandon's Instructions to Her Majesty's Inspectorate, 16 January 1879, reprinted in PP 1881, lxxii, p. 217.
16. E. Joyce, 'The Imperial Aspect of Girls' Friendly Society Emigration', Imperial Colonist, August 1913, pp. 123-4.
17. Earl of Meath, 'The Empire Day Movement, Imperial Colonist, May 1906, pp. 63—4.
18. P. Gordon (ed.), Politics and Society: The Journals of Lady Knightley of Fawsley, J885 to 1913 (Northamptonshire Record Society, Northampton. 1999), p. 429.
19. A. Penn, Targeting Schools. Drill, Militarism and Imperialism (Woburn Press, 1999). p. 23.
20. Ibid., p. 34.
21. J. Springhall, Youth, Empire and Society. British Youth Movements, 1883—1940 (Croom Helm, 1977), p. 18.
22. W.L. Burn, The Age of Equipoise (Unwin, 1964, 1968 edn), p. 17.
23. D. Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978), p. 143.
24. G.R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency. A Study in British Political Thought, 1899-1914 (Blackwell, Oxford. 1971), pp. 30-2."
25. Devonshire Commission on the Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science. Minutes of Evidence, PP 1872, xxv, p. 26.
26. W.A.S. Hewins, The Apologia of an Imperialist (Constable, 1929), vol. 2, p. 65.
27. H.C.G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists. The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Elite (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1973), p. 230.
Further Reading
Mangan, J.A., The Games Ethic and Imperialism (Frank Cass, 1998).
Morris. P., Industrialisation and Education (Industrial Welfare Society. 1954).
Open University, Education and Production E353, Block 3 (Open University Press, 1972).
Ploscataska, L.M., 'Geographical Education, Empire and Citizenship' (PhD thesis, University of London, 1996).
Simpson, L.M., 'Education, Imperialism and National Efficiency in England 1895-1905' (PhD thesis, Glasgow University, 1979).