Using all the sources and your own knowledge, explain how far you agree with the view that, from 1833 to 1846, reform of education was limited mainly by the reluctance of governments to spend money.

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Using all the sources and your own knowledge, explain how far you agree with the view that, from 1833 to 1846, reform of education was limited mainly by the reluctance of governments to spend money.

From 1833 to 1846, the reform of education was severely hindered by numerous factors; the efficiency argument, the economic argument and the knowledge argument (namely, that knowledge, or education is not needed by the working class). However it can be argued that any of the reasons are the most important, because they are all so different, but all crucial to the delay of the Ten-Hour Act being finally introduced.

In Source A, it tells us that more money is needed to further the growth and success of schooling for children, thus agreeing with the view that the economic argument was the strongest. It says that money must be provided by parents as a token sum, but the government is the most vital factor in this matter. They want purely government legislation, not substantial amounts of money since they believe that money, by itself, would do no good. It seems to suggest that reform was also limited by reluctance by parents to let their children go to school, therefore showing the government that there was a need for them to spend money. However, this source cannot be fully trusted, since it is aimed at the masses, it is cheap, and it will only print what they want to read. This does not prove that the government did not want to spend money, but it does show that this was the common conception; this does agree with what we already know. This was published in 1833, when the first Factory Act was made, which did very little towards improving working conditions or implementing education for the lower classes. But it was at the time of the education grant, which, despite being a mere pittance made to the main religious societies which ran the schools, did go some way to proving that reform was something that was sought after all.

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Source B is by a radical MP, Hume, who strongly disliked the idea of the government voting for an annual grant of £20,000 to be allowed. He ‘objected’ to it, merely because it was not that he disagreed with this idea as a whole; indeed he was a radical, and so was forward thinking and progressive; he did not want to stick to the old thinking that poor children did not deserve and education. Instead his aim was for the grant to be increased substantially, because he thought that £20,000 was far too small an amount to be permitted for ...

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