According to Source C, what were Debenham people’s attitudes towards compulsory education and why do you think this was?
The people of Debenham had a lot of different views on compulsory education, mainly because of their class.
One of these classes was the well-to-do farming class. They generally disliked education because they would become more learned, gaining knowledge that they had. This might have meant that they had higher aspirations, breaking the pyramid of classes.
Another such class was the Clergy. Some thought that this step towards compulsory education was misguided, one of the reasons being because the chain of being that God had made would be broken. Another reason they disagreed with it was because they did not want them reading blasphemous writings on other religions.
The parents and children disliked education immensely at first. They mainly didn’t like it because the child would not get paid while they were being educated. But they generally liked it a lot more after the child had finished education, because the child would be getting paid a lot more for the jobs that they would now be able to do.
The mothers especially were not pleased that their daughters had to go to school. This was mainly because they would not be able to get their daughters to help at home anymore, meaning that they had more work they had to do themselves.
Farmers generally disliked the fact that children had to go to school as well. They were vexed at the fact that they could no longer get children at cheap rates to scare rooks from off of their fields. Now that they could not get children at these cheap rates, they would either have to loose a lot of their crop because of the rooks, or pay a lot more money than previously to see that the rooks were scarred off.
The country folk in general did not like it because of one of their main characteristics. They did not like being driven into something that they did not necessarily want to do, and this was probably true with education.
James Cornish’s father seemed to be the only person mentioned by James to have been in favour of education. His father supported education because he thought that people should get a chance to better what they already had, maybe reaching a post above the one they already had. He wanted, in James’ view, to make the country people gain from the obvious benefits that education had over not being educated.
Source C, written by James Cornish, states that almost everyone but his father was against education. This seems unlikely, as it seems that James Cornish wanted to put his father across as a leading person in the advancement in the education system in Debenham.
To what extent do you think schooling in Debenham was typical of what was happening nationally?
A lot of things were happening to the schooling in Debenham, as previously stated, but we could get a much clearer point on this if we compare what was happening in Debenham to what was happening elsewhere in the country.
One thing that was happening in Debenham was the fact that there was two Sunday Schools, one being the Church of England School and one being the Independent School. This was typical of what was happening nationally. Robert Rakes set up these schools, and for the main reason of keeping them off of the streets and out of trouble on a weekend.
Another thing that was happening in Debenham was the fact that Robert Hitcham supported schools by endowment. This was generally happening a lot nationally. A lot of nobles just donated money to a school regularly because they thought it was the right thing to do. Sir Robert Hitcham may have seen the benefits that education would have for the country, or he may just have thought that donating money to a school was the right thing to do.
A lot of the schools also seemed open to all classes. This was happening a lot later on, but did not seem to happen to early in some places. This was because England needed an educated workforce if they were to keep up in the ever quickening race towards being a rich and powerful country.
A lot of the schools also had fees that had to be paid by students. This was happening nationally, and was needed for a school to get enough money to run in the first place.
In 1866, Debenham managed to set up a school where the poorest could go without having to pay any fees at all. This was happening elsewhere, but it was a very rare occurrence, and was only managed through three different method of receiving money. These methods were endowment, voluntary contribution, and also having the richest attending the school paying fees. Not many schools were lucky enough to have the earlier two generosities of the people near the school and so could not carry out their education in this way.
In 1879, the Debenham National School also merged with the Debenham Sir Robert Hitcham School. This was also happening nationally, and mainly after 1870. This was because it was a better use of resources than having two schools doing the same job in the same area.
Debenham had day schools also. This was happening nationally also, and mainly because people who wanted a decent education would have to put more time into their education than just one Sunday a week, as Sunday Schools did.
Debenham also had a boy’s only school. This also would have been quite normal, being as a lot of schools were open for just boys at this time. A lot of people still had the general view that girls did not need an education because they would just be working in the home anyway, and so would not need to be educated for any purpose. Another belief was that girls would not be able to keep up with the pace of learning that boys could go at, and so it would be best to educate them separately. This was also highlighted by the fact that there were also generally more boys attending school than girls. This was happening nationally.
It was also common for the Church to play a large role in education. This was because the Church had set up a lot of schools before education became compulsory, and a lot of the funding for new schools had been put through the church. These funds had been given to the church because they were the only large organisation generally setting up schools on a large scale, meaning that they could keep track of where the money went better, and also allow them to use it more in areas where it was most needed.
Another thing that was common was the fact that the people were generally against the education. This was because in the short term, education did not have very positive effects. People did not look forward to what they would get once the children had gone through school. They did not see that they could get new jobs where only the rich could have got jobs before. They did not see that their children would have been earning more money as well.
One thing that was happening in Debenham that wasn’t seen happening anywhere else was the fact that the dissenters and the Church of England schools mixed. This was very odd, mainly because the Church of England people generally did not like the dissenters, and visa versa. This shows though, that Debenham probably had a very close community, and that they were willing to work together towards the common goal that was a better education.
There were no board schools in Debenham though, which may seem odd at first because the 1870 Education Act said that all areas should have a board school set up. But when you look at the Act details, you see that only parishes which did not have schools already had to have a school set up. This meant that Debenham did not need a school set up, and so was a common area for parishes which already had schools set up and running in them.
On the whole, education in Debenham was quite typical of what was happening in the country. We can see from this that Debenham had quite advanced schooling before it became compulsory, and so would have been one of the villages leading the path towards a compulsory education.
How reliable do you think source C is as a piece of evidence for the historian studying towards the 1870 education Act?
There are a number of points which may back either the source being reliable, or the source being unreliable. Firstly I will go through the evidence for the source being reliable, and then I shall follow with how the source doesn’t look very reliable.
Firstly, source C was written by a church man. This may make you believe that it is truer, because church men are meant to be reliable, and are never meant to lie.
We also know that James Cornish had a degree in history. This means that he was well educated and so probably knew why lying was not the best of things to do. He should also have known how to lay out a reliable source.
Another thing that would back this source is that James Cornish himself had his education paid for him; therefore he would not have been affected by personal feelings as much.
Another thing that makes this source reliable was the fact that James Cornish himself went to a school for both rich and poor people. This means that he would have been able to see that poor people can be just as intelligent as, if not more intelligent than the rich people that went to school. He may also have made friends with both rich and poor people, meaning that he had probably seen the values that both had towards society.
He could also have had a very good memory. When you combine this with the fact that he was there at the time, it would make Source C a very reliable piece of evidence, as he could have written down the events exactly as they happened, with the exact views of the people at the time.
Another fact was that his father was a member of the Clergy. This would have supported his source as he would have been able to write about the clergy from what his father had told him, giving him a valuable insight that not many had.
Another thing was that the source was written latter in his life. This may have made him more objective on the situation, as he would have been able to look back on the situation with less biased now that it had happened.
But, we know that James Cornish was only 10 at the time of writing his diaries from which he got all of his information for his reminiscences. This raises a number of queries, the first one being that it would have been a very long time for him to remember the certain things from the diary, and also why he had written certain things in his diary. Another point is that 10 would have been a very young age for him to be taking into account such complicated and important issues. Finally, he may also have had a different viewpoint on events after such a long time, making his views more biased than they were.
Another thing which may make you question the sources reliability some more is that James Cornish was the son of the vicar, meaning he may have been biased towards his father, by saying that his father was the leading figure in the area for education.
James Cornish’s daughter also edited the reminiscences, and so may have changed them falsely. His daughter may have wanted to make her Grandfather seem a greater man, with more wisdom than he had.
It also seems quite suspect that James Cornish’s reminiscences start from when he was born. This means that not all of his reminiscences could have been his own memories. This discredits source C further.
Another thing that could have happened was that the publishers could have changed the book for the good of sales. If they did not think that it was lively enough at some points, or that the writer needed to look more of a hero, then they may have changed it around.
James Cornish could also have exaggerated the events that took place so as to make everything in his book seem better than it actually was.
From the above you can definitely see that source C had some reliable features, such as the fact that it was written by a respected member of society, but there are also a number of points that you can pick out which discredit how good this source may have actually been. To gain a more of an insight to how reliable this source was, I would have to cross-reference with a number of other sources and see what points they all agree on, and which points they do not.
