What was the role of the government in developing Elementary Education 1833-1870?

GCSE History Coursework

British Social an Economic History

Why did the government play little role in education before the nineteenth century?

Government played little role in education prior to the nineteenth century because of many reasons, one of them being Laissez faire. Laissez faire was the philosophy of the government that it was not their role to get involved in the lives of the people. Edward Baines wrote about the state of education in 1846 and said “it is not the duty of the government to feed the people… these are things that the people can and ought to do themselves” some thought this was the way God wanted things to be. Other felt that the fittest and richest could survive; the idea did nothing for the poor. One of the only things government was willing to get involved in was defending the country.

Money was another motive why the government played little role. The government didn’t want to spend money on educating the poor, they would much rather spend their money on the royal stables and the military. On Samuel Whitbread’s Bill this topic was discussed “It would burden the country with a most enormous expense”. Not only did they not want to put money towards education but also it was going to be a very expensive project, which they thought could be done without. Samuel Whitbread argued that more education was needed and that raises money was the way forward when he stood up to the government, but the House of Lords rejected his Bill.

The Class system was another thing that was preventing the government from contributing money towards education. Everyone knew his or her place in society so for the poor to read write and be educated would make them more intelligent and mess up the ‘The Great Chain of Being’; this was another name for the social structure at the time. The chain of being was written about once by a Bishop in 1720 and he said “God so orders it that we always have some Poor among us” from this the ‘The great chain of being’ had come about.

The Government simply didn’t see the need for change. There were already Sunday Schools and Dame Schools available for the poor, which were supplied by the church and individuals ‘As far as education was concerned, the government was content’ reading this its seems as if the government couldn’t be bothered to improve if there was nothing wrong with how things were currently going. This reminds me of the old saying ‘why fix it, if its not broken’.

Revolutionary ideas were also something that was considered to be a threat if the poor were to be educated. If they were taught to read then they would be able to understand and read Anti-Christian books and stories about revolutions in other countries such as France. This was also discussed in the Debate on Samuel Whitbread’s Bill, “It would enable them to read vicious books, and publications against Christianity” religion was very strong at this time and to disrupt it could have lead to social unrest. Revolting against how they feel they stand in society would “make them insolent to their superiors” this was also talked about on Samuel Whitbread’s Bill.

Parents of poor children didn’t want their children to go to school and learn, because they wanted them to work and earn money. This was the traditional way of life for the poor people and most of them were keen to stick with it. They worked on farms and in mines. However if the parents were to look at the advantages of educating their children they would see that with an education they could get better jobs and earn more money. Even though it would have taken time it still would have been the more intelligent choice, but as they ...

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Why did the government become involved in developing elementary education for all during the nineteenth century?

Government eventually had to become involved in developing elementary education. The increasing population meant that schools could not cope with the large amounts of pupils, so more schools were built to accommodate the demands of numbers. The large numbers of pupils also meant that more teachers were needed and to employ more teachers money was needed, so without the help and money from the government education would have gone nowhere. Not only would they have needed more teachers but also they would need bigger schools to have room for the large increase of pupils. The poor people could no longer look after themselves, so the government had to step in. They may have been struggling because the higher classes were sending their children to school so they would have had a tremendous advantage over the poor and uneducated children when they both contest for work, as they got older. A link the raising population had with the changes outside education is firstly the 1832 Great Reform Act. For the first time the large new industrial towns were able to elect MPs, most of these MPs were keen on cleaning up the towns. In the end the combined effects of the Reform Act and the cholera epidemic of 1832 made the living conditions in all towns a major political issue.

An education was needed for people to be able to operate the machines. Due to these demands the scope of education was widened to include the children of more ordinary men and women. ‘Better-educated clerks and crafts people were needed’ to produce better goods to increase the countries economy with trade. Better-educated workers were wanted; the future of workers education took a big step forward with the Factory Act of 1833. This Act laid down that every factory child should receive two hours’ schooling a day.

Other countries were educating their youth and were therefore were ahead of Britain in that department, so to avoid embarrassment and keep up to date the government decided it was time to teach the younger generation. This was a very important time for the country because they realised that the children are the future and educating them would be so much better for the government. This would be because to have more educated workers in the future would mean people doing and understanding their jobs better. If countries got ahead of Britain then they would have more knowledge, to stop this the government introduced an education Bill, this was read from it “If we leave our workfolk unskilled, they will become over-matched in the competition of the world” by W.E Forster.

More money was coming in from the country’s trade and empire. This meant that more money could and was put forward towards education for the poor. Most of the money from the trade came from the industrial revolution. This was mainly thanks to the trade that merchants did with Australia and other countries. Another thing that played a key part in the great income was the Railway industry. This was very quickly becoming a national system and brought in great loads of money. A link with more money coming in from education was that more money could be spent on defence. This was very helpful because if Britain were to go to war we would have hopefully have been well off.

Poor people were given the chance to vote, but they needed some knowledge of who to vote for and why. If they knew what things they wanted from the government, then they could have a rough idea of who shares the same thoughts and ambition as them for the running of the country. They needed to know who to vote for because if that person won he would run the country, so they are voting for a very important matter. In the reform Act of 1867 most working class men were giving the chance to vote. This was very important link outside education because with educated voters the country has a better chance of a good and well presented Prime Minister. This would be because the men who were educated would pick by using their own knowledge to choose who they think is best to run the country.

The government saw many advantages to educating the poor. One of them was that it would give them a better opportunity to get employed, as they have been educated. Therefore they wont be tempted into stealing for a living and committing other crimes. If they had a job they would be getting some money and they wouldn’t need to steal. In support of educating the lower classes H.E. Strickland wrote “leaving them an easy target to numerous temptations” he is simply implying what I have said above. This had a major link outside of education because if crime was cut down by having more educated people than there wont be a need to employ as many police men which would just cost more money. The general happiness of people would be better if they weren’t too likely to get robbed.

Individuals also lead the way for the educating the poor. These people were known as philanthropists. Lord Shaftsbury was very much in favour in educating the poor. His interest included the provision of working class education and was chairman of the Ragged Schools Union for over forty years. By 1850 the organisation had established over a hundred schools for poor children. His link outside education was his lead in the Factory Reform. Another Individual that was considered a philanthropist was Robert Owen whose Factory was in New Lanark. When Owen arrived at New Lanark children from as young as five were working for thirteen hours a day in the textile mills. He stopped employing children under ten and reduced their labour to ten hours a day. The young children went to the nursery and infant schools that Owen had built. Older children worked in the factory but also had to attend his secondary school for part of the day.

The poor needed to be educated to just do the basic things in life like read and write. If they couldn’t do either of them then they were destined to struggle with the evolving world. If they couldn’t write then they couldn’t write letters to communicate. And if they were unable to read then they could not read special notices and letters sent to them.

In conclusion I think that government had to eventually get involved with education because otherwise this country would have gone nowhere. With only rich people being educated there would be no place in society and the world for the Poor. I feel the government should have intervened a lot earlier.

How successful were the changes in elementary education by the 1870’s

The success of the changes in elementary education was varied. When a change happened it may have been successful but it would still have some downsides to it.

Payment by results in 1862 was one of these. In 1861 a Newcastle report recommended that the government should use a payment by results system. The Duke of Newcastle headed this. Robert Lowe says “If it is not cheap it will be efficient” and “If it is not efficient it will be cheap”, he is telling us here about the good and bad points to the ‘pay by results’ system. The system may have motivated and encouraged teachers to get the best out of their pupils, but as this may have been difficult they cheated. They would tell all the pupils the answers behind the examiners back, to get the answer right and get more money. These plans offer cash payments to teachers and administrators for boosting their students' scores on standardised tests. Yet history shows that any pay-by-results scheme gains are mostly illusions. Not only do they fail to improve student achievement, they are also destructive, encouraging administrators and teachers to cheat by manipulating statistics, or by teaching to the test. Inevitably, children wind up the losers because curricula are narrowed to include subjects that can be taught by drill and repetition and that are easily measured.

Fosters education act in 1870. This act said that wherever there isn’t a school, the local communities have to set-up a school board and build a school. A good point was that now there was going to be a school in every parish or town. By doing this there were enough schools for most people. However, it wasn’t compulsory to attend these schools. This was the first Education act ever, and was the point at which government became directly involved in organising education for the poor. So I feel that this was a success because it was a good stepping stone towards a future of education.

The first school inspectors came about in 1839. The education committee would appoint two school inspectors. The first inspector would be for the Church of England. The second was appointed for the British and foreign society run schools. This was the first time inspectors were appointed, therefore the first time that the government showed any interest in checking up on how things were going. However the disappointing aspects of these inspectors was that they didn’t look at the quality of the teaching and the numbers that were being taught. This was a partially successful idea as now the government was checking that education was taking place, which they hadn’t done before.

The first School Grant was given in 1833. This was given to two church societies so that they could build new schools. The amount that was donated was £20,000. Goods points about this grant was that the government got involved for once and gave money to show that they wanted new schools built. Though they were still spending more money on keeping the Royal stables in shape. This in my opinion was a successful event, due to the fact that the grant increased to £500,000 in 1860. This meant that even more schools were built.

An education Committee was set-up. This committee was made to manage the new annual education grant. This was also known as the Privy Council. Until 1826 it hadn’t become a full government department. It did though seem that the government was taking responsibility for the education of the country. I believe that this was a very successful change, purely because it became the national education department in 1876. The even more impressive thing about it is a similar system is still running today.

The Clarenden Report of 1864 saw another change. This report looked at the curriculum that was currently present and suggested that natural sciences should be added, because its more relevant in the age of industry. The Government began to look at the curriculum and subject that would be relevant, this is known as broadening the curriculum. They still suggested that a classical education of Greek, Latin and Hebrew was still a very necessary thing. I feel that the Clarenden Report was beneficial in some ways because new subjects were suggested. It was though still quite old fashioned because of the classical subjects taught. They were considered to give the best education.

The first Teacher training college was set-up in 1840. A man named James Kay Shuttleworth introduced this. It was set-up in Battersea with the support of the government. It was very good, because up until then the teachers were untrained and clergymen. The government from this seemed to be getting more and more involved. They were though training many teachers and collapsed. The success this achieved was part of the other successes such as the First grant and inspectors and now this. Overall a success because the government were ever so slightly taking more and more control over education.

Overall there was a lot of general success. By 1870 the government had a direct role in education. They had challenged and inspired the voluntary sector to improve e.g. Church societies. Also by 1870 (or soon after) there were schools in every parish, even though it was still not compulsory. There were now enough places for everyone. Due to the introduction of the teacher training college the quality of teaching did improve.

There were though still remaining problems. One of them being that going to school was still not compulsory. There was also no secondary education. One bad thing for parents was that there was still a fee to pay. This continued until 1891 when education was free. There was no national network for education. There were therefore lots of independent and isolated schools. Although there was a good quality of the teaching due to the Training College there was an insufficient amount of teachers. There was still opposition to the idea of education and to whom it should be available. And the people who were on the school board were amateurs, local worthy people that didn’t know a lot about education. They didn’t even have any expertise.

In conclusion I feel that the government have made a good start to education but there is still more to be done.

Chris Marais