Each social class had a different view of what its own education should be. Members of the upper classes believed their children should have little knowledge of practical skills, but acquire more social graces. Their importance was seen to have a high status. Learning unproductive knowledge of classics and literature. They believed that their education should be paid for. The middle class grew in size due to the industrial revolution, divisions between the upper and lower half of the class also grew. The upper middle wanted to show the rise in status by providing their children with the same education as the upper classes. The rest of the middle class had the same laissez-faire view of working class education as the upper class had of middle class education. The lower middle class wanted only enough education for their boys ‘to get on’, therefore were keen on utilitarian subjects. The working class view on education was less than that of the other classes. Various religious groups provided most formal education, they were clear on what was taught, and they had a very apparent aim. The schools were provided for religious purposes, to pass on Christian beliefs to the next generations. Children therefore read the bible. The ability to write was less important than the ability to read.
The family also played a part in the teaching of the individual. The education of girls was seen as primarily the aim for the family. For the upper and middle classes governesses taught supplementary skills such as singing and needlecraft. Upper and middle class girls did not look for careers. Up until the 1830s education within the home was still the norm for boys. At a time when many children went out to work at the age of five, early education was still a family matter.
Schools in the workhouses additionally supplied one of the early forms of education. They aimed to give pauper children the opportunity to escape from the poverty of their parents. But the number of schools was never large.
‘In 1860, for example there were only six, catering for about one in every thirteen indoor pauper children’. (Driver, 1993, p97)
Dame schools were available in the early nineteenth century. Women ran these for small fees often in unhygienic lodgings. Children were supposed to be taught, but often this type of school only provided a poor quality child-minding service for working mothers.
Self- help furthermore encouraged education of the working classes through self-education. It reduced the middle class fears that the working class men were estrangement. The middle classes who sponsored it therefore supported the idea of self-education. It was another way of communicating middle class beliefs. This adult education established that the working classes did want to improve the quality of their lives, they were using education a lever to better their social position within society.
Towards the mid nineteenth century there was eventually a further demand for more education, the question was who was going to find and run the resources, and what was going to be taught, to whom and in how much depth. Any previous education few would have already received would have mainly been based upon a religious context.
It was the development of Britain as a leading imperialist power during the later period of the nineteenth century, that lead to this clear realisation of the need for formal education. This was due partly as a product of the industrial depression. But on the other hand this depression lead to the resistance to change. Already in the 1860s the predictive few of the industrialists had begun to see the need to develop education further. The new technological advances brought about by industrialisation lead to the need for an educated workforce. Industries would benefit, therefore they provided their support to the Education Act of 1870.
The education policies of the 1850s-70s had been consciously designed to establish different types of school for different social classes.
The seal was set on the process by the education act of 1870, which laid the foundations of a system of elementary schooling, bringing together the various forms of education mentioned previously. The education act of 1870 defined elementary schools as ones which, the fee did not exceed 9d. a week. This act did not introduce compulsory education, nor did it make education free. It was not until 1880 that attendance was finally made compulsory and not until the Act of 1891 that education was made free, but this Act still did not cover all elementary schools. What the 1870 act did do was lay foundations, which were later built upon to produce a segregated system of schooling for the working classes. Therefore the primary aim of the Act of 1870 was to ‘fill the gaps, under the act School Boards were to be elected to spend on education the funds raised by local rates.
As suggested by Foucault (1987) education was an attempt to discipline the masses, it is a form of surveillance, a method of social control.
It was mainly children between the ages of five and eleven who were formerly running wild on the streets that were now brought under control of the local authorities. The Act was designed to discourage all originality, and produce obedience and passivity. Vast classes, drill methods and severe discipline achieved the above. These attitudes were regarded as appropriate to the working class children. They were later reinforced through the new social agencies.
On the whole it was the concern from the middle classes that convinced the state of the need for the Educational Act of 1870 to be enforced. The concern towards the disciplining of the working classes, education was seen as a form of regulation, rather than to educate the individual. People were to be educated to ‘know their place’. It was thought that the working class were breeding an inferior race. This was becoming of disturbance to the higher classes; the fertility rate was in decline, leading to a fall in the population size. It was now up to the working classes to provide a fit and healthy race; Britain needed this to compete in the battle of industrialisation. It was Britain’s achievement in the involvement of industrialisation that could now provide the capital for the state to be able to take over the educational system.
In conclusion education prior to the Education Act of 1870, was mainly aimed towards the middle to upper classes that could afford to pay. Only the basic minimum was provided for the working classes and that was mainly through the church.
Bibliography
Driver, F (1993) Power and Pauperism, Cambridge: University Press.
Fraser, D (1984) The Evolution of The British Welfare State, Hampshire: Palgrave.
Musgrave, P (1976) Society and Education in England since 1800, London: Methuen and Co.
Simon, B (1965) Education and the Labour Movement 1870-1920, London: Lawrence & Wishart.