English Education,1789-1902

This book is a history of the change which culminated in the Education Act of 1902.

J. W. Adamson (Author)

9780521109420, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 June 2009

532 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.77 kg

Between 1789 and 1902 the direction of education in England had passed from the Church to the State. This book is a history of that change which culminated in the Education Act of 1902, passed, ironically enough, by a Conservative Government in the face of bitter Radical and Liberal opposition. For it was the Radicals who, in the early part of the nineteenth century, were preaching the doctrine of 'useful knowledge'. Hitherto, religion had been the leading aim of English education and the universities (there were only two) and the public and grammar schools were founded on that premise. The immense advances in scientific knowledge were reflected in changes in the curricula of schools and universities where the classics and divinity had to yield ground to the physical sciences. Professor Adamson describes the Education Act of 1870 and the Cross Commission on religious teaching in schools, the new systems of university education and the muddle resulting from administrative overlapping. He concludes his book with a description of the schoolmasters profession at the end of the nineteenth century.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Pre-Victorian: 1. The people and the people's education
2. Higher education
3. The universities
4. Educational opinion
Part II. Earlier Victorian (1839–1867): 5. The committee of council and the voluntary system
6. The workman's self-education
7. The universities in the mid-century
8. 'Sound and cheap elementary instruction'
9. The ancient public schools
10. Secondary education and its reform
11. The conflict of studies
Part III. Later Victorian (1867–1902): 12. Women and other working folk
13. The compromise of 1870 and the cross commission
14. Disseminating a knowledge of science
15. University education
16. Administrative muddle
17. The schoolmasters profession
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]