On page 31 of the August edition of the BBC History magazine, Mervyn Benford writes that, in Britain, “it was the demands of industrialisation that made the government educate the masses” an interesting statement considering that the industrial revolution occurred before even the tiny government subsidy to education in 1833. Benford goes on to write that, in 1862, “just 1 in 20 children went to school” – an absurd statement of the sort that E.G. West exposed more than forty years ago in Education and the State.
An historian should not say to themselves “I will pretend that every child who has not been to school for X number of years, without a break, has never been to school”. This is ‘history’ as in “first there was darkness, but then the state moved into the darkness and said let there be light”. As Ludwig Von Mises (and many other people) have pointed out, it is not the most stupid students or the most lazy (not always the same people of course) who become collectivists – on the contrary it is often intelligent and hardworking students (whether children or adults), people who seek out knowledge.
For the wells of knowledge have been poisoned. The above is one example, but it is one example from a legion. A child or an adult who seeks knowledge from the media or the ‘education system’ is betrayed.
All media sources, including bloggers, need to remember their only currency is trust. When any source provides false information it must acknowledge the failure of their editorial review and correct the information, or realize that intelligent people will abandon it.
Unfortunately, many sources don’t care about intelligent people. They seek to manipulate the consumers of their products and do so willingly all too often.
Paul, a good point. It is sobering to reflect that the history of non-state schooling up to the Forster Act of 1870 and beyond has been largely obscured. Indeed, I remember from my O-Level and A-Level history classes how the 19th Century was portrayed as period in which poor people were totally uneducated and only brought closer to education thanks to government. We now, thanks to the likes of EG West, how distorted a picture that is. The same goes, of course, for things like pensions, health insurance and life insurance.
My great grandfather came from Yorkshire to Caerphilly to be head master of a school in the 1850’s.
It was fee paying, or not depending on gramp. He knew who could afford to pay and who couldn’t and acted accordingly. He was a pretty good teacher too by all accounts. He had real mixed age and ability classes. For we are talking pupils of all ages, including adults, and the three R’s basically.
Well they Nationalised my ‘Ol great grampappy in 1870 and he became the first head of The Twyn school and a prominent citizen.
Thing is when Gramp and his like were in charge of education, the adult literacy rate in Britain was about 90% because people were willing to pay to learn. What do you think it is now?
You get what you pay for oh yes! but only when you can complain about it.
Otherwise you just pay.
Public Schools (Private schools to us non-Poms) would give free or reduced tuition as well as scholarships to poor students. Also Church Schools would provide free education.
The reason the State School system was setup was because of a simple error in a report. The summary stated that 80% of 13 year olds didn’t go to secondary school. There was a huge outcry of “something must be done.”
That’s because 13 year olds went to high school.
The 20% in secondary schools were the ones who repeated the grade.
The authors stuffed up. The politicians couldn’t be bothered reading their reports back then either.
darkbhudda do you have a citation for that statistical error? It would be interesting to find out more.
What’s the BBC doing in the magazine business anyway? Aren’t all its tax funded TV and radio channels and its huge website enough for it to spread its propaganda?
1 in 20 going to school in 1862 is obviously utterly false. We had a very large publishing industry then – who was buying the books and newspapers? I would also suggest that a lot more than 5% of jobs back then required at least some level of literacy and numeracy.
Introducing his Elementary Education Bill in 1870, WE Foster’s own figures were that 12 out of every 20 6-10 year olds were not on the books of government schools. I don’t have any exact figure but many of that non-state school figure many would be in church or other private schools. Certainly nowhere near 1 in 20 was receiving no schooling.
Of course by “government school” it is meant either a school that accepted some form of subsidy or at least was registered with the government (at some level). Virtually all schools were private schools in 1870.
By 1870 (when Forster introduced his bill to “fill the gaps” by having Board Schools) there may still have been some children who were growing up without learning to read or write – although to suggest that it was anything like 19 out of 20 is absurd (E.G. West in “Education and the State” examines the situation is some depth).
Of course there are still some children who grow up without learning to read or write, and there is no evidence that had the state not got involved in edcuation there would be more children growing up not learning to read and write (I suspect that edcuational standards would now be higher if government had never got involved in any way).
This subject touches me close.
I went to a government school and was taught to neither write nor to read there. I learned these things (in so far as I have learnt them) from a old lady called Mrs Williams who lived in a village near to my home.
Good place to put in a plug for the wonderful The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. So here it is.
ah, typical libertarian fantasy to think that there would be no difference in the number of children growing “up not learning to read and write ” without state education.
Of course there would be a difference.
Without state education far fewer children would grow without knowing how to read or write.