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THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN 1820.

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number of children in each parish was 85, and there were in all only 50 parishes that contained 800 children and 700 parishes that contained 400 children. Mr Brougham proceeded to show from the statistics collected by the Committee that in 1820 there were 500,000 children receiving education in unendowed schools, of whom about 53,000 "were educated, or rather not educated," at dame schools, while 165,432 received education at endowed schools. He then argued that rather more than one-tenth of the whole mass of the population were children requiring education, and that as a matter of fact (regarding the children in dame schools as not receiving education) one-sixteenth of the whole population were children actually receiving education. The following passage from Hansard shows the educational position with regard to numbers as conceived by Mr Brougham: "The average means of mere education, therefore, was only in fact one-sixteenth in England; yet even this scanty means had only existed since the year 1803, when what were called the new schools, or those upon the systems of Dr Bell, and Mr Lancaster, were established. Those schools were in number 1,520, and they received about 200,000 children. Before 1803, then, only the twentyfirst part of the population was placed in the way of education, and at that date England might be justly looked on as the worst-educated country of Europe. What a different picture was afforded by Scotland! The education there was in the proportion of 1-9th or between 1-9th and 1-10th. Wales was even in a worse state than England: at the present day the proportion was 1-20th, and before 1803, it was 1-26th." Mr Brougham arrived at the general conclusion that every fifth person was without the means of education. He then entered into an interesting survey of the position by counties. Middlesex, "the great metropolitan county of England, was, beyond all dispute, the worst-educated part of Christendom." In that county (excluding dame schools) only one forty-sixth

Brougham's conclusions from his Committee's statistics.

230

THE EDUCATION BILL OF 1820.

of the population had the means of education'. Lancashire was but little better, having only one-twenty-fourth of the population placed in the way of education. The same proportion held in the six midland counties, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, and Huntingdonshire; and the speaker went on to show that in these counties 20,000 children received free education, while only 18,000 paid anything for their education. Mr Brougham went on to strengthen this apparent argument against free education by showing that in Westmoreland, where one-seventh of the population were receiving education, there were only 48 children educated free out of a total of 2,700 scholars, and that in Scotland there was hardly such a thing as gratuitous education. In the four northern counties the average number receiving education was one-tenth of the population.

It may be pointed out that, assuming that Mr Brougham's figures were really reliable (which is very doubtful), and accepting his assumptions as to the necessary educational proportions, his conclusion against free education is not entirely convincing, for in the counties of Middlesex and Lancaster and in some extent in the midland counties there were other causes, such as the rapid aggregation of population and widespread child labour, that militated against the spread of education. The orator's general conclusion was one that is still echoed by many educationalists to-day: "it was his great object, that whilst measures were adopted for bringing education home to the doors of all, that all should still

pay a little for it." The whole speech was as broadminded as the speech with which Mr Forster introduced the

1 Much educational work among the very poor in London was done a little later by Dissenters. The Christian Instruction Society-founded in 1825 by Baptist and Independent Dissenters-visited about 40,600 families in London and drew many children to school. (See evidence of the Rev. John Blackburn before the Select Committee of 1835. Parliamentary Paper, No. 465, pp. 51-9.)

THE RELIGIOUS COMPROMISE OF 1820.

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Act of 1870; and after such a speech, and in the face of the figures quoted, it is certainly a matter of surprise that the introduction of universal education should have been delayed for more than half a century. The idea of compulsion that underlay the Bill was an adaptation of the idea that was embodied in Mr Whitbread's Bill of 1807.

The first

Four objects of the Bill

of 1820.

Four objects were aimed at in the Bill of 18201. was to plant the school wherever it was needed. Where there was no school, power was to be given to the Grand Jury or to the parson of the parish or to two justices or to five resident householders to lodge a complaint through a special or school sessions of quarter sessions, and to demand the building of the school and the endowment of a mastership. The £20 or £30 a year for the master of the school was to be raised by a tax on the country gentry, whilst the expense of building the school was to fall on the manufacturers, who as a class contributed little to the poor rates. The second object of the Bill was to secure efficient schoolmasters, and it was felt that this could be done by offering a fixed endowment, and by restricting the age of the masters to the limits of twenty-four and forty years, and by only accepting those who were members of the Established Church. The third object of the Bill was to define the class of education to be given. It was provided that at each new appointment of a master to a school, the parson of the parish should "fix the course of teaching according to the state of the parish." In order to attract Nonconformists, it was further provided that the Scriptures alone should be taught, and that no form of worship should be allowed in the school except the Lord's Prayer and other passages of Scripture. This was a distinct foreshadowing of the Cowper-Temple clause of 18702. It was also provided that Church children should attend church, but that Dissenters 1 See Appendix II. pp. 265 et seq., infra.

2 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75, s. 14 (2).

232 THE DISSENTERS AND THE BILL OF 1820.

should take their children to their own churches or chapels. It was further provided that there should be a school meeting on Sunday evening to teach the Catechism to all those who did not object. And it was lastly provided that reading, writing, and arithmetic should be taught in all the schools and to all the children of fit age. The fourth object of the Bill was to relieve the country of part of the expense by making the old endowments in some measure available for modern elementary education. The introducer of the Bill did not propose to clothe or board the children, even when the Trust directed it, as he believed such a provision constituted "a premium for the neglect of prudence and frugality." Mr Brougham estimated that the cost of carrying into effect his Bill "for the better education of the poor in England and Wales" would be £500,000 for the cost of erecting schools and £150,000 a year for maintenance. The Bill caused very great alarm among the Roman Catholics and prominent Dissenters, who believed, or were induced to believe, that it was intended to compel the children of all sects to attend the places of worship of the Established Church1.

On

The history and fate of the Bill is interesting. April 20th, 1820, Mr Brougham announced his intention of introducing the Bill as soon as the Education Digest was completed. The Bill was introduced on Wednesday, June 28th, and was read the first time on July 11th, when the protest of the Dissenters and Roman Catholics was dealt with. The Bill was read a second time on July 12th, and committed. All seemed to be going well, but on July 13th the Committee reported, and it was ordered that the Report should be taken into further consideration on that day six months. This sudden end to the Bill was chiefly due to the opposition of the Dissenters. Indeed Lord Brougham in his evidence before the Select Committee of 1834 definitely stated that he withdrew his Parish School Bill of 1820 in deference to the

1 Hansard, N. S. vol. II. col. 365.

BROUGHAM AND ENGLISH EDUCATION.

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objections of the Dissenters'. There was, however, very little in the Bill that either Dissenters or Roman Catholics who believed in the necessity of education could have objected to at that date.

Educational opinions from 1820 to 1830.

55. The ten years from 1820 to 1830 saw no legislative action on the subject of education, though the public interest in the subject increased year by year, and almost day by day. In 1823 King George IV issued a Letter authorising subscriptions to be given in aid of the educational work of the National Society. The Royal letter resulted in the public subscription of above £28,000, which was applied to the erection, enlargement, and fitting-up of schoolrooms under the National Society's control'. In 1825, when Mr Brougham brought out his Observations on the Education of the People, the interest in the subject was so great that the pamphlet ran through twenty editions in less than a year. The history of education at this period is part of the life of Lord Brougham, whose efforts during half a century, on behalf of all grades of education, were enormous, and who actually as late as 18643 was striving to organise education for the great middle classes. In his fine speech on elementary education in 1820 he had quoted Milton's views on education with respect, and said that "he agreed with one of the wisest men that had ever lived, that to one of the rank to which he alluded, a knowledge of all the languages of the globe could not, in point of utility, be put in competition with an acquaintance with a single mechanical art." These opinions were emphasised in the pamphlet of 1825, where Brougham dwells on the necessity of education for the higher classes. The mechanical arts he strove to bring to the doors of the poorer classes by starting, with the

1 Parliamentary Paper, No. 572, p. 222.

2 Evidence of Mr W. Cotton before the Select Committee of 1834 (Parliamentary Paper, No. 572, Q. 1883-4, p. 140).

3 Hansard, vol. CLXXV. col. 697, 698.

4 Appendix III. p. 257, infra.

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