Hi Tor,
Among old-timers on FW, I think we can speak bluntly, so please don't take
offence at the following.
At 04:27 11/08/00 +0200, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I think that Keith Hudson wrote that the educational standard of England
>was better about 1870 than today.
>I looked up some numbers about this in a history book called "Ruling
>Britannia" written by Glyn Williams & John Ramsden, published by Longman
>in 1990.
>>From page 280: "In 1869 about 30 per cent of children were at schools
>receiving government grants and inspected by government officers to
>ensure efficiency, about 23 per cent were at schools without grants and
>inspection, and the rest were not at school at all - mainly in the
>expanding cities. Most schools were run by voluntary bodies, mainly
>those associated with the Church of England."
I don't know where the above authors get their dubious statistics from but
there are all sorts of ways of manipulating figures using school-leaving
ages and this is what they've done in my opinion. Indeed, it was by
manipulating these in Parliament that the civil service and some members of
the Government brought in State education in the first place.
But let me quote figures which are unequivocal. They are not statistics so
much as statements of fact. The Royal Commission on Popular Education
reported that, in 1861, there were 2,535,462 children at school out of a
school-age population of 2,655,767. On my calculator that works out at
95.47% -- as opposed to the 53% for 1869 implied by Williams and Ramsden.
The Registrar General at the time wrote the following:
" . . . the number of children under tuition at the present time [1869] . .
. is not far short of the highest proportion practicable." (quoted in E. G.
West, "Education and the Industrial Revolution", 1975)
>In the long run it was the secularised board schools, paid by the
>government, which gave all English children the opportunity to attend
>school.
I'm sorry, it was absolutely not the case. As I've already shown above, all
English schoolchildren already had an opportunity to attend school (except
for brief periods during harvest-times in the countryside when parents
drafted their children into the local farms for a few days) and were doing
so at the 95% level. Indeed, even half a century earlier, the
Parliamentary enquiry into the education of children "Report on the
Education of the Lower Orders" (1816) found that:
"Your Committee are happy in being able to state, that in all returns, and
in all other information laid before them, there is the most unquestionable
evidence that the anxiety of the poor for education continues not only
unabated, but daily increasing; that it extends to all parts of the country."
And, as a reminder, all of this was schooling was fee-paying, except for
the very poorest parents who were subsidised by the rest.
>"Overall educational provision improved and illiteracy which had been a
>major problem now declined." (page 281)
It did not and the literacy rate didn't change when the State schools came
in. By 1882, despite large and growing expenditures by the government, the
3,200 government schools were half-empty with well over 1,000,000 excess
places. Why? Because the standard of education in the fee-paying church
schools and the charity schools was so much higher.
>TABLE 15.1 Growth in Educational Provisions
>
>Year Government Expenditure Numbers in Inspected Schools
>1870 �1.6 m. 1.7 m.
>1880 �4.0 m. 3.6 m.
>1890 �5.8 m. 4.7 m.
>1900 �12.2 m. 5.7 m.
>
>It is evident that it was the state which built an educational system in
>England which reached the whole population.
The above chart should be headed "TABLE 15.1 Growth in Educational
EXPENDITURE" which is an entirely different kettle of fish.. I think I've
already explained why government expenditures went up -- because the
nation-state ideologists of their day* spent public funds like a man with
no arms to encourage children into State education. This didn't succeed so
the Government spent even more money in the years following 1891 by making
education free. This finally swamped the church and charity schools.
>And it is really bad if it
>is breaking down. But I guess that the situation today is still better
>than back in 1870, when illiteracy was a major problem.
I'm glad you're guessing now, Tor, but you're still wrong. Not only was the
literacy rate higher in 1870 than it is now, it was almost the same as now
(as regards boys) 145 years earlier! (This was at a time when mostly boys
went to school because, as future mothers, girls were considered not to
need education) In 1725, the literacy rate among men was 63% and 38% among
women. (R. S. Schofield, "Dimensions of Illiteracy: Explorations in
Economic History, 1973, Vol 10)
>Teachers' wages have rather low in Norway for some years now, and few
>students have gone to the Teachers Training Colleges, but this year the
>government began a four year escalating plan to improve the wages of
>primary school teachers, and this year the wages grew by 30.000
>Norwegian kroner, that is about 4.000 US dollars.
I don't doubt your information about Norway, Tor! It's interesting that the
Norwegian gvoernment are having exactly the same difficulties as ours.
They'll buy their way out of trouble for a while but at the end of the day
the situation will become worse and graduates won't enter State education
at almost any price.
Keith
* These were nation-state ideologists, not educational ones. (We've
suffered both sorts since then!) They were on a State education jag because
they were frightened of the economic strength of France and Prussia where
State education had been started since about 1830. Curiously (or perhaps
not so curiously), Britain's relative economic strength began to decline
from 1891 onwards!
>
>
>--
>All the best
>Tor F�rde
>http://home.sol.no/~torforde/
>email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
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