Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T03:52:21.485Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ecology and Nineteenth Century Urban Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

William E. Marsden*
Affiliation:
School of Education at the University of Liverpool

Extract

The concept of “Ecology” has experienced some notable mutaions, since it was introduced by Ernest Haeckel, the German biologist, in 1869. This paper outlines its growth as a social concept and discusses ways in which an ecological approach can illuminate the study of urban education in the nineteenth century. The first section surveys the development of ecologial principles from their prototypical and still implicit use in the empirical social surveys of the nineteenth century, through their more formal attachment to a theory of urban society in the 1920s, as far as the 1970s when, despite all the vicissitudes faced over the previous half-century, they continued to be accepted as somewhat valid in the explanation of urban society.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References and Notes

1. See McGregor, O.R., “Social Research and Social Policy in the Nineteenth Century,” British Journal of Sociology, 8 (1957): 147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Ashton, T. S., Economic and Social Investigation in Manchester 1833–1933 (London, 1934), pp. 23.Google Scholar

3. Guerry, A. M., Essai sur la Statistique Morale de la France (Paris, 1833).Google Scholar

4. Malthus, T. R., An Essay on the Principle of Population (London, 1798; 5th ed. vol. III, 1817), pp. 199204.Google Scholar

5. See Ashton, , Economic and Social Investigation p. 13; also Butterfield, P. H., “The Educational Researches of the Manchester Statistical Society, 1830–1840,” British Journal of Educational Studies, 22 (1974): 340–5.Google Scholar

6. Cullen, M. J., The Statistical Movement in Early Victorian Britain: the Foundations of Empirical Social Research (New York, 1975) p. 135.Google Scholar

7. See the Reports of the Select Committee Appointed to Enquire into the Education of the Lower Orders of the Metropolis: British Parliamentary Papers (BPP), 1816 (498) IV.1; (427) IV.3; (496) IV.107; (495) IV.165; (497) IV.271; 1817 (479) III.81; 1818 (136) IV.1; (356) IV.3; (426) IV.55; (427) IV.223; (428) IV.367.Google Scholar

8. For a complete list of Reports, see Ashton, , Economic and Social Investigation Appendix C, pp.141–2.Google Scholar

9. For example, On the State of Education in Pendleton 1838 (Manchester, 1839).Google Scholar

10. See Levin, Y. and Lindesmith, A., “English Ecology and Criminology of the Past Century” in Theodorson, G. A. (ed.), Studies in Human Ecology (New York, 1961) pp. 1421; Morris, T., The Criminal Area (London, 1957) pp. 44–51; and Cullen, , The Statistical Movement p. 139.Google Scholar

11. Cullen, , The Statistical Movement, pp. 139–40.Google Scholar

12. Porter, G. R., “The Influence of Education, shown by Facts Recorded in the Criminal Tables for 1845 and 1846,” Journal of the Statistical Society, 10 (1847): 316–44.Google Scholar

13. Rawson, R. W., “An Enquiry into the Condition of Criminal Offenders in England and Wales, with Respect to Education, Journal of the Statistical Society, 3 (1840): 331 and 348–9.Google Scholar

14. Fletcher, J., “Moral and Educational Statistics of England and Wales,” Journal of the Statistical Society, 10 (1847): 193233; 11 (1848): 344–66; 12 (1849); 151–76 and 189–335; also Fletcher, J., Education, National, Voluntary and Free (London, 1851) p. 91.Google Scholar

15. Rawson, , “An Enquiry:” 331 and 348–9.Google Scholar

16. Though subsequent evidence led commentators of the 1850s to be sceptical of this optimism. See Mayhew, H., London Labour and the London Poor (London, 1861); and Clay, J., “On the Relation between Crime, Popular Instruction, Attendance on Religious Worship, and Beer-Houses,” Journal of the Statistical Society, 20 (1857): 22–32. For a brief summary of Clay's paper, see Marsden, W. E., Historical Geography and the History of Education, 6 (1977) pp. 28–9.Google Scholar

17. McGregor, , “Social Research and Social Policy:” 152–3.Google Scholar

18. Danson, J. T., “On the Method, and the Range, of Statistical Inquiry, as applied to the Promotion of Social Science,” Transactions of the Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 3 (1859): 622–8.Google Scholar

19. BPP 1837–8 (589) VII. 157.Google Scholar

20. BPP 1852 (499) XI. 1.Google Scholar

21. On the Educational and other Conditions of a District in Deansgate (Manchester, 1864); On the Educational and other Conditions of a District in Ancoats (Manchester, 1865). These were both compiled by Oats, H. C. See Ashton, , Economic and Social Investigation p. 149.Google Scholar

22. BPP 1870 (91) LIV. 265.Google Scholar

23. See Cullen, , The Statistical Movement pp. 148–9.Google Scholar

24. See Easthope, G., A History of Social Research Methods (London, 1974) pp. 58–9.Google Scholar

25. Ibid. 49. See also Hyde, R., Printed Maps of Victorian London, 1851–1900 (Folkestone, 1975) pp. 2931; and Webb, B., My Apprenticeship (London, 1926) p. 239.Google Scholar

26. Easthope, , A History of Social Research Methods pp. 4950.Google Scholar

27. See Hennock, E. P., “Poverty and Social Theory in England: The Experience of the Eighteen-eighties,” Social History, 1 (1976): 73–5.Google Scholar

28. See Marsden, W. E., “Education and the Social Geography of Nineteenth-Century Towns and Cities,” in Reeder, D. A. (ed.), Urban Education in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1977) pp. 5862.Google Scholar

29. See Pfautz, H. W. (ed.), Charles Booth on the City: Physical Pattern and Social Structure (Chicago, 1967) p. 6.Google Scholar

30. Park, R. E., “The City as a Social Laboratory” in Smith, T. V. and White, L. (eds.), Chicago: an Experiment in Social Science Research (Chicago, 1929) pp. 56. A more accessible source is the R. E. Park collection reprinted under the title Human Communities: the City and Human Ecology (Glencoe, Illinois, 1952) pp. 73–87.Google Scholar

31. Pfautz, , Charles Booth on the City p. 6.Google Scholar

32. Davies, W. K. D., “Charles Booth and the Measurement of Urban Social Character,” Area, 10(1978): 290–2.Google Scholar

33. Ibid: 294–5.Google Scholar

34. Park, , “The City as a Social Laboratory” (1929): 4–5. Note the solecisms on page 5: “followed in 1901 by Rowntree's (sic) more minute study of poverty in New (sic) York;” referring to Rowntree, B. S., Poverty: a Study of Town Life (London, 1901), a survey of conditions in York, England.Google Scholar

35. Park, R. E., “The City as a Natural Phenomenon” (1939), in Human Communities p. 118.Google Scholar

36. Park, R. E., “Human Ecology” (1936), in Human Communities p. 150–1.Google Scholar

37. Ibid. pp. 151–7; also Park, R. E., “Succession: an Ecological Concept” (1936), in Human Communities p. 228; and Park, R. E., “Symbiosis and Socialization: A Frame of Reference for the Study of Society (1939), in Human Communities p. 258.Google Scholar

38. Barrows, H. H., “Geography as Human Ecology,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 13 (1923): 114.Google Scholar

39. Park, R. E., “The Urban Community as a Spatial Pattern and a Moral Order” (1925), in Human Communities pp. 165–6.Google Scholar

40. Ibid. 170.Google Scholar

41. Park, R. E., “Symbiosis and Socialization”, in Human Communities p. 261.Google Scholar

42. Park, R. E., “The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behaviour in the Urban Environment” (1916), in Human Communities p. 17. The spatial emphasis of the Chicago school's work was the orientation of Burgess, E. W., who put forward a concentric model of urban growth. See Park, R. E., Burgess, E. W. and McKenzie, R. D. (eds.), The City (Chicago, 1925) pp. 51–3.Google Scholar

43. Park, R. E., “Human Ecology,” in Human Communities pp. 155–6.Google Scholar

44. See Alihan, M., “‘Community’ and Ecological Studies” (1938), in Theodorson, , Studies in Human Ecology pp. 93–7.Google Scholar

45. See Gettys, W. E., “Human Ecology and Social Theory” (1940), in Theodorson, , Studies in Human Ecology pp. 98103.Google Scholar

46. See Hollingshead, A. B., “A Re-examination of Ecological Theory” (1947), in Theodorson, , Studies in Human Ecology pp. 108–14; also Martindale, D., “The Theory of the City,” Preface to Weber, M., The City (New York, 1958) pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

47. McKenzie, R. D., “The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community,” in Park, , Burgess, and McKenzie, , The City p. 76 and 79.Google Scholar

48. See Pahl, R. E., Whose City? and Further Essays on Urban Society (Harmondsworth, 1975) pp. 237–9.Google Scholar

49. See, for example, Booth, C. (ed.), Life and Labour of the People in London, I (London, 1891) p. 161.Google Scholar

50. See, for example, London, J., The People of the Abyss (London, 1903); Gissing, G., The Nether World (London, 1889); Masterman, C. F. G., “The Social Abyss,” Contemporary Review, 71 (1902): 23–35; “A City very much like Hell,” Pall Mall Gazette, (31st July 1891).Google Scholar

51. Wirth, L., “Human Ecology” (1945), in Theodorson, , Studies in Human Ecology p. 73.Google Scholar

52. Ibid. p. 76.Google Scholar

53. Wirth, L., “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938), in Hatt, P. K. and Reiss, A. J. (eds.), Cities and Society (Glencoe, 1957) pp. 4663.Google Scholar

54. For a summary of Wirth's concept, see Morris, R. N., Urban Sociology (London, 1968) pp. 1619.Google Scholar

55. See, for example, Quinn, J. A., “The Nature of Human Ecology: Reexamination and Redefinition” (1939); and Hawley, A. H., “Ecology and Human Ecology” (1944), both in Theodorson, , Studies in Human Ecology pp. 135–41 and 144–51.Google Scholar

56. Shevky, E. and Bell, W., Social Area Analysis (Stanford, 1955) p. 5. See also Shevky, E. and Williams, M., The Social Areas of Los Angeles: Analysis and Typology (1949: Westport, Conn., 1972 reprint).Google Scholar

57. See Robson, B. T., “View on the Urban Scene,” in Chisholm, M. and Rodgers, H. B. (eds.), Studies in Human Geography (London, 1973) pp. 208–9.Google Scholar

58. Anderson, M., Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire (Cambridge, 1971).Google Scholar

59. Armstrong, W. A., Stability and Change in an English County Town: a Social Study of York, 1801–1881 (Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar

60. See Lawton, R. and Pooley, C.G., The Urban Dimensions of Nineteenth-Century Liverpool (Social Geography of Nineteenth-Century Merseyside Project, Working Paper No. 4, Liverpool, 1975); Lawton, R., “Mobility in Nineteenth Century British Cities,” The Geographical Journal, 145 (1979): 206–24; Pooley, C.G., “The Residential Segregation of Migrant Communities in mid-Victorian Liverpool,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 2 (1977): 364–82.Google Scholar

61. Pritchard, R.M., Housing and the Spatial Structure of the City (Cambridge, 1976).Google Scholar

62. Ward, D., “The Internal Spatial Structure of Immigrant Residential Districts in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Geographical Analysis, 1 (1969): 337–53.Google Scholar

63. Goheen, P.G., Victorian Toronto, 1850–1900 (Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar

64. Katz, M.B., The People of Hamilton, Canada West: Family and Class in a Mid-Nineteenth-Century City (Cambridge, Mass., 1976).Google Scholar

65. See, for example, Filkin, C. and Weir, D., “Locality,” in Gittus, E. (ed.), Key Variables in Social Research, vol. 1 (London, 1972); pp. 106–56; and Castells, M., “Theory and Ideology in Urban Sociology,” in Pickvance, C.G. (ed.), Urban Sociology: Critical Essays (London, 1972); p. 70.Google Scholar

66. Firey, W., “Sentiment and Symbolism as Ecological Variables” (1945); also Jonassen, C.T., “Cultural Variables in the Ecology of an Ethnic Group” (1949); and Myers, J.K., “Assimilation to the Ecological and Social System of a Community” (1950); all in Theodorson, , Studies in Human Ecology; pp. 253–4; 264–73; and 273–9 respectively.Google Scholar

67. See, for example, Kirk, W., “Problems of Geography,” Geography, 48 (1963): 357–71; and Lowenthal, D., “Geography, Experience and Imagination: towards a Geographical Epistemology,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 51 (1961): 241–60.Google Scholar

68. See, for example, Mercer, D., “Behavioural Geography and the Sociology of Social Action,” Area, 4 (1972): 4852; Harvey, D., “Social Processes and Spatial Form: an Analysis of the Conceptual Problems of Urban Planning,” in Jones, E. (ed.), Readings in Social Geography (Oxford, 1975); pp. 288–306; Relph, E., “An Enquiry into the Relations between Phenomenology and Geography,” The Canadian Geographer, 14 (1970): 193–201; Tuan, Yi-fu, “Geography, Phenomenology and the Study of Human Nature,” The Canadian Geographer, 15 (1971): 181–92; Tuan, Yi-fu, “Structuralism, Existentialism, and Environmental Perception,” Environment and Behavior, 4 (1972): 319–31: Buttimer, A., “Grasping the Dynamism of Lifeworld,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 66 (1976): 277–92.Google Scholar

69. See Billinge, M., “In Search of Negativism: Phenomenology and Historical Geography,” Journal of Historical Geography, 3 (1977): 57, and 60–1.Google Scholar

70. Buttimer, A., Values in Geography, (American Association of Geographers Commission on College Geography Resource Paper No. 24, 1974): 21–4.Google Scholar

71. Buttimer, A., “Social Space in Interdisciplinary Perspective,” Geographical Review, 59 (1969): 418–20.Google Scholar

72. Buttimer, A., “Social Space and the Planning of Residential Areas,” Environment and Behavior, 4 (1972): 286.Google Scholar

73. Goheen, , Victorian Toronto; p. 41, argues that serious thinking about the properties of scale should provide a new focus for ecological study.Google Scholar

74. Thus Sweetser, F.L., “Ecological Factors in Metropolitan Zones and Sectors,” in Dogan, M. and Rokkan, S. (eds.), Quantitative Ecological Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 413–56, argues for three levels of ecological study: the inner city (or urban); urban-suburban (metropolitan); and rural-urban (regional).Google Scholar

75. For relations between occupational stratification and spatial distributions see, for example, Duncan, O.D. and Duncan, B., “Residential Distribution and Occupational Stratification,” American Journal of Sociology, 60 (1955): 493503, which supports the notion that spatial and social distances are closely related, especially at the extremes of the social scale; Clark, J.D. son, “Ecology and Spatial Analysis,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 60 (1970): 700–16; Uyeki, E.S., “Residential Distribution and Stratification” (1964), in Peach, C. (ed.), Urban Social Segregation (London, 1975); pp. 82–3.Google Scholar

76. Robson, , “View on the Urban Scene.” 222.Google Scholar

77. Ibid: 217.Google Scholar

78. In Hinsley, F.H. (ed.), Material Progress and World-wide Problems 1870–1898 (New Cambridge Modern History, 11; Cambridge, 1962); p. 177.Google Scholar

79. Eggleston, J., The Ecology of the School (London, 1977); pp. 15–6 and 111–2.Google Scholar

80. Katz, M.B., “Comment” (on urban education) History of Education Quarterly, 9 (1969): 326–7. See also Katz, M.B., “The Emergence of Bureaucracy in Urban Education: the Boston Case, 1850–1884” History of Education Quarterly, 8 (1968): 157.Google Scholar

81. See, for example, Katz, M.B., “Who went to School?History of Education Quarterly, 12 (1972): 433; Katz, M.B. and Davey, I.E., “School Attendance and Early Industrialization in a Canadian City: a Multivariate Analysis,” History of Education Quarterly, 18 (1978): 271–93; Denton, F.T. and George, P.J., “Socioeconomic influences on School Attendance: a Study of a Canadian County in 1871,” History of Education Quarterly, 14 (1974): 223–33.Google Scholar

82. Kaestle, C.F. and Vinovskis, M.A., Education and Social Change in Nineteenth-century Massachusetts (Cambridge, 1980); p. 1.Google Scholar

83. Stephens, W.B., Regional Variations in Education during the Industrial Revolution 1780–1870: the Task of the Local Historian (Educational Administration and History Monograph No. 1, Leeds, 1973).Google Scholar

84. See Marsden, W.E., “Education and Social Geography:” 4973; “Social Environment, School Attendance and Educational Achievement in a Merseyside Town 1870–1900,” in McCann, P. (ed.), Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1977); pp. 193–230; “Census Enumerators' Returns' Schooling and Social Areas in the Late Victorian Town: a Case Study of Bootle,” in Lowe, R. (ed.), New Approaches to the Study of Popular Education, 1851–1902 (History of Education Society Occasional Publication No. 4, Leicester, 1979); pp. 16–33; “Variations in Educational Provision in Lancashire during the School Board Period,” Journal of Educational Administration and History, 10 (1978): 15–30.Google Scholar

85. See, for example, Briggs, A., “The Study of the History of Education” History of Education, 1 (1972): 7; Cohen, S., “The History of Urban Education in the United States: Historians of Education and their Discontents,” in Reeder, , Urban Education; p. 123; Frith, S., “Socialization and Rational Schooling: Elementary Education in Leeds before 1870,” in McCann, , Popular Education; pp. 88–9; Silver, H., “Aspects of Neglect: the Strange Case of Victorian Popular Education,” Oxford Review of Education, 3 (1977): 58.Google Scholar

86. Of the American texts on the history of urban education in recent years, those most nearly approaching ecological study at the community level are perhaps Schultz, S.K., The Culture Factory: Boston Public Schools, 1789–1860 (New York, 1973); and Kaestle, C.F., The Evolution of an Urban School System: New York City, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973); pp. 75–90.Google Scholar

87. Billinge, , “In Search of Negativism.” 66.Google Scholar

88. Gregory, D., “The Discourse of the Past: Phenomenology, Structuralism and Historical Geography,” Journal of Historical Geography, 4 (1978): 164–5.Google Scholar

89. See Cook, E.M. Jr.Geography and History: Spatial Approaches to Early American History,” Historical Methods, 13 (1980): 26; and Clifford, G.J., “History as Experience: the Uses of Personal History Documents in History of Education,” History of Education, 7 (1978): 189–90.Google Scholar

90. Samuel, R., “Local History and Oral History,” History Workshop Journal, 1 (1976): 195 and 199.Google Scholar

91. Briggs, A., “The Human Aggregate,” in Dyos, H.J. and Wolff, M. (eds.), The Victorian City: Images and Realities, Vol. 1 (London, 1973); p. 100.Google Scholar

92. See Cowlard, A., “The Identification of Social (Class) Areas and their Place in Nineteenth-century Urban Development,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 4 (1979): 254–5; also Booth, C., “Life and Labour of the People in London: First Results of an Inquiry based on the 1891 Census,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 56 (1893): 591.Google Scholar

93. Kaestle, and Vinovskis, , Education and Social Change; pp. 12.Google Scholar

94. Ibid, pp. 146–8 and 178–9.Google Scholar

95. As in, for example, Katz, and Davey, , “School Attendance and Early Industrialization;” and Kaestle, and Vinovskis, , Education and Social Change; p. 90. A more “atmospheric” work in this context is Rubinstein, D., School Attendance in London, 1870–1904: a Social History (Hull, 1969).Google Scholar

96. See Clifford, , “History as Experience:” 183–96.Google Scholar

97. Parsons, C., Schools in an Urban Community: a Study of Carbrook, 1870–1965 (London, 1978). This study of a Sheffield slum community is a pioneer work, making good use of personal testimonies and detailed school records, and is at an appropriate scale for a true grassroots feel to emerge. It lacks, however, the methodological sophistication, apropos inter-relating socio-economic grouping and school take-up, for example, that is so strong a feature of the works cited by Katz and Davey, and Kaestle and Vinovskis. Another British study, Wardle, D., Education and Society in Nineteenth-century Nottingham, (Cambridge, 1971), while a good example of a national history “writ small,” fails to establish the connections at any detailed ecological level.Google Scholar

98. Charlton, K., “History and Sociology: Afterthoughts and Prior Questions,” in Cook, T.G. (ed.), History, Sociology and Education (London, 1971); p. 58.Google Scholar

99. Castells, , “Theory and Ideology in Urban Sociology:” 83.Google Scholar

100. See Hobsbawm, E.J., “From Social History to the History of Society,” Daedalus, 100 (1971): 26.Google Scholar

101. As in Marsden, “Social Environment:” 193230; and “Census Enumerators' Returns, Schooling and Social Areas:” 16–33.Google Scholar

102. Most of this aggregate information has been supplied by Pooley, C.J., and thanks are due to him and to R. Lawton for providing access to information on Bootle from the “Social Geography of Nineteenth-century Merseyside” Project research.Google Scholar

103. See Dyos, H.J., “The Slums of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies, 11 (1967): 25.Google Scholar

104. Wohl, A.S., The Eternal Slum: Housing and Social Policy in Victorian London (London, 1977); pp. 89 and 305–6.Google Scholar

105. This accords with Anderson, , “Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire:” 101.Google Scholar

106. Bootle Times (April 25th 1883).Google Scholar

107. B.T. (October 18th 1890).Google Scholar

108. Bootle School Board Minutes, September 19th 1872.Google Scholar

109. National Society Records, St. John's, Bootle, file. Letter dated June 19th 1867.Google Scholar

110. B.S.B. Minutes, March 16th 1871.Google Scholar

111. Quoted in B.S.B. Minutes of the School Fees Committee, October 19th 1871.Google Scholar

112. Bootle Times, March 29th 1879.Google Scholar

113. A map illustrating this can be found in Marsden, , “Social Environment:” 206.Google Scholar

114. Similarly, , in ibid. 210.Google Scholar

115. For a discussion of problems of interpreting the “scholar” category in the census enumerators' returns, see Marsden, “Census Enumerators' Returns, Schooling and Social Area:” 18 and 20.Google Scholar

116. See Marsden, , “Social Environment:” 222.Google Scholar

117. See Marsden, , “Education and Social Geography:” 63–4.Google Scholar

118. Marsden, , “Social Environment:” 221.Google Scholar

119. See Marsden, W.E., “Traveling to School: Aspects of Nineteenth-century Catchment Areas,” Geography, 65 (1980): 1926.Google Scholar

120. St. Alexander's Boys' Log Book, March 15th 1872.Google Scholar

121. Ibid. June 22nd 1872.Google Scholar

122. Ibid. September 5th 1872.Google Scholar

123. Ibid. November 22nd 1872.Google Scholar

124. Ibid. September 7th 1876.Google Scholar

125. St. John's Girls' Log Book, March 18th 1899.Google Scholar

126. Bootle Times (June 7th 1902).Google Scholar

127. See Marsden, , “Variations in Educational Provision:” 27.Google Scholar

128. See Hurt, J.S., Elementary Schooling and the Working Classes 1860–1918 (London, 1879); Part Two.Google Scholar

129. Bootle Times (24 January 1885).Google Scholar

130. St. John's Girls' Log Book, April 30th 1908.Google Scholar

131. Quoted in ibid. 16th March 1900.Google Scholar

132. Telling evidence of this can be found in Roberts, R., The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (Manchester, 1971).Google Scholar

133. It must be stressed that the choice of a slum area for this microecological study should not be taken to imply that it is to this type of environment only that ecological principles are applicable. They can equally well be applied to respectable lower middle/upper working class neighbourhoods or to affluent suburbs.Google Scholar