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Education in Victorian England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

John F. C. Harrison
John F. C. Harrison*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Extract

It is a commonplace that the history of education is part of the general social and intellectual history of a period. Yet when we come to recommend to our students good educational histories which embody this precept we find a remarkable dearth of suitable works. All too often what passes for the history of education, or even the social history of education, is a chronological description of institutions with a few references to contemporary social events thrown in. No attempt is made to examine the causal factors affecting the evolution of education, nor to relate the history of education to recent interpretations of a period by other historians. There are of course some very honorable exceptions to this; but by and large the generalization holds true. The combination of qualities and interests required is rare; for most educationists are not trained historians, and most historians know little about education. Consequently the history of education is still at a relatively unsophisticated stage: statistical data is scarce and uneven; many printed sources are rare and difficult to use; and conceptual tools are rudimentary.

Type
Essay Review II
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 1970 , pp. 485 - 491
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 History of Education Quarterly 

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References

Notes

1. Simon, Brian, Studies in the History of Education, 1780–1870 2 vols. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, Ltd., 1960).Google Scholar

2. Stewart, W. A. C. and McCann, W. P., The Educational Innovators, 1750–1880 2 vols. (London and New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967).Google Scholar

3. Harrison, J. F. C., Learning and Living, 1790–1960 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1961).Google Scholar

4. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (London: Gollancz [Victor], Ltd., 1963) p. 12.Google Scholar

5. Especially, Coates, Thomas, Report of the State of Literary, Scientific and Mechanics' Institutions (London, 1841); and Hole, James, An Essay on the History and Management of Literary Scientific and Mechanics' Institutions (London, 1853). Also useful is the Report of the Select Committee on Public Libraries (London, 1849), which has statistical material in the appendixes.Google Scholar

6. Mabel Tylecote, G., The Mechanics' Institutes of Lancashire and Yorkshire before 1851 (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1957); Kelly, Thomas, George Birkbeck (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1957); and Harrison, , Learning and Living. Google Scholar

7. For a useful survey of the causal factors affecting the evolution of education in England, see Lawrence Stone, “Literacy and Education in England, 1640–1900,” Past and Present, No. 42 (February 1969), pp. 69–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar