Education in Victorian Britain

Timeline

1833Factory Act

Restriction of children’s employment in factories and

support for schooling

Late 18th centurySunday Schools

provided for basic learning

1870Education Act

Establishment of a system of schools

1880Education Act 2

Compulsory school for

children aged 5-10

1891Education free for

children

Historical overview

• In the late 18th century, Sunday schools were held at church, supported financially by the middle class.They provided children from poor families with opportunity to receive some basic learning, usually the ability to read. Then the promoters of Sunday schools became involved in setting up schooling in the growing industrial towns.

• 1833 – The Factory Act restricted the employment of children in factories and a state grant was approved to support schooling. This made it clear that there was a duty on the government ‘to promote the religious and moral education of the labouring classes’. In particular it was felt that literacy needed to be extended so that working people had the power to understand their responsibilities as citizens.

• 1870 – The Education Act established a system of 'school boards' to build and manage schools in areas where they were needed.

• In 1880 a further Education Act finally made school attendance compulsory between the ages of five and ten

• Education became free for all children in 1891

Useful links

• http://www.channel4.com/learning/microsites/Q/qca/victorians/schools.html

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/victorian_britain/victorian_schools/

A Victorian class• Classes were very large, with 40/50 pupils• Boys and girls sat separatedly• Children sat in rows and the teacher sat at a desk facing the

class. At the start of the Victorian age, most teachers were men, but later many women trained as teachers.

• Teachers were poorly paid. Older children often helped them.

• Most children wrote on slates (=lavagna di ardesia). They wiped their slates clean by spitting on it or rubbing with their coat sleeve or finger! Older children learnt to write in ink on paper. It was difficut to write without leaving blots on the paper.

A Victorian class

Methods and subjects

• The Victorians valued facts more than imagination• The education system was based on Utilitarian

theories• Lessons were based on the four 'R's - reading, 'riting,

religion and 'rithmetic.• Children were often taught by copying and repeating

what the teacher told them. Lessons included teaching in right and wrong, cleanliness and the Christian religion.

Rules and punishments

• Discipline in schools was often strict. Children were beaten for even minor wrongdoings, with a cane, on the hand or bottom.

• A teacher could also punish a child by making them stand in the corner wearing a 'dunce's cap‘ or a label saying what they had done.

• Another, very boring, punishment was writing 'lines'. This meant writing out the same sentence (such as 'Schooldays are the happiest days of my life' 100 times or more).

• Obedient children were given prizes

From “Hard Times”

Quotes from “A Man of Realities” (“Hard Times”)

Description of MR GRADGRIND• A man of fact and calculations• With a rule and a pair of scales and a multiplication table

always in his pocket, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature and tell you exactly what it comes to

• Cannon loaded […]with FACTS and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge

• A galvanizing apparatus charged with grim mechanical substitute for the tender imaginations that were to be stormed away

Methods and subjects

“the little pitchers before him […] were to be filled so full of facts” from “Hard Times”

DEFINITIONSCALCULATIONS

FACTS

UNIFORMITY

LACK OF DIVERSITYMONOTONY

REALITY

BLACK AND WHITE

CHILDRENimagination

feelingsspontaneity

innocencebright colours

magic

fantastic stories

individuality and diversity

lively mind

What’s a horse according to Mr Gradgrind?

‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.'

What’s a horse according to Sissy?

affection tendernessthe circus

warm feeling enjoymentsoftness

strengthneigh

her father

Marc Chagall, “Le cirque”