Education

Abstract

An 1870 Punch cartoon depicts W. E. Forster addressing five urchins: ‘Well, my little people, we have been gravely and earnestly considering whether you may learn to read. I am happy to tell you that, subject to a variety of restrictions, conscience clauses, and the consent of your vestries — you may!’ In retrospect, Forster’s Act can be seen as the fulcrum of nineteenth-century educational development; despite the cartoonist’s barb, it provided viable answers to the two main questions which had bedevilled the issue from the beginning of the century:

• 1 To what extent ought the poor to be educated, assuming that they should be?

• 2 What form of provision was needed to effect it, a national or a voluntary system?