A History of Western Educational Ideas by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0713002190
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2002-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Efficiency

The expansion of industrialism and nationalism in Britain during the nineteenth century gave rise to a third element which had an impact on educational thought, namely, the quest for efficiency.

By mid-Victorian times in the 1850s and 1860s, it became clear to reformers and politicians that there were many areas of public life which needed investigating. Parliamentary reform in 1832, the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1836 and the creation of County Courts in 1846 had been early indications of this desire for change. The professions also came under scrutiny; for example, the Medical Act of 1858 which laid down strict rules for qualification to practice. Social issues, such as prostitution and workplace conditions were also subjected to close examination. Centralisation, with the creation of new bodies or departments, was a major feature. The change from patronage to merit in public life was seen in the reorganisation of the Civil Service, which opened the way to promotion through competitive examinations. Such change had many critics. One, Sir James Stephen, a high-ranking, retired official, told the Northcote-Trevelyan Commission that he opposed the new system as 'In every age, and land, and calling, a large share of success has hitherto been awarded to the possession of interest, of connexion, of favour, and of what we call good luck.' Regulation was not the only path pursued. Samuel Smiles' Self Help, which was published in 1859 and became an immediate success, summed up the spirit of the time: that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility for individuals to succeed by their own efforts. In the same year, Darwin's On the Origin of Species appeared. Its message, summed up in Herbert Spencer's phrase, the survival of the fittest, neatly complemented those of Smiles. The mid-Victorian era, therefore, was characterised by a collectivist tendency alongside a regard for laissez-faire principles, a balance which the historian W.L. Burn has called 'The Age of Equipoise'.22

These elements are well-illustrated in attitudes towards education. We have already seen that the Newcastle Commission on Popular Education, reporting in 1861, had recommended the provision of 'sound and cheap elementary education' by the State. Herbert Spencer, in his Social Statistics (1851), had earlier condemned such provision by the State as a totalitarian attempt to mould children into a moral and intellectual pattern:

Legislators exhibit to us the design and specification of a state-machine, made up of masters, ushers, inspectors and councils, to be worked by a due proportion of taxes, and to be plentifully supplied with raw material in the shape of little boys and girls, out of which it is to grind a population of well-trained men and women who shall be 'useful members of society'.23

On the other hand, Matthew Arnold, in his survey Popular Education of France, with notice of that of Holland and Switzerland (1861), believed that the State's greatest service was ensuring that schools were respected as well as inspected. This, he said, was particularly necessary at a time when there was a massive explosion in the population rate and a diminution in the use of child labour in factories.

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