BREAKING THE OLD SCHOOL TIES:
LIBERAL EDUCATION, THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION,
AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Chet S. Cutick
Susan E. Wagner High School
Staten Island, NY
NEH Summer Seminar 2000
Historical Interpretations of the Industrial Revolution in BritainUniversity of
Massachusetts Dartmouth at the University of Nottingham
I
There are very disparate images of English education in the Victorian era.
First, there are the images in the novels of Charles Dickens such as David Copperfield
and Hard Times. On the other side are images of privileged young boys in tailcoats
and stiff collars at exclusive public schools such as Eton, Harrow, and Rugby as they
were prepared to take their place in the British aristocracy. What is certain during
this time, was the need for education itself. As the industrial revolution expanded,
new technologies demanded a workforce that had, at the very least, a basic literacy, if
not a wider understanding of mathematics, science, and engineering.
Starting in the mid-18th century, the great, and often traumatic, process of
industrialisation began to take hold in Great Britain. This caused a conflict when it
2
came to schools. Growing factories needed children for labour, yet they also were
required an more educated workforce able to handle ever more complex machinery.
Growth in education therefore, would not effect the lowest of classes, but the middle
class, wealthy enough to pay to educate their children.1
This essay aims to look at the changes made during the 19 th century in
England, with a concentration on the exclusive public schools- the institutions that
tended to be slowest in adapting to new needs and challenges. Despite their slow
and often reticent ways, the industrial revolution helped to force changes on even
these most venerable of educational institution of England.
As the 19th century began, the elite public schools of England were well into
their fourth century. While their original role as religious schools was long over,
they were actually in a state of decline.
By the 1860's, the situation called for
government investigation and the Clarendon Commission was formed to look at
what became known as ‘The Nine,” the most exclusive schools in England.2
For generations these schools concentrated on a classical education of Greek,
Latin, religious studies, etc. The rise of industry and of the need for mathematics,
engineering, and science education helped to change the public schools, albeit
1
Michael Sanderson. Education, economic change and society in England 1780-1870.
Cambridge University Press, 1995. Page 5.
Second edition.
3
slowly. For many years, the upper class families on who these institutions depended,
hired private tutors to teach their children in the family home. As more children
survived infancy, the private tutor became untenable– there were too many children.
Boarding schools began to enjoy a resurgence as an answer to this problem. What
also helped, was the advent of a more reliable transportation system, especially the
growth of a passenger rail system. Another factor that helped bring a “new vitality”
to the public schools was the growth of the empire itself. As parents served, or just
travelled abroad, boarding schools were a very convenient place to leave the
children.
II
One of the most famous private boarding schools in England is Eton College,
just over the Thames from Windsor in Berkshire. Founded in 1440 by King Henry
VI, it was originally a religious institution like so many schools. Henry saw Eton as a
place for religious pilgrims, as well as a school. For many years it served such a role,
but by the start of the 17th century its religious importance had waned, yet it’s place
as England’s most exclusive school had been well established.3
The Nine were Charterhouse, Harrow, Eton, Merchant Taylor’s, Rugby, Shrewsbury, St. Paul’s, Westminster,
and Winchester.
2
3
Tim Card. Eton Renewed: A History from 1860 to the pesent day. John Murray (Publishers) Ltd. 1994.
Prologue.
4
During the 18th century, Eton grew, yet its curriculum remained almost
unchaged. All boys were received a truly classical education, all in Latin and Greek.
There was little or no science, mathematics, etc. Sports did begin to play a larger role
in daily school life as football evolved into it’s modern form. Teams in cricket,
rowing, and swimming also were founded. During this time, industrialization is
taking place all around schools such as Eton, yet their curricula remained unchanged
and all but ignored the great changes happening elsewhere in Britain.
For a school like Eton, with a large endowment, change could take place at
quite a leisurely pace. However, for other institutions, such as day grammar schools,
outside pressure would force change. From 1760 to 1815, there was a wave of price
inflation across Britain.
Many schools, supported by wealthy patrons, found
themselves in need of additional income to keep up with rising costs.
Industrialization provided them with that source of capital- the rising middle
commercial class.4
For the first time, the exclusive schools would no longer be the
exclusive province of the landed aristocracy.
The effects on schoooling from this change were threefold.
4
Sanderson, 31.
5

Grammar schools began to change their curricula to meet the needs of a rapidly
changing society. Along with the classic subjects they began to offer commerical
classes.

These new curricula and the new class of students they attracted gave the schools
the opportunity to charge tuition fees. There was a shift from serving the poorer
students to an emphasis on the paying middle class student. This of course, also
help to bring about a polarization in society.

Finally, some of these day schools took the large step of turning themselves into
boarding schools.5
By 1780, the grammar schools that had been charitable institutions to provide
all classes, and both sexes, a basic education, had turned into fee-charging secondary
schools to provide a commercial and classical education for the middle class.
The public schools brought science and maths into their curriculum in a rather
informal way.
Starting in the late 18th century, what can best be described as
“travelling lecturers” toured from town to town delivering talks about all sorts of
scientific topics. Such lectures would include subjects like electricity, pneumatics,
5
Sanderson, 31-32.
6
astronomy, optics, galvanism, and aspects of biology and other human sciences. If a
town had a school, the series of lectures would often be delivered there as well.6
These lecturers charged a fee for their services- one guinea per person. At
Eton, Harrow, and Rugby, any student that could pay, could attend these often
theatrical lectures, as the speakers always carried with them impressive looking
charts, diagrams, and models to create an air of excitement for their audience. The
problem with these events was their rarity. A school might see a science speaker
once every couple of years at best. Not until 1849 was a new approach taken at Eton
and Rugby.
Eton headmaster, S.T. Hawtrey scheduled weekly lectures on science and
natural philosophy by more notable persons in the field beginning in 1849. At a cost
of two shillings, attendance was not compulsory, but provided the basis of an
education more in tune with the industrial age.
Hawtrey also introduced
mathematics to curriculum for the first time.7 By 1857, under pressure from the
Oxford Commission, Winchester made science a compulsory subject, the first of the
great public schools to do so.8
T.W. Banford. The Rise of the Public School: A Study of Boys’ Boarding Schools in England and Wales from
1837 to the Present Day. T. Nelson and Sons. 1967. Page 87.
6
7
Card, prologue.
8
Banford, 32.
7
Despite these efforts, science was still a vary rare sight in such schools. In his
study of public schools, T.W. Banford writes,
It is as though the English heritage did not exist. Newton has died over
130 years before, the Industrial revolution was more than a century old,
and the heroic age of industry associated with Boulton, Watt and
Murdock was already more than fifty years in the past. England was
rapidly being covered by railways, and the great scientific and
industrial spectacle of the Hyde Park Exhibition was a ten-year old
memory. All of this had no effect on the schools whatsoever, and they
were still pursuing the same line that had suited an out-of-date
agricultural society dominated by landowners.9
What was the cause of the failure of these schools to adapt to the educational
demands of the industrial revolution? In many respects, it was more then as Banford
puts it, “sheer obstinacy.”
The public schools had traditionally served the children of the landed
aristocracy.
Subjects such as science, math, engineering were associated with
industry- something that the landed class did not, as they saw it, need to deal with.
Well, if one need not deal with it, why learn it? A rather simple view, but it does fit
the situation well.10 Citing William Gladstone, “...what I feel is, the at the relation of
9
Banford, 89.
10
Banford, 89.
8
pure science, natural science...,and the rest to the old classical training, ought to be
founded on a principle. . .I deny their right to a parallel or equal position; their true
position is ancillary, and [as such] it ought to be limited and restrained...”11
If that was the typical upper class view, there were some who saw the wisdom
of a well-rounded education. Charles Kingsley wrote in 1859, saying that it was
“astonishing that lads should be set to waste seven to ten years in acquiring the
merest rudiments of Classics to be forgotten as soon as they leave....”12
III
For all the problems with science education during the Victorian era, it was
not for a lack of qualified people. Government, industry, and the military had scores
of well qualified scientists, etc. However, such people were not acceptable to the
public schools because they had not the classical education required by such
institutions. The scientific achievement that permeates throughout the industrial era
happened in spite of the lack of formal science education. Finally, by the end of the
11
Banford, 94-95.
12
Banford, 95.
9
19th century, the situation began to change as pressure on the public schools built
from all sides- scientists, radicals, and even royalty.13
Between 1861 and 1864 a Royal Commission on the Public Schools (Clarendon
Commission) investigated nine such schools and the subsequent Public Schools Act
1868 resulted in more representative governing bodies and eventually in a more
flexible curriculum.14 To the schools, it was an unwanted intrusion, but it obvious
that reform was in desperate need.
The Commission issued a report that criticized almost every aspect of the
public school system.
They found poor record keeping of student activity, of
finances, etc. They found problems with general conditions of the physical plants,
with the qualification of teachers, and finally, the curriculum. In Cornhill Magazine,
an Old Etonian named Matthew Higgins (although his time there was brief) wrote,
using the pseudonym, Paterfamilias, about the Commission findings,
Their verdict as respects Eton is simply this: that of all the public
schools of England, it is one at which the British parent pays the most
for the education of his child, and from which he receives the smallest
educational return for his money. The great majority are stated to lead
east pleasant lives spending the majority of their time chiefly in the
Banford, 97-98. The reference to royalty is to Prince Albert, Consort to Queen Victoria. Albert’s interest in
science and engineering was well known. It was his idea and organization that brought about the Great
Exhibition in London’s Crystal Palace in 1851.
13
10
playing-fields and on the river, and not a little of it in the public houses
and taps of the neighbourhood – and if so minded , but not otherwise,
acquiring a faint smattering of the classics in the intervals of play.15
The changes directed by the Commission were slow to take hold. The main
sticking point to real reform in the public schools were the headmasters themselves.
They did not want to see their classical curriculum tampered with. Yet, eventually
these schools saw the implementation of a liberal education, with a much broader
curriculum. How did the change come about? In short, the schools had no other
choice. In his Essays on a Liberal Education, Henry Sidgwick said,
“But the very exclusion and limitations that make the study of language
a better gymnastic than physical science, make it, on the other hand, so
obviously inferior as a preparation for the business of life, that its
present position in education seems, on this group alone, absolutely,
untenable.”16
In 1868, Parliament passed an Act in response to the Public Schools
Commission.
This statute replaced the regulations that had guided the public
schools for centuries. Eton College found itself being ruled from outside its walls,
rather from within. There was opposition, as if the government had taken over a
private business. Yet, there was not other choice. At Eton, a scientist and Fellow of
14
Public Record Office, London. Education: Elementary and Secondary Schools, Domestic Records
Information 65. Internet. http://www.pro.gov.uk/leaflets/ri2172.htm
15
Matthew Higgins. Cornhill Magazine. 6 July 1864. Cited in Card, 45.
11
the Royal Society was place on the Board of Governors. Science finally took a formal
place in the required curriculum, with physical science introduced as regular subject
into the Fifth form in 1869, and for the Remove in 1875.17
The die had been cast, but a lot more remained to be done. The public schools
would continue to fight the expansion of science and mathematics education as they
feared it pushing their beloved classics out. Yet, as mass production had sidelined
the domestic system earlier in the industrial revolution, liberal education would do
the same to classical learning in the most ancient of English schools. From it’s
beginnings in the early 18th century, the process of industrialization swept across
Great Britain and changed almost everything it touched, including education. As
skilled workers protested the building of factories, the traditional teachers and
headmasters of public schools fought against liberal education. The story of the
public schools in the Victorian era is another great chapter in the great sweep of the
industrial revolution.
16
Henry Sidgwick. Essays on a Liberal Education. 1868. Page 133 as cited in Banford, page 109.
17
Banford, 109-110.
12
Works Cited and/or Consulted
Banford, T.W.. The Rise of the Public School: A Study of Boys’ Boarding Schools in
England and Wales from 1837 to the Present Day. London: T. Nelson and Sons.
1967.
Card, Tim. Eton Renewed: A History from 1860 to the pesent day. London: John Murray
(Publishers) Ltd.1994.
Education: Elementary and Secondary Schools, Domestic Records Information 65.
Public Record Office, London.Internet.
http://www.pro.gov.uk/leaflets/ri2172.htm
Honey, John Raymond de Symons. Tom Brown's universe : the development of the
English public school in the nineteenth century. New York : Quadrangle/New
York Times Book Co. 1977.
Sanderson, Michael. Education, economic change and society in England 1780-1870.
Second edition. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Shrosbree, Colin. Public schools and private education : the Clarendon Commission, 186164, and the Public Schools acts. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1988.