Education by Class, Gender and Religion in the Victorian Era - Essay Example

Education by Class, Gender and Religion in the Victorian Era Introduction The Victorian era was a time of great innovation and advancement in technology, sciences, agriculture and, last not least, education for the masses. More and more workers were needed to fill jobs in the manufacturing centres in towns and cities and fewer people worked in agriculture. The pace of change during the long reign of Queen Victoria was probably comparable with the pace of change we currently experience, with the only difference that this is often little understood in modern times. The Victorian era is often wrongly regarded as a time when little progress was made and many people were forced to abide by stifling moral codes and attitudes. However, at the end of the Victorian era in 1901 Britain would have been unrecognisable to people who had only experienced the beginning of the age when Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837. A particularly profound change occurred in the approach to the education of children from different class backgrounds. Pre-standardised education At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1837 there was no government monitored or otherwise standardised education system in place and education was neither compulsory nor free of charge for young children from the age of five to ten prior to 1891. By that time, schools were also generally subject to government inspection. In 1840, for example, 67 percent of the men and 51 percent of the young women were able to sign their name in the marriage register, clearly indicating the difference of even basic literacy between the genders and also showing the level of general literacy within the population. Towards the end of the Victorian Age those figures had reached almost 100 percent for both sexes. Similarly, in 1834 only 16 percent of the five to fourteen year old children went to public schools, and in 1900 that figure had risen to 100 percent. A huge shift in the approach to mass education clearly had occurred in the 60 years that had passed since the first data sample had been collected. In early Victorian times, children from a working class background would not generally receive any form of formal education. Children from wealthier backgrounds would receive private tuition at home provided by nannies for the youngest students and later perhaps by a governess at home. Boys, on reaching the age of 10 (or in some cases as young as seven) would then be sent to a boarding school to receive a more formal education, perhaps to open a career for them as a lawyer, clergyman or doctor. Elite boarding schools included Eton, Harrow and Rugby – and they still flourish today. The curriculum was typically centred on studies of the classical Greek and Latin languages, and the culture and history of ancient Greece and Rome, combined with philosophy, mathematics and sciences. Girls from wealthier backgrounds tended to be kept at home where they were taught how to become ‘accomplished’ young ladies. Female accomplishments included painting, sewing, perhaps playing a musical instrument, deportment and dance, and how to run a home and family (rather than how to do housework, which would have been a task for their servants). Children from a poorer background often only received a very basic tuition in the three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic which was often provided by so-called ‘Dame’ schools. Dame Schools were typically run by widows or elderly women who needed an additional source of income and who would charge a small fee for the tuition of the children, however, there was no training for the school mistress and therefore no concept of any educational standards that should be achieved. Working class parents often had no choice but to put their children into this kind of establishment as poor working class parents both had to work to achieve an adequate income for their families to survive, and there were no alternative child day care institutions. Early Beginnings of Standardised Education In the late 18th century, the idea of a Sunday school to teach children from a poor background slowly began to take hold. Although the very first Sunday School in England was probably founded by Theophilus Lindsey in 1770 in Essex, Robert Raikes and Thomas Stock are generally credited with starting the Sunday School concept. They opened their first school in Gloucester in 1780 and their pattern for education was soon copied all over England, with 2 million students attending Sunday School in 1850. Raikes’ and Stock’s example led clergy and laypeople to establish similar schools throughout England, thus establishing the Sunday School Movement. By 1800, 200,000 children were enrolled in English Sunday schools, and by 1850, this number had risen to 2 million. The perceived benefit was manifold: Sunday school was a means of teaching order and discipline to working class children who would otherwise not attend any kind of school establishment, it had the obvious benefit of teaching them the basics in the three R’s and they received instructions in the Christian faith, an important aspect in a society where the large majority of people attended church on a regular basis every Sunday. It was also thought to be important and desirable that children who may have spent the entire week working, needed a structure that kept them away from mixing in bad company and spending their Sundays without any adult supervision and without any moral guidance. It should be noted that education for the working class was not entirely seen as a positive thing, as division between the classes was strict and opinions from the establishment were voiced that poor people might forget their station in life if they received an education that was deemed to be “above their station”. A short-sighted concept, which tried to force people to remain in the class of their birth, irrespective of any individual talent, ability and intelligence. In the early days of Sunday School, adults were also encouraged to attend in order to promote literacy among the population in general. When Sunday Schools grew in size and numbers, the Church of England began to sponsor the Schools in order to be able to influence the curriculum and thus establish an early form of standardised education for the masses. Ragged and Industrial Schools Ragged schools had their origins in charitable organisations to provide schooling for the poorest children whose parents were unable to find the money even for the low fees typically charged at Dame Schools, or for homeless children and orphans. Again, private initiatives meant that there was no standardized education available but in the 19th century growing concerns for the welfare of the poorest members of society meant that the ragged school system became more regulated and received public funding. The Ragged School Union was founded in 1844 and was chaired by Lord Shaftesbury. The idea that schooling should be provided to prevent the poorest children from sliding into a life of crime began to take hold slowly. With no money or food, and nowhere to go and find shelter, many children were practically forced to embark on a career of petty crime and theft just to feed themselves. Victorian punishments were extremely harsh even if a theft had been committed out of sheer hunger, the motive that led to the theft was often regarded as secondary. Ragged schools could provide a basic education and some training towards a trade that could lift the children out of a life of poverty and no hope for the future. Industrial schools were also started with the idea of preventing a life of crime for the poorest children. The first industrial school was founded in 1846 in Aberdeen, Scotland and their aim was to teach the children a trade. Again, even at this basic level of education, the split between the genders was maintained: boys learned the skills of a trade that had prospects of a better income, such as metalwork, gardening or tailoring, girls very generally taught to sew, do the laundry and housework to prepare them for a life as a domestic servant, seamstress or laundress – all of these jobs were very badly paid. Reformatory schools finally were set up to train juvenile offenders who had already begun a life of crime in an attempt to give their lives a new direction. New legislation was passed in 1857 when the Industrial Schools Act was passed, followed by a further Act in 1861, adding different categories of children to the scope of the Industrial and Reformatory schools. The 1870 Education Act provided for School Boards for any area which voted for this system. The board schools were still charging fees but also received grants and subsidies from the government. Schools operating under this system looked after children of primary school age. Gender and Class It is interesting to note that gender differences were defined quite differently depending on the class and social background of the individual. Middle and upper class females were deemed to be too delicate to be exposed to work and life outside the home and they were generally expected to live a life of half leisure and grace within the domestic sphere, albeit with little or no independence. Their options to work outside the home were extremely limited and amounted to a very few acceptable and “respectable” occupations, such as teaching. Working class women, on the other hand, whilst also being subjected to a different and inferior level of education to that of their men folk, were absolutely expected to go out and earn a wage to help support their often large families. Somehow, the Victorian concept of female delicacy and genteelness did not seem to apply to women of the lower classes. Childhood for working class boys and girls was short and was not really seen entirely different from adulthood. Children from a working class background were given chores from a young age and were expected to contribute to the household income as soon as they could usefully be employed outside the home. Lack of education, strict gender roles and the enforcement of Christian values on behaviour meant that there were few choices and the class as well as the gender an individual was born into clearly defined their options or lack of them throughout their lives. Women in particular accepted a life of obedience, never criticising their “elders and betters”. But in general, Victorian children were raised to be conformist and obedient to tradition which included the acceptance of their station in life. Society in general approved of this behaviour and a person’s background was more often than not regarded as God given. Conservative Christian values could be enforced via the Sunday School system to make sure that the status quo in society was upheld. The question of qui bono? remains. A society which wastes the talent, skills and intelligence of the majority of the population can remain stable for a long time provided that all societies in neighbouring countries adopt a similar modus operandum. However, fast development and change cannot be achieved by adhering to a strict system which emphasises conformity and conservatism. Benjamin Parsons argued in 1842 that the definition of woman as a help meet for man was never meant to be interpreted as an instruction to place women in the inferior role of domestic cleaner and washer woman to the family. He emphasised the importance of an education to women so that they are able to fulfill their tasks in a meaningful manner, if only to enable them to be true intellectual companions to their husbands and to give proper guidance to their children. Education provided to middle class women was slowly changing to include academic subjects. The North London Collegiate School opened its doors in 1850. This was the first college for women based on academic subjects but was at that time of course only aimed at girls from wealthier families. In 1873 Girton College in Cambridge was the first college founded for the further education of women. The education for the general population, however, remained firmly divided along gender roles: girls were trained in sewing, cooking, housekeeping and childcare in addition to the three R’s. The idea of mass education clearly did not mean that all students – male and female – were to be given the same lessons. The industrial revolution triggered changes in a system that had outlasted its usefulness, and highlighted the inherent flaws in the perceived gender roles. Women who belonged to the growing middle class were increasingly forced to become inactive outside the domestic sphere by being forced into a role of ‘genteelness’ and working class women were increasingly needed to contribute to the family income. Both scenarios put severe limitations to the women’s lives and the inequality of their life experiences eventually led to the suffragette movement calling for the women’s right to vote. The Industrial Revolution The Victorian Age was a time of enormous technological and scientific developments. Fewer people were needed to work the land, and a higher percentage of the population moved to towns and cities. In addition, the enclosure laws which forced land owners to fence off land for grazing had forced many smallholders to leave their rural homes and try to find employment in towns near factories. This triggered new problems: the cohesiveness of small agricultural communities was shattered and the dependence on badly paid work in factories led to slum conditions in the growing towns. The health and life expectancy rate of the working class deteriorated markedly at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, because there were no regulations in place to ensure the welfare of the workforce and the proper education of their children. The laissez faire type of early capitalism spelt enormous profits for factory owners but did not require them to develop a social consciousness that would have triggered them to employ some kind of trickle down effect whereby the workers could have enjoyed a share of this new wealth. It was realised eventually that a policy of non-interference or laissez faire, as propagated by Adam Smith, would in all probability not lead to a healthy and self-regulating balance among the classes. A series of reforms was put in place to improve the situation. As early as 1833 The Mills and Factories Act provided that young children should attend school for at least two hours per day, in 1845 this was increased to three hours per day for the children of textile workers. The Education Act in 1870 made elementary education compulsory for children up to the age of ten. Children now had the chance of a proper education and the existing patchy school system which comprised Sunday Schools, Ragged Schools and Dame Schools was replaced by schools offering basic but standardized education which was offered free of charge from the 1890s. It was also recognised that adults needed to be trained in skills that could be used in the work place and first evening classes were set up in the middle of the 19th century, initially only for men as women were deemed to be busy working in the home. The Industrial Revolution also triggered a change in the electoral system. Up to 1832 only male landowners were eligible to vote but the Reform Bill of 1832 included the middle class in the voting system. Ultimately the new Industrial Age called for more skilled workers and therefore demanded an educational system that was able to provide them. The Influence of Religion As I have already demonstrated above, education, in particular for the poor, had strong links to the church and therefore to religious contents. Most people in Victorian England (and the overwhelming majority of the population belonged to the Christian faith) would have attended church at least once a week for Sunday worship. Sunday Schools provided an additional link to the community and children would receive a basic education together with the catechism and stories from the Bible. Religious content found its way into schools also in more unusual ways – the standard English Grammar used in many schools up to the end of the nineteenth century had been written by Lindley Murray, a member of the Evangelical movement, in 1795, and contained many references to the Bible and biblical stories. In the absence of recorded music of every style and type we are used to in the 21st century, most people would have only heard music during church service and would therefore be most familiar with hymns and music with a religious content. Many books available to the public and distributed via public libraries would also include religious content and debate so that religious texts would be very familiar to most literate people. The conservative influence of the church imbued an attitude of obedience in people who were told to be satisfied with their station in life and that obedience and good and moral conduct would ensure them a reward in heaven. We can conclude that the role of the church was not unambiguous: on the one hand, Sunday Schools and the involvement of the church in running and organiing them played a big role in increasing literacy and numeracy levels of the Victorian working class, but the subject matter taught to these children would have been geared towards maintaining the status quo in society which included the strict division and adherence to traditional class and gender roles. Conclusion At the end of the Victorian Age, many modern features of mass education had been put in place. Girls and boys went to the same schools to receive their primary education, although often subjects and classes were still divided according to gender. Children’s working hours became increasingly regulated and children received a certain degree of protection enshrined in law. This was, of course, an ongoing process, but the Victorian Age first saw a development of a social conscience that sought to lift people out of a life of abject poverty and hopelessness by trying to put into place measures to help them to improve their circumstances. Access to education and the setting of standards were important milestones in this process. 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