This groundbreaking book combines a historical interpretation of Victorian educational debate with a critical overview of contemporary educational thought. Traces the roots of contemporary educational practice in the values of Victorian thinking Combines detailed consideration of Victorian sources, literary and non-literary, with reflections on their legacy in the 21st century Reflects on questions of social class, religion, and gender as the Victorians defined them in relation to educational ideals Suggests challenging connections between literary and social history and contemporary dilemmas
This study, first published in 1980, argues that higher education for women was accepted by the end of the nineteenth-century, and higher education was becoming a desirable preparation for teachers in girls’ schools. By accepting the opponents’ claim that higher education for women had the potential to revolutionise relations between the sexes, this fascinating book demonstrates how the relevance of the nineteenth-century serves to enhance our understanding of the contemporary women’s movement. This title will be of interest to students of history and education.
In the Victorian era it was said that a gentleman was one who had been to a public school or who successfully concealed the fact that he had not. Public schools were in the business of producing leaders - in national government, in the Empire, and in the armed forces. Their impact on society was immense, and they provided the vehicle by which the sons of the middle classes could be assimilated into the gentry. Part of the price, however, was a general casting out of the local boys for whom so many of the schools had been established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This title includes information on school rebellions, the role of the chapel and the prefect system (still found in many private schools of the US today), the impact of the railways, the education of middle class girls and the legacy of the Victorian public school on schools in both Great Britain and North America today.
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.
Providing comparative and international contexts to understand the history of the making of the teacher in Victorian England, this is a compelling account of the development during this time of teacher training, inspections and certification - reforms which shaped the good teacher as a modern and moral individual.
Education in Britain can be traced back to Roman times, but it was not until Victorian times that provision was made in England and Wales for every child to have an elementary school place, whatever their background. After new buildings were constructed and changes made in educational administration, British schooling saw a revolution. Literacy rates soared, taking over from the limited success of Sunday Schools previously. This colourful and entertaining guide traces the development of schools in Britain in the 19th century, from the initial religious intervention in education to state intervention later on. What was a pupil's day like in a Victorian school? How did teachers discipline children? Was schooling different for girls? Learn all about the school day, public schools and even the buildings children attended in this guide filled with contemporary photographs of students, teachers and their lives. Look out for more Pitking guides on social history and heritage, and the 'Life in' series this title is a part of.
This collection of essays explores the questions of what counted as knowledge in Victorian Britain, who defined knowledge and the knowledgeable, by what means and by what criteria. During the Victorian period, the structure of knowledge took on a new and recognizably modern form, and the disciplines we now take for granted took shape. The ways in which knowledge was tested also took on a new form, with the rise of written examinations. New institutions of knowledge were created: museums were important at the start of the period, universities had become prominent by the end. Victorians needed to make sense of the sheer scale of new information, to popularize it, and at the same time to exclude ignorance and error - a role carried out by encyclopaedias and popular publications. By studying the Victorian organization of knowledge in its institutional, social, and intellectual settings, these essays contribute to our wider consideration of the complex and much debated concept of knowledge.
