Excerpt from Education in England: Address by Whitelaw Reid LL. D. D. C. L., Before the Associated Academic Principals of New York and the New York State Teachers Association, at Syracuse, N. Y.; December 26, 1907

It has been represented to me that this body of practical and prominent teachers of the Empire State would be interested in some account of what schools and teachers in England are doing. Nothing could be more natural. From the English came our first educational ideas; to them we long looked, in colonial days and later, for the highest types of collegiate and university edu cation; from them we got the religious control so long felt in so many of our schools, as it is still felt in theirs. More important still; from them came the fervid, almost fanatical belief in the necessity of education, which we, in accordance with our cus' tom, broadened far beyond their original views, and have clung to through two centuries, and over a continent and many islands, with a tenacity which if it were not American might be called truly British. Plainly the educational fever runs in the blood!

I shall speak to you, then, briefly, of some details of past and present English educational work. But I shall do no violence to the maxims either of Dogberry or Don Quixote; shall enter upon no comparisons with our own work in similar fields. There are two reasons. First, all comparisons between countries are apt to be odious. Secondly, unless far more time were taken than is at our disposal tonight for a careful statement of vary ing circumstances, all comparisons are sure to be unfair.

In any consideration of English education for the masses, it must be remembered that a national system for it did not exist before 1870, and could not be said to have reached good working order before 1892. The government gave no assistance what ever for elementary schools (i. E. For what we should call common schools, or primary schools) until 1834, when the House of Commons made its first appropriation of This was to be used solely for new school buildings. Not till 1839 did the government make an appropriation for more direct aid to popular education.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.