The Role of the Government in Developing Elementary Education

The Role of the Government in Developing Elementary Education

Government played little role in education prior to the nineteenth

century because of many reasons, one of them being Laissez faire.

Laissez faire was the philosophy of the government that it was not

their role to get involved in the lives of the people. Edward Baines

wrote about the state of education in 1846 and said "it is not the

duty of the government to feed the people… these are things that the

people can and ought to do themselves" some thought this was the way

God wanted things to be. Other felt that the fittest and richest could

survive; the idea did nothing for the poor. One of the only things

government was willing to get involved in was defending the country.

Money was another motive why the government played little role. The

government didn't want to spend money on educating the poor, they

would much rather spend their money on the royal stables and the

military. On Samuel Whitbread's Bill this topic was discussed "It

would burden the country with a most enormous expense". Not only did

they not want to put money towards education but also it was going to

be a very expensive project, which they thought could be done without.

Samuel Whitbread argued that more education was needed and that raises

money was the way forward when he stood up to the government, but the

House of Lords rejected his Bill.

The Class system was another thing that was preventing the government

from contributing money towards education. Everyone knew his or her

place in society so for the poor to read write and be educated would

make them more intelligent and mess up the 'The Great ...

... middle of paper ...

...remaining problems. One of them being that

going to school was still not compulsory. There was also no secondary

education. One bad thing for parents was that there was still a fee to

pay. This continued until 1891 when education was free. There was no

national network for education. There were therefore lots of

independent and isolated schools. Although there was a good quality of

the teaching due to the Training College there was an insufficient

amount of teachers. There was still opposition to the idea of

education and to whom it should be available. And the people who were

on the school board were amateurs, local worthy people that didn't

know a lot about education. They didn't even have any expertise.

In conclusion I feel that the government have made a good start to

education but there is still more to be done.