A letter to N.W. Senior, Esq., one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the state of public education, explanatory of communications and of evidence on half school time teaching; on the military drill, and physical training; and on the administration of funds applicable to popular education / by Edwin Chadwick.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1861?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to N.W. Senior, Esq., one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the state of public education, explanatory of communications and of evidence on half school time teaching; on the military drill, and physical training; and on the administration of funds applicable to popular education / by Edwin Chadwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    involved, and indeed to forewarn for scrutiny against any undue bias on my own part, I beg of you to represent that my attention to educational topics has not been of yesterday, and that I have been in positions to observe and consider of the subject of popular education, and to collect special testimony from several important aspects. As it is, I have to submit with the information I have been led to collect upon renewed investigation, my own testimony as a witness on some questions of administration, which my experience suggests as applicable to the public service for the attainment of the ends in question. I prefer ad- dressing the Commission through you, that I may appeal to you to bear witness in vindication of past preparations for legislation,—such vindication being of public service for the future, as showing that however clear and import- ant may be the principles and the means of educational improvement evolved and established by the present inquiry, they will, like the results of previous extensive inquiries and preparations, fail of their due and complete application, unless there be a better consideration and adoption than heretofore of the administrative principles and means elaborated for the purpose. The question of popular education, I need not remind you, was laboured at by both of us more than a quarter of a century ago, under the authority of the Poor Law Commission of Inquiry. Under that Commission we were confronted with large masses of hereditary pauperism, the chief preventives of which we were led to conclude must be an improved industrial training, and moral and religious education. You will remember that the information then collected was deemed by our lamented chairman, the late Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield, so important that he was anxious that it should be made the subject of a special report. He at once accepted the position (which we have since been precluded from the means of impressing upon the public, and thence upon the legislature),—that dealing primarily with the adults was dealing with secondary measures, and dealing only repressively and imperfectly; but that to deal preventively, and eradicate pauperism, we must by general measures deal primarily with the training and education of children. At his anxious instance, as you may remember, we indicated this view in the conclu- sion of our Report, and stated, We believe that if the