Review "Att fostra en elit".pdf

History of Education, 2018

1986

In 1868, the British parliament issued an act that redefined the leading charity schools of the Empire's Motherland, the British Isles. From then on, the elite schools of the empire where known as public school and every parent who wanted their child to rise in the Civil Administration of the British Administration sought to place them into one of these prestigious institutes. It was here at these boarding schools that young boys in the Victorian era were schooled in the ways of the British Empire and gained the skills necessary to take their place in both the civil and military administration across the vast British Empire.

2015

This thesis provides the first comprehensive examination of how children’s abilities were ‘classified’ and managed in London, following the creation of school places under the 1870 Elementary Education Act. It explores how new schools (known as Board Schools), shaped and were shaped by the diverse social, physical and mental capabilities of London’s children. I argue it was only through administering the 1870 Education Act across such a diverse city that a right to schooling was shown to be not enough, children needed a right to learn. Yet learning was not uniform and different authorities could not agree on how and what children needed for successful learning. The idea of the Board School and its students would become increasingly pluralistic. In 1874 the School Board for London (SBL) described it as its ‘duty’ to educate London’s near half a million child-population. In order to realise this duty ideas of school and child were challenged. This thesis examines how these ideas devel...

An overlook of a famous real headmaster through literature and cinema. At the beginning of this paper we take a small tour around the evolution of public schools in England. Additionally we are introduced in an overview of the organizational structure of students and prefects. Finally, all the factors are intermingled to build an accurate mirror of real life for public school students through the headmaster's eyes.

2017

This thesis analyses the experiences of ragged school pupils in England and Scotland between 1844 and 1870, focusing on the interaction between scholars and teachers and exploring the nature of the social relationships formed. Ragged schools provided free education to impoverished children in the mid-nineteenth century; by 1870 the London schools alone recorded an average attendance of 32,231 children. This thesis demonstrates the variety of interactions that took place both inside and outside the classroom, challenging simplistic interpretations of ragged school teachers as unwelcome intruders in poor children's lives. In analysing the movement in terms of the social relationships established, this thesis counters the dominant focus on the adult as actor and child as passive subject. Wherever possible the focal point of the analysis builds on the testimony of ragged school scholars, shifting emphasis away from the actions and words of adults in positions of authority towards those of the poor and marginalised children who were the subjects of intervention. By concentrating on the voices of those who received ragged schooling, this thesis highlights the diverse experiences of ragged school scholars and underscores their agency in either rejecting or engaging with teachers. As such, it demonstrates the integral contribution of children's testimonies when seeking to understand the impact of child-saving movements more generally. This thesis contributes to understanding on a variety of broader topics. It highlights changing attitudes towards children, education, and the poor. Through focusing on juvenile testimonies it investigates how children responded to poverty, disability, philanthropic work, and the evangelical religious message that ragged schools conveyed. The impact of Victorian philanthropy and the nature of the cross-class relationships it fostered are explored, and the ii significant contribution that women and working-class individuals made to such work is underscored. Finally, it sheds light on the experiences of working-class British emigrants, both their fortunes and their attachment to their homeland. A rich array of sources is used, including ragged school magazines and pamphlets, committee minutes, and annual reports. In using promotional literature in combination with local school documents, the public portrayal of children and teachers is contrasted with that found in practice. Most significant, however, are the day to day exchanges between scholars and their teacher explored through a microhistory of Compton Place ragged school in North London. Using the journals the school's superintendent maintained between 1850 and 1867 alongside the 227 letters 57 former scholars sent him, this thesis pieces together a picture of the evolving and complex relationships forged. The journals and letters together enable an analysis that draws on the words of both ragged scholars and their teacher. Moreover, they provide rare access to how relationship developed over time and, in some cases, despite considerable geographical distance. I have incurred many debts of gratitude. This thesis has benefited from the generous and wise supervision of Professor Stewart J. Brown and Professor Louise A. Jackson at the University of Edinburgh. Their broad historical knowledge, as well as their guidance and support, has proven an invaluable source of inspiration and aid. I am also thankful to Professor Brian Stanley, Professor Frances Knight, and Dr Helen Rogers, for the constructive, enthusiastic, and gracious manner in which they examined my thesis. My doctorate was made possible by the University of Edinburgh's Principal's Career Development Scholarship, for which I am immensely appreciative. I benefited from travel bursaries from both the School of Divinity and the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, which enabled me to visit Bristol, London, Portsmouth, Oxford, and Vancouver. I owe a considerable debt to the staff at the many archives and libraries I visited during my research. I would like to particularly thank those at the Surrey History Centre; without their assistance this thesis would have taken a very different form. In 2014, 2015, and 2016 I received scholarships to study at the Gladstone Library in Hawarden. Although Martin Ware believed William Gladstone had caused 'great injury' to Britain, I am sure he would have approved of his Library's creative and peaceful atmosphere. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to write and edit my thesis in such a majestic setting. I would like to thank my family and friends for tolerating my many references to Ware, the Compton Place boys, and the ragged schools. It is to Karen Bragg and Denis Smith that I owe my love of history. I also wish to thank Ralph and Alex Bragg, and Allan and Lesley Mair, as well as Margaret Smith, who has been a constant source of encouragement and love. I am grateful to my sister, Emma, who read the messiest of drafts and helped form 2 order out of chaos. I appreciate the support I received from Sheela Bell, who more than understands the trials doctoral study can bring. There are also many other valuable friends that I would like to acknowledge here. New College has been a place of warmth and welcome. Dr Naomi Appleton deserves special mention here, as she has been both an advisor and a good friend. I am thankful that Dr Catherine McMillan took me under her wing in my first week; I have benefitted from her sharp wit and keen historical mind. Dr Kate Lampitt Adey has been a wonderful companion for the entirety of my doctoral studies and I am forever thankful that she didn't pay for her coffee. It was during our weekly chats that the skeleton of my thesis was formed. Finally, I would like to thank my husband. Michael has been a constant source of inspiration, love, and support since my undergraduate days. It is because of his encouragement that I pursued my interest in nineteenth century history. He sustained me through the most challenging periods of my research and proved an enthusiastic and fair reviewer of many draft chapters. Thank you, Michael, for sharing me with Ware for the best part of four years. 'Restieaux behaved very badly & came very irregularly to school'. 1 The following month Ware visited the boy's mother 'to blow up' about his behaviour, something he rarely recorded doing. According to Ware, Restieaux's mother 'certainly bears up very exempla cheerfully'. 2 Thirteen years later, on 10 March 1864, Restieaux wrote to his former teacher upon thin, pink notepaper from Christchurch, New Zealand. In this, his nineteenth letter to Ware, Restieaux opened by noting the 'shame on my part' for not writing sooner. Restieaux's 'shame' is made all the more poignant by his description of Ware as 'the only friend I have it in this World'. 3 This thesis is about the many poor children who gathered in makeshift classrooms in mid-nineteenth-century England and Scotland. Lofts, railways arches, and warehouses were transformed into schools for the unkempt and dirty children of the destitute and dubbed 'ragged schools'. In these institutions children learned not only to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic, but about a God who loved them. Predominantly taught by volunteer teachers, deemed qualified by their evangelical fervour and Biblical knowledge, ragged schools quickly multiplied in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1864, the year that Restieaux referred to Ware as his 'only friend', ragged schools numbered 600 in London alone with an average attendance of 51,797. 4 Ragged schools were not confined to the metropolis, but were

European Education, 2020

Exclusive boarding schools in social environments where the meritocratic norm is prevalent are faced with a tension between parents' desire to give their children a head start in the competition for educational qualifications, social prestige and jobs on the one hand and the powerful social norm of advancement by merit under conditions of "equal opportunity" on the other. This article looks at how two exclusive boarding schools, Eton College in England and Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, deal with this double challenge in presenting themselves to their environment, attempting to preserve social legitimacy while staying attractive to their clientele. The article shows that the ways in which the schools deal with these conflicting demands depends strongly on the differing systems contexts they find themselves in.