"THE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES." CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED, 11, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. - 1882. INTRODUCTION. A preliminary word as to the scope of this book may save misconception. It does not profess to be a history of education in any comprehensive sense. With the philosophy of education it has nothing to do. The most that has been attempted is to present an outline of the struggle, as far as it has gone, to obtain a legal recognition of the duty of the State to give elementary instruction to its children. justice to From the Such a sketch necessarily fails to do many who have taken part in the labour. nature of the materials to work upon, the Parliamentary contest occupies the most prominent place in the record. Yet the fight has not been always the thickest or hardest in Parliament. The work of creating and leading opinion in the country has been of even greater importance, but it has generally been performed by men of comparatively obscure position, the account of whose efforts is often inaccessible, or has perished. There is another class to whom it may seem scant justice is done-those, who following the duty lying nearest to them, have spent their energies and their means in the practical extension of education around them. When the complete history of education is written it may be expected to comprise some account of their noble efforts, but that is not within the design of these pages. The Scotch and Irish systems, and such ancillary measures as the Factory and Workshop Laws, Reformatory, Industrial, and Vagrant Schools, are touched only incidentally, and as they bear on the main lines of the story. It is proper I should also add, that although the views expressed may be presumed to be in general harmony with those of the members of the League, no one but myself is responsible for any statement, whether of fact or opinion, contained in the book. FRANCIS ADAMS. YARDLEY, BIRMINGHAM, January, 1882. CONTENTS. ... ... ... ... Persecution of Catholic Schoolmasters and Teachers Revival of Knowledge in Elizabeth's Reign : Hostilities of Charles I. and Laud against Puritans ... Mandeville's Essay on Charity Schools... Educational Movement of Eighteenth Century... : |