The Educational Thought of N.W. Senior:

1. The Educational Thought of N.W. Senior: The Relationship between the Poor Law Amendment Act and Education 30th History of Economic Thought Society of Australia September 26, 2017 Satoshi FUJIMURA

2. Motivation • The aim of Poor Law • Solve the poverty problem • Poor Law • New Poor Law was made based on • the 1834 Report. • N. W. Senior wrote the 1834 Report. Old Poor Law New Poor Law 1601 year 1948 1834

3. Motivation • How to solve the poverty problem from Senior’s viewpoint? Understanding the current situation of poverty. Earlier part: analysis The 1834 Report Proposing the measures to solve the poverty problem. Center part: measure The conviction of Senior. Ending part: Education

4. Motivation • Did Senior aim to solve the poverty problem by education? • What is the relationship between the New Poor Law and education?

5. Contents • Introduction • Historical Background of the 1834 Report • The Importance of Education in the New Poor Law • The Educational Thought of Senior • 4-1. Purpose of Education • 4-2. Definition of Education • 4-3. Target of Education • Criticism of the Workhouse School and the recommendations of the District School • Conclusion

6. 1. Introduction

7. 1.Introducation • The 18th and 19th centuries in England were a transition period for social policy. • New Poor Law had characteristics of both doctrines. • Paternalism: • Guaranteed the right to relief. • Laissez-faire: • Contributed to the creation of a free labour market • by making the condition of relief strict. Laissez-faire Paternalism

8. 1.Introducation • The paternalistic part in the 1834 report. • In the ending part of the 1834 Report: ‘the most important duty of the Legislature is to take measures to promote the religious and moral education of the labouring classes.’ (1834 Report, 497)

9. 1.Introducation • Nassau William Senior (1790-1864) • The Drummond professorship of political economy at Oxford University (1825-1830, 1847-1852) • A member of the Poor Law Inquiry Commission(1832~1834) and the Royal Commission on Popular Education(1857) Source: Transferred from en.Wikipedia to Commons (public domain)

10. 1.Introducation • Previous studies • O’Donnell(1985), West(1975, 1994), … • West(1994) revealed the relationship between economy and education. • No clear connection between education and the poor law. • The aim of this study • Reveal the educational thought of Senior ; • Study the relationship between the New Poor Law and education.

11. 2. Historical Background of the 1834 Report

12. 2. Historical Background of the 1834 Report • The educational thought of Adam Smith ‘Domestic education is the institution of nature; public education, the contrivance of man. It is surely unnecessary to say which is likely to be the wisest.’ (Smith 2003, 222) Domestic education is more important than public school.

13. 2. Historical Background of the 1834 Report • The educational thought of Adam Smith • Education was a means to improve the moral condition of the inferior ranks of people. • The state could be benefited by educating the children of the poor, equivalently, improving the public security of the state. • The early 19th century • Education for children was provided by charity organization such as the Sunday schools.

14. 2. Historical Background of the 1834 Report • The Factory Act of 1833 • This law required all children between the ages of 9 and 13 years to attend school for 2 hours-per-day, six days per- week. • This law ‘marked the beginning of state involvement in British education.’ (O’Donnell 1985, 9) • Before the New Poor Law, there was a period that the government intervened in education.

15. 3. The Importance of Education in the New Poor Law

16. 3. The Importance of Education in the New Poor Law • The cause of the poverty • Outdoor relief such as the Speenhamland system in 1795 • The poor was losing morality due to the outdoor relief. • New Poor Law in 1834 • ‘The Principle of Less Eligibility’ ‘…that his situation on the whole shall not be made really or apparently so eligible as the situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class.’ (1834 Report: 335)

17. 3. The Importance of Education in the New Poor Law • The education of children was excluded from the less eligibility. • Poor Law Union was required to provide at least 3 hours a day of schooling for workhouse children. • Reading, writing, arithmetic, and Christianity. • The guardians of the Bedford Union opposed.

18. 3. The Importance of Education in the New Poor Law • The reasons of the Poor Law Committee ‘Workhouse children should not to be so treated in a way which could fix upon them any permanent stigma. All other children who learn to read also learn to write; to have acquired the knowledge of reading without the art of writing would become a distinguishing mark of stigma for the recipients of workhouse education.’ (Second Annual Report on the Poor Law Commissioner 1836: 529)

19. 3. The Importance of Education in the New Poor Law • The government emphasized the importance of education for children. • Why is the education for children important ?

20. 4. The Educational Thought of Senior 4-1. Purpose of Education

21. 4-1. The Purpose of Education • Education for children was a means for poverty solution. ‘Equally just is the compulsory education of his children, because it is the most effectual means of raising them from the condition of pauperism to that on industrious independence.’ (Senior 1861: 86)

22. 4-1. The Purpose of Education • The Poor Lack of morality • The industrious labourer • Person who had the ‘abstinence’ Abstinence was necessary to increase more wealth ‘by using their products as the means of further production’. (Senior 1861: 58)

23. 4-1. The Purpose of Education • ‘The worst educated were the least abstinent.’ Poor who lack of morality Industrious labourerwho had the ‘abstinence’ education (Senior 1861: 60)

24. 4-2.Definition of Education

25. 4-2.The Definition of Education • Classification of education

26. 4-2.The Definition of Education • Training is the creation of knowledge. • Training is the creation of habit. • Habits once thoroughly acquired cannot be discontinued without pain. • The most important education is moral training. • Training or the formation of habits is the great business of education.

27. 4-3. Target of Education

28. 4-3. Target of Education • Who is the education target? • Children. Because they ‘cannot protect themselves as well as those who can’. • (Senior 1861: 6)

29. 4-3. Target of Education • Three types of children • Parents could afford to pay the total cost of education. • = Higher and middle classes of a society • Parents or friends could afford to pay a portion of the cost. = Labouring classes • Parents or friends could not pay the cost of education. • = Paupers The target of receiving the education from Senior’s viewpoint

30. 4-3. Target of Education • Who should provide for children's education? • Government • The cost of education was not an expense for government. ‘The money so employed is much more than repaid by the superiority in diligence, in skill, in economy, in health – in short in all the qualities which fit men to produce and to preserve wealth, of an educated over an uneducated community’. (Senior, in Levy 1928 vol. 2: 329)

31. 4-3. Target of Education • The cost of education for parents. • Ex. Agricultural labourer (1s=12d) • Parents wage:10s/week • Children wage(9~11years): 1.5s~2s/week • Education cost for children: 6d/week • If parents admit go to school their child, they will lose money approximately 2.5s/week. Opportunity cost

32. 4-3. Target of Education • Education is a basic right. • Parents might refuse to school their children because of high opportunity cost. • Education of children could not better proceed under parents management than which under the government control. • The government should intervene in the education of children because the education could produce more beneficial wealth for the country.

33. 5.Criticism of the Workhouse School and Recommendations of the District School

34. 5.Criticism of the Workhouse School and the Recommendations of the District School • The evils of workhouse education • The badness of the workhouse masters. • The contamination by the adult paupers… • The committee established the district school in England and Wales by 1859.

35. 5.Criticism of the Workhouse School and the Recommendations of the District School • The district school was established where distancing from the workhouse. • To protect pauper children from the polluting adult in the workhouse. • The effects of the district school • Contributed to the diminished pauperism of London. • The good education given in these district schools put an end to hereditary pauperism and diminished crime by educating children. (Senior 1861: 74-82)

36. 6. Conclusion

37. 6. Conclusion 1776. Adam Smith: Domestic education is more important than public school. 1833. The Factory Act: Government intervened in the education of children. 1834. 1834 Report: Senior appealed the importance of education. Many politician and economist had tried to change the education system. 1870. The Elementary Education Act: Government provided school accommodation to all the children.

38. 6. Conclusion • What is the relationship between the New Poor Law and Education? • Education is a means to solve poverty problem. • Senior expected that the poor would become the industrious labourer through education. • Senior is one of the contributors to compulsory education in England.

39. Thank you for your attention !