Mass Education and the Limits of State Building, c.1870–1930

334 Pages·2012·3.002 MB·English

by  Laurence Brockliss, Nicola Sheldon (eds.)

Mass Education and the Limits of
State Building, c.1870–1930
Also by Laurence Brockliss
CALVET’S WEB: Enlightenment and Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century France
FRENCH HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
MAGDALEN COLLEGE OXFORD: A Cultural History
ADVANCING WITH THE ARMY: Medicine, the Professions and Social Mobility in the
British Isles 1790–1850 (w ith M. Moss, M. Ackroyd, J. Stevenson and K. Retford )
MAGDALEN COLLEGE AND THE CROWN ( with Gerald Harris and Angus Macintyre )
THE MEDICAL WORLD OF EARLY MODERN FRANCE (w ith Colin Jones )
NELSON’S SURGEON: William Beatty, Naval Medicine and the Battle of Trafalgar (w ith
Michael Moss and John Cardwell )
CHILDHOOD AND VIOLENCE FROM THE BRONZE AGE TO THE PRESENT (c o-edited with
Heather Montgomery )
RICHELIEU AND HIS AGE (c o-edited with Joseph Bergin )
A UNION OF MULTIPLE IDENTITIES: The British Isles, c.1750–c.1850 ( co-edited with David
Eastwood )
THE WORLD OF THE FAVOURITE, 1550–1650 ( co-edited with J.H. Elliott )
Mass Education and the
Limits of State Building,
c.1870–1930
Edited by
Laurence Brockliss

Professor of Early Modern French History, Magdalen College, Oxford, UK
and
Nicola Sheldon
Academic Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK
Editorial matter, selection and introduction © Laurence Brockliss and
Nicola Sheldon 2012
All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2012
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012978-0-230-27350-4
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First published 2012 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-32399-9 ISBN 978-0-230-37021-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230370210
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
List of Contributors ix
Note on Timelines and Glossaries x
General Introduction 1
Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon
Part I The British Isles
Introduction 13
Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon
1 Citizenship, Moral Education and the English Elementary School 2 1
Susannah Wright
2 Elite Education and the Development of Mass
Elementary Schooling in England, 1870–1930 4 6
Heather Ellis
3 Faith and Nationhood: Church, State and the
Provision of Schooling in Ireland, 1870–1930 7 1
Deirdre Raftery and Martina Relihan
Part II Continental Europe
Introduction 89
Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon
4 From the ‘Z wergschule ’ (One-Room Schoolhouse) to the
Comprehensive School: German Elementary Schools in
Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic, 1870–1930 9 5
Gunilla Budde
5 ‘Schools Are Society’s Salvation’: The State and Mass
Education in France, 1870–1930 1 17
Jean-François Chanet
6 Russia and the Soviet Union: Schooling, Citizenship
and the Reach of the State, 1870–1945 1 40
Ben Eklof
v
vi Contents
Part III The Wider World
Introduction 167
Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon
7 ‘To Become GOOD MEMBERS OF CIVIL SOCIETY and
PATRIOTIC AMERICANS’: Mass Education in the
United States, 1870–1930 1 77
Ellen L. Berg
8 Primary Education and the Construction of Citizenship
in Brazil, 1870–1930: Progress and Tensions 2 02
Maria Cristina Soares de Gouvea and Alessandra Frota Schueller
9 The Role of Mass Education in Nation-Building in
the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, 1870–1930 224
Nazan Cicek
Part IV The Colonial Empires
Introduction 251
Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon
10 ‘Education for Every Son and Daughter of South Africa’:
Race, Class and the Compulsory Education Debate in
the Cape Colony 2 61
S. E. Duff
11 India’s Trials with Citizenship, Modernisation and Nationhood 283
Nita Kumar
Index 305
Preface and Acknowledgements
This book began as a seminar series organised by the Oxford University Centre
for the History of Childhood in the academic year 2007–08. The Centre for the
History of Childhood, the only such centre in the United Kingdom, promotes
the historical study of aspects of childhood and child development that are of
particular concern to policy makers and childcare professionals (teachers, social
workers, psychiatrists, paediatricians, and so on) today. For the year 2007–08,
the Centre took as its theme ‘Children as Citizens’ and explored the different
ways from the Greeks to the present in which children and young people were
turned into socialised and productive adults. In the course of the year, it became
apparent that the most interesting period in the long history of citizenship train-
ing was the decades before and after the turn of twentieth c entury when states
all round the world came to accept that the key instrument of acculturation
should be henceforth institutionalised education. As a result, it was decided to
hold a colloquium entitled ‘Citizenship, Modernisation and Nationhood: The
Cultural Role of Mass Education 1870–1930’ under the auspices of the Centre
in September 2009, in which leading national experts on the d evelopment of
systems of mass education were invited to discuss the experience of individual
countries in a comparative framework.
The colloquium debated the coming of mass education under a series of head-
ings, but the one that struck a universal chord among the participants and took
us furthest away from received accounts was the gap between intention and
achievement. Wherever the state and whatever its level of economic development
and national cohesion, there was absence of fit between the state’s heroic aims
and the reality on the ground, when we drilled down to the bedrock of classroom
reality. In presenting the fruits of the colloquium to a wider audience in the form
of a book, the editors concluded it was essential that the limitations of the mass
educational experiment should be made clear in the title. Nine of the papers pre-
sented at the colloquium appear in this book, but in a heavily reworked form in
the light of our deliberations. Two more have been specifically commissioned in
order to ensure as complete coverage as possible in a volume that takes the world
for its province but is inevitably constrained by space to reduce a rich and com-
plex narrative to the experience of a selected sample of states.
It is to the contributors to this volume that the editors are first beholden. As
every attempt has been made to make this a readable and coherent book, albeit
one comprising individual voices, the contributors have been continually asked
to hone their chapters to ensure they combine succinctness and clarity. The con-
tributors have responded to the editors’ blandishments with good humour and
alacrity and have allowed the book to proceed on schedule. Secondly, the editors
must thank Magdalen College, Oxford. Without the generosity of the Fellows at
the college, who financed the initial colloquium, the book could never have seen
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viii Preface and Acknowledgements
the light of day. At a time when British universities have very limited resources
to fund academic conferences and when the Grant Giving Bodies of the United
Kingdom are overwhelmed with requests for support, historians in this country
are fortunate that Oxbridge colleges with their substantial, but certainly not lim-
itless, endowments, are frequently ready to step into the breach and allow inter-
national meetings of scholars to continue. And, finally, thanks must be conveyed
to Palgrave Macmillan for agreeing to make this volume part of their list. Michael
Strang has since left the publishing house, but initially it was under his enthusi-
astic but critical eye that the book took shape. More recently, the book has been
steered into port by Ruth Ireland. The editors wish to thank her and her very
capable team for the essential part that they have played in the realisation of this
volume, and only hope that its readers will believe that its contents merit the care
that they have lavished on its production.
Contributors
Ellen L. Berg , University of Maryland
Laurence Brockliss , Magdalen College, Oxford University
Gunilla Budde , University of Oldenburg
Jean-François Chanet , University of Paris (Sorbonne)
Nazan Cicek , University of Ankara
S. E. Duff , Birkbeck College, London
Ben Eklof , University of Indiana
Maria Cristina Soares de Gouvea , University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Heather Ellis , Humboldt University, Berlin
Nita Kumar , Claremont McKenna College, California
Deirdre Raftery , University College, Dublin
Martina Relihan , University College, Dublin
Alessandra Frota Schueller , Rio de Janeiro State University
Nicola Sheldon , Institute of Historical Research, London
Susannah Wright , Oxford Brookes University
ix