Elementary Education to the 1860s

Abstract

Eighteenth-century Britain was by no means bereft of the means of education. From 1696 rural landowners in Scotland had been legally required to provide a school in each parish and in Scottish towns burgh schools were maintained from municipal funds. Though no statutory obligation to provide schooling existed in England and Wales before 1870, by 1750 schools of some kind were within geographical reach of all but comparatively few children. In England and Wales there was a numerous and diverse array of elementary schools, some private, others connected with parish churches, as well as charity schools, private middle-class schools and endowed grammar schools. In Scotland, particularly in the towns, charity and private schools existed alongside the burgh and parish schools. Most of the Scottish public schools were, in practice, mainly elementary but, unlike the vast majority of elementary schools south of the border, might also provide post-elementary instruction, including mathematics and Latin, and send boys at 15 or younger to the universities.