Speaking of things to give thanks for: lets hear it for free primary education! Ive been reading up on board schools in Victorian England. By the 1880s, primary education was compulsory. But parents were charged a small (ostensibly trifling) fee per child. Children also were required to wear boots to school. Warning: It gets depressing from here. For many impoverished parents, the school fees and the cost of boots were significant burdens -- to say nothing of the loss of wages their children would otherwise be earning for the household. Parents of habitual truants were summoned in front of the School Board to account for their childrens absence, and the records that survive of these meetings paint a terribly grim picture of hardship and want. I just read of a sixteen year old girl showing up with a five year old and an infant, because her father had died and her mother was ill and she was the only one able to take care of the young ones. No, she did not have spare pennies to pay the fees or buy her siblings boots. If the School Board did not deem your excuse worthy of its mercy, matters got even worse: you were fined by a magistrate. Yikes. If the School Board decided to be merciful, a student would be granted half-time, the right to attend only half the day of school. OR the student could try to pass the fifth standard test, which would release her from the system -- but learning that much wasnt easy for any child who didnt get enough food or rest thanks to a desperate home life. This is where its nice to be a romance novelist: my underworld hero subsidizes the board schools in his parish. At least in my version of 1886, no parent in Whitechapel need worry about the school fees, or the boots.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 05:39:53 +0000
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