A Short History of Social Life in England/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII
Circa 1865—1883
AN AGE OF WONDER
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new."
THE Democratic tendency of our times, the upward movement of the popular classes, who desire to have their share in political life … is henceforth no Utopian dream, no doubtful anticipation. It is a fact … which occupies every mind, influences the proceedings of Governments, defies all opposition."[1] These words, spoken in 1847, never rang more true than in 1867, when the working men of England demanded a new Reform Act Crowded meetings with enthusiastic speakers had taken place in the thickly populated northern towns, while in London, the Hyde Park Riot emphatically compelled attention in the House of Commons. "Your attention will again be called to the state of the representation of the people in Parliament." So ran the Speech from the Throne on February 5th. The Second Reform Bill was passed the following summer, and the working men in the towns of England for the first time had a vote in managing the affairs of the nation. It was yet another and important advance in the life of the people, who were pressing onwards as never before in human history. But another step became necessary to the social progress of the country. If the working man was to have a voice in the affairs of the land, he must, of necessity, be educated to fit him for this new capacity. After the first Reform Act, Parliament had assisted the general education of the people by an annual grant of money, on condition that an equal sum was raised by school fees and local subscriptions, and a Committee on Education was appointed to control the expenditure of public money. Notwithstanding this, education in England still owed much to private enterprise and philanthropy. In 1865 there were still some 2,000 charity schools where children were only taught reading, writing, and the Church catechism. These schools were, as yet, untouched by the new influences of the century. The children were dressed in uniform so as to show that they were objects of benevolence, and they were frequently reminded of their low estate, their moral ideal being summed up in the couplet:
"God bless the Squire and his relations,
And make us keep our proper stations,"
All State-aided schools have been inspected since the early forties, but the small band of early Government Inspectors had their hands full. In 1849 they had 681 certified teachers and 3,580 pupil-teachers to inspect, but these very teachers, whose duty it was to train and teach the children of the poor, were but "the refuse of other callings." Their ranks were swelled by discarded servants and ruined tradesmen, "who do not know whether the earth is a cube or a sphere, whom no gentleman would trust with the key of his cellar and no tradesman would entrust with a message"—men and women who, from some defect of body or health, were driven from the rougher struggles of muscular toil—consumptives in the last stages of disease, out-door paupers, or persons of over seventy years of age. None were too old, too sickly, too feeble, or too ignorant to regard themselves as fit for teaching the unhappy young of these days—so unlike the honoured band of teachers who are doing some of the finest work in our land to-day. Look at a boys' school in 1869, the year before the great Education Act, which followed the Reform Act and formed a turning-point in the educational system of our country. In a small, low room, in a back court, there were forty-four boys of ages varying from four to fourteen. In the middle sat the master, a kindly man, but a hopeless cripple, whose lower limbs appeared to be paralysed and who was unable to stand up. The boys formed a dense mass round him, swaying irregularly backwards and forwards, while he was feebly protesting against the noise. In a corner the wife was sitting "minding" the six or eight youngest children. The reading, entirely from the Bible, was bad and inarticulate; no boy could explain the simplest words, and the master said he was not accustomed to ask questions. Only two boys could do an addition sum. The object of the schoolmaster was not to get the boys on too quickly, for as soon as the children knew a little, they were removed and the school pence stopped. Hitherto the State had aided existing schools, but no new schools had been provided; the initiative taken by voluntary bodies had been, so far, chiefly in connection with the Churches. But with the rapid growth of the population the Church organisation had become totally inadequate. So the famous Act of 1870 passed, providing for School Boards to be created, with power to establish new State schools in addition to the voluntary ones already existing. For the first time in her social history, England realised that her children were her "dearest possession," and undertook a system of National Education. The storms that were brewing at this time over religious instruction in the first Board schools are vexing our souls to-day. Finally, a system of so-called undenominational Christian teaching was adopted. New schools were now erected all over the country. In the year 1870 England had provided for 1,152,389 children. By 1885 there was an average attendance of 3,371,325. There is a further point connected with the spread of education in 1870 that calls for attention. In the new bodies elected by the ratepayers, women were members. They voted, proposed amendments, sat on committees, and took their share in the new national scheme of education. For their part as citizens of a great country they had been fitting themselves of late years, and their progress in matters of education was remarkable. Up to 1865, the general level of girls' education was for the most part deplorable. They were sent to boarding schools, where they learnt ladylike manners and deportment, and such accomplishments as their parents thought fit, in order that they might be admired in society, for this was the chief raison d!être of a woman's education throughout the past "Everything," says Miss Cobbe, "was taught in the inverse ratio of its true importance. At the bottom of the scale were morals and religion, and at the top were music and dancing." One of the best known girls' schools was kept by Miss Mangnall, the famous author of "Mangnall's Questions," a school-book much used in those days together with Keith's "Use of the Globes," Mrs. Trimmer's English History, and Pinnock's Catechisms. Here the girls learnt some literature, which consisted of Scott's longer poems and "The Vicar of Wakefield," read aloud by Miss Mangnall herself, geography, spelling, the catechism, and a little pencil drawing. For bad spelling the young ladies were invariably sent to bed. Deportment was strictly attended to: tortures innumerable were invented to improve the figure—there were steel backboards covered with red morocco, strapped to the waist by a belt; steel collars, stocks for the fingers, pulleys for the neck, and weights for the head. In morals the young ladies were sadly wanting, and their sense of honour was woefully uncultivated. They were greedy and untruthful; they stole each other's cake, they fought and spread evil reports, and their punishments were both childish and insulting. They were made to wear dunce's caps, they had papers pinned to them describing their faults, they were whipped and sent to bed or rewarded by having good things to eat. The position of their teachers and governesses was unenviable, and the teaching profession for women was too often the refuge for the destitute. Their ignorance was deplorable. At one school we hear of a two-hour search through various lesson-books for the name of the Emperor of Russia, till finally teachers and pupils decided it must be Mahomet! It was, indeed, time that the subject of girls' education should be discussed by a Royal Commission appointed in 1864, though already Cheltenham had led the way by opening a "Ladies' College," where a more sound education had been established than any heretofore attainable. Step by step the movement grew, demand created supply, local examination tested the efficiency of the new teaching. Strenuous efforts were made to obviate the criticisms of women's education in a report which declared that "want of thoroughness and foundation, want of system, slovenliness, and showy superficiality, inattention to rudiments, undue time given to accomplishments and want of organisation," were responsible for female incompetence. The Council of the Girls' Public Day School Company was founded in 1872, whereby a sound education for girls of all classes and creeds was established on a footing similar to that long enjoyed by boys. Other developments followed. In 1867 women were admitted to the University of London examinations: in 1872 Girton College was opened at Cambridge, followed by Newnham in 1875, and at Oxford, Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall were founded in 1879; thus women were no longer forced
"To drudge through weary life without the aid
Of intellectual implements and tools."
Meanwhile other professions were opening their doors to women. Florence Nightingale, in the dark Crimean days, had shown that the nursing profession was one eminently suited to women, who entered upon their new vocation with boundless enthusiasm and dauntless energy. The substitution of trained ladies for such rough specimens as Mrs. Sarah Gamp and Mrs. Betsy Prig was in itself an inestimable blessing to mankind; in addition to this, the movement created one of the greatest social changes of the century. No longer now was matrimony the only possible opening for any self-respecting woman, but henceforth she could justify her existence, fill her life with interest, and fulfil her destiny, by ministering to the relief of human suffering.
"A child's kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich,
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong."
How eagerly women grasped at this new outlet for their energies is best illustrated by figures. A training school for nurses was founded in 1860, and started with fifteen probationers; eleven years later there were thirty-two, and in 1889 as many as five hundred nurses had been sent out to work in the world. Women, too, for the first time now were allowed to take their places in the ranks of medical practitioners. The first Englishwoman took the M.D. degree of the University of Paris in 1870. Four years later further obstacles were overcome, and the School of Medicine for Women was opened.
Indeed, on all sides medicine and surgery had made gigantic strides since the early days of Queen Victoria, and in no department has progress told more on the social life of the people. From 1838 to 1847 the death-rate had been twenty-two persons out of every thousand. In 1885 it was only nineteen per thousand. The discovery of anæsthetics in 1848 at once robbed surgical operations of half their terrors, while the establishment of a Board of Health, to enforce better sanitation and a higher degree of human cleanliness, had a decided effect on the health of the community.
Mercy and pity, with a higher value on human life, were marked characteristics of the period, and though we are here only concerned with the material view of life in England, yet it is impossible to separate matters spiritual from matters material, and a few words about the renewed activity in the religious life of English men and women seems necessary to explain many social changes. Amid the "clash of new ideas," the inrush of mechanical invention, the progress in every branch of industry and science, the Church alone had remained "inert and lethargic."[2] Bishops in the early nineteenth century were still "amiable scholars," living in dignified ease apart from their clergy, Church patronage was in the hands of the large landowners, "faculty pews and rented sittings absorbed the best parts of the churches, and the poor were edged out into the corners of the aisles and the backs of the galleries." The beautiful cathedrals of past ages were looked on as "interesting museums," "picturesque survivals of a barbarous past." But the restless activity of the age swept over the Church at the last The repeal of the Test Act in 1828, allowing Dissenters to occupy official posts in the State, forbidden heretofore, was followed by Catholic Emancipation the following year. The Reform Bill of 1832, placing power in the hands of the middle classes, who formed the backbone of Dissent in England, aroused Churchmen to a sense of danger. At the same time a general awakening in Literature and Art was taking place, men were everywhere yearning after more sincerity and truth, and searching in past history to supply present needs. The activity in the Church took the form of the Oxford Movement, led by the saintly Keble, whose "Christian Year" had been published in 1827, Newman, Pusey, and others, who made their voices heard in a famous series known as "Tracts for the Times." A "Broad Church" party, led by Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, increased the newly aroused religious difficulty, which was not simplified by the immense advances now being made in the wakening world of science. Nor was this activity confined to the Church of England. Nonconformity was growing apace, though still entirely confined to the middle class. Round chapel as round church clustered benevolent societies, penny banks, Sunday-schools, mothers' meetings, and missionary societies. It has been observed that as commercial activity worked through companies, so religious organisations worked through societies; certainly they increased with extraordinary rapidity during this period. For all philanthropic causes money was forthcoming, but if it was an age of wealth, so also was it an age of luxury. Our fathers drank more tea than their parents had ever thought of drinking, they consumed five times as much sugar, they drank more spirits, they ate more meat—a great deal more meat—and they smoked more tobacco. They lived in better houses, with a greater degree of comfort than hitherto dreamt of; there were carpets and armchairs for all, baths and hot water, such as had not existed in England since the days of the Romans. An inordinate love of pleasure grew with the growing wealth, and theatres, music halls, and palaces of variety entertainments increased and prospered. Athletics, too, became an absorbing passion with young Englishmen of every class. Cricket, football, golf, boating, yachting, swimming, cycling, these have all played and still play a large part in developing the physique of the nation's youth. Whole holidays, undreamt of in past years, enabled toilers to travel: the working man could see his friends at the other end of England, the sea-side could be visited in a few hours and for a few shillings; social intercourse was becoming easier day by day, social barriers were breaking down. Dress, food, amusements, education, were all, in varying degrees, common to all classes; there was nothing to prevent every Englishman being a gentleman, every Englishwoman a lady, but perhaps it were well to remind ourselves of Thackeray's definition of a gentleman: "It is," he says, "to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner. He should be a loyal son and a true husband; his life should be decent, his bills should be paid, his tastes should be elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble. He should have the esteem of his fellow-citizens and the love of his fireside; he should bear good fortune, suffer evil with constancy, and through good or evil always maintain truth."