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406 Education ing with a more practical literary education than that in vogue at the time. These educational demands of labour were combined with many other calls for social reform. Some of these, long since attained, such as free access to public lands, abolition of impris- onment for debt, adoption of general bankruptcy laws, removal of property qualification for voting, have an antiquated sound at present. Some, such as abolition of monopolies, shorter working hours, equal rights for women with men in all respects, are still familiar slogans ; some, such as the abolition of all laws for the collection of debts, the housing of all children in barracks for educational purposes, possess a radicalism which puts them in the realm of Utopias, desired or undesired. With the substantial achievement of free public education, at least in theory, by themiddleof thecentury, the labour groups lost their interest in education and in large public questions in general, and transferred it to the economic problems in which they were interested. During this period America was peculiarly conscious of its growth in national independence and sensitive as to its provin- cialism. This sensitiveness was not rendered less acute by the comments of friendly visitors such as Miss Martineau {Society in America, 1837) ^^^^ Charles Dickens {American Notes, 1842), guests not inclined to "see Americans first." Some of these foreign commentators on educational America were more gen- erous in appreciation. George Combe, the celebrated phrenol- ogist, in his three volumes of Notes on the United States of America (1841), makes frequent reference to educational affairs in which he was much interested; the Swede, Siljestrom, pub- lished in 1853 The Educational Institutions of the United States, the most elaborate description and most favourable commentary of all. The educational leaders of America, however, and to a less extent the educated public, were keenly alive to the technical superiority of European education and to the value of some of the novel European experiments. The two most important of these have been mentioned. The mechanical English Lancas- terianism reached the zenith of its popularity before the middle of the century and disappeared before the close of this middle national period. The Swiss Pestalozzianism, especially in its