The Ragged Schools started as a social practice and gained so many practitioners that it became a movement in Britain.  The urge for free education and social provision of communities led to so many positive externalities that in the 1870s the Forster government absorbed the Ragged Schools infrastructure built by the communities and bankrolled it as a central function of government.  This history is the story of how the provision of a public good came to be understood as more valuable to a country than choosing not to make social provision. Read more…