Origins Of The Ragged Schools: John Pounds, The Kind Old Cobbler by D. H. Webster

The precise role of John Pounds in the history of the Ragged School Movement is obscure. His biographer presents him as the founder of the ragged schools (1. H. Hawkes, The Recollections of John Pounds. 1884, p.295). It was certainly an opinion held by some within a few years of his death (2. E.G. York Herald, 4 May, 1850. ’The origin of this movement commenced with one very humble in life (John Pounds).’ Report of a speech made by the Rev. Canon Trevor). Read more…

The Ragged School Movement and the Education of the Poor in the Nineteenth Century

This is the work of D.H. Webster who wrote a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Leicester, 1973. It remains an important historical document and analysis of the Ragged School and free education movement in Britain. It will be reproduced and published verbatim in installments for educational purposes to facilitate review and discussion about education. This post is the first part of the thesis where the references have been reproduced inline within the text.

1850: The Ragged School Union Magazine Address

“Man is surely, of all things in the creation, most interesting to man. It is his intellect and his moral sense—his conscious capacity of an excellence he has never reached— his inward vision of the true, the beautiful, and the good—that invest him with a dignity which belongs to him alone of all earthly beings, and, more than any mere external superiority, mark him as a creature of a higher order, and adapted to nobler ends than the rest, between which and himself there is a wide and inaccessible distance.” Read more…

Ragged Schools and Ragged Scholars: Sunday Schools – Thomas Cranfield – John Pounds – the City Mission – Ragged Schools

I have some true stories to tell of children who went to a ragged school: but I wish to tell these stories in my own way; and I must first write about other persons and things. It was a good day when Sunday schools were first thought of Since then, large numbers of children, who else would have grown up ignorant of God, have been taught to read his holy word; and many have believed and obeyed the gospel, and been saved from the wrath to come.

Adam Smith by Richard Gunn

My interest in Adam Smith was sparked by George Davie, who taught me philosophy at Edinburgh University and who later became a valued friend. One passage in particular from Smith’s writings inspired Davie. It is a passage which, he considered, ought to be famous. It runs as follows:

The Benefits of the Ragged Schools Movement

One of the important successes claimed by the ragged schools was that they helped to reduce juvenile crime. Schools often quoted figures to show how the number of child criminals had declined since their establishment. The Edinburgh Ragged School claimed that, in the first five years of its existence, the percentage of children under fourteen in prison had dropped from 5.6% to 0.9%. Read more…

Ragged Schools: The School Day

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…

Ragged Schools History: The Children; The Poorest of the Poor

The ragged schools aimed at providing schooling for the very poorest children and succeeded in attracting them into the schools in large numbers. Those who went out into the streets to recruit children for the schools and those who taught them were often horrified by what they saw.

The Ragged School by George Cruikshank, 1846

The Ragged Schools: Beginnings

The aim of the ragged schools was simple. They wished to provide free schooling for those children who otherwise would have received no education. The reasons for providing this schooling, however, were diverse. Some ragged schools were established in the belief that all children should be taught regardless of their social background. Read more…