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…
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…
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 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…
Golden Lane Ragged School.
A Special Meeting on behalf of the above School was held on Thursday, January 25th, in the Lecture Room of the City of London Literary and Scientific Institution, Aldersgate Street; the Lord Mayor in the chair. Read more…
Great difficulties having been experienced by Teachers in keeping order and communicating useful instruction in Ragged Schools, a few hints by a fellow- worker may not be altogether useless. Read more…
Guild with the bloodless check,
Poor wanderer pale and weak,
Whose heart has never learn’d to share
The kindness of a mother’s care—
Come to the Ragged School.