As a device for getting simple ideas into simple heads as fast ...

As a device for getting simple ideas into simple heads as fast as possible it was successful.' Up to a certain point the Bell and Lancaster children made astonishing progress; most children like playing at school; and the system was not intended to carry them further than the Three R's. The British and Foreign

School Society backed Lancaster and simple

Bible reading; the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church stood for Bell and the Catechism.

A fine class-distinction tended to keep them apart through the Victorian age; the British Day scholar was not, as a rule, of the poorest class.

The success of the two societies in diffusing elementary instruction was admitted, and the first intervention of the State in the education of the people took the shape of a grant in aid, in 1833, for school-building; of Li 1,000 to the National Society and £19,000 to the British and Foreign.

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