'On the speedy provision of elementary education,' Forster warned the Commons in ...

'On the speedy provision of elementary education,' Forster warned the Commons in 1870 'depends upon our industrial prosperity, the safe working of our constitutional system, and our national power. Civilized communities throughout the world are massing themselves together, each mass being measured by its force: and if we are to hold our position among men of our own race or among the nations of the world, we must make up for the smallness of our numbers by increasing the intellectual force of the individual.' A movement long maturing was taking shape in action and with it a controversy which of all Victorian controversies is perhaps the hardest to recall with patience.

It is not always remembered that Cobden regarded Free Trade, not as a law of nature, but as a device for postponing the inevitable consequences of American competition.

In his heart Cobden preferred the pre-industrial civilization in which he was born, and there is as much bitterness as belief in his economic creed. It may be admitted, and by this time it was almost universally agreed, that simple instruction should be brought within the reach of all who needed it.

Not universal, but still dominant, was the opinion that the instruction should include the Bible and the elements of religion.