ABSTRACT
In England, a similar revolution in popular education had already been effected, two centuries earlier. The creatures of Henry VIII and Edward VI proceeded by confiscation, by suppression, by encroachment, and by royal monopoly to enrich themselves at the expense of the older faith and the common people. The suggestion that literacy would lead the masses of the people back to Rome reads rather strangely in the light of future arguments that it was exactly this ability which Romanism abhorred and which would be needful for effective proselytism from Romanism. For the lower classes there were the charity schools, confined mainly to the metropolis. These concentrated on literacy education and religious indoctrination. The training they gave was intended to equip lower-class children with the basic techniques essential for low-level functionaries in the industrial and commercial system.
