ABSTRACT
The field of history of education has long suffered a reputation as being boring for students, and practically if not also theoretically pointless within the broader discipline of Education. History of education has never previously been a major part of Education Studies. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the roots and development of ‘liberal education’. It focuses on the crucial topic of the education of girls and women, and discusses the influence of ‘concepts of femininity’. The book focuses on the teachers themselves, as the social ecosystem of state education developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It shows that English education in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was no less affected by empire, notwithstanding the differences between Roman and British imperialism.
