ABSTRACT
Beddoes always managed, through his many commitments and enthusiasms, to raise high expectations but, too often, as Roy Porter put it, he “suffered from trying to do too much too fast.”2 But his underlying philanthropy was never in doubt. This is abundantly true of his long-forgotten educational plans, which involved the promotion and then the manufacture of what were then known as “rational toys” (i.e. toys for use by the general public and for the educational advancement of their children).3
