ABSTRACT
Many endowed schools were under a legal obligation to give free education to the sons, it might be of burgesses, or of any resident or ratepayer in the town or parish. In 1852 the Committee of Council on Education offered grants to industrial schools for the purchase of tools, books and maps, a contribution of half towards the rent of a workshop and a fee of ten shillings to the instructor in respect of each child. In the meantime the philanthropists who were primarily interested in the Ragged Schools and therefore in some measure of instruction had found the bulk of the scanty grants falling to mere “refuges”. The Police in Counties and Boroughs Act of 1856 affords an example of controversial legislation where the issue was not between collectivism and individualism but between centralization and various forms of localism.
