ABSTRACT
In May 1907 there was a dispute over a threat to one of the parish schools in St. Giles parish from a possible merger with a Board school—George Palmer Senior School. The vicar of St. Giles told the chairman of Reading Education Committee that ‘these senior schools can never be of real service to the community so long as there is no compulsory continued education in England as in Germany’. Small, sect-like, face-to-face groupings of this kind seemed to be culturally attractive and economically possible for the working class during the nineteenth century, from the Methodist Class Meeting onwards. In WEA terms such groups were intended to generate a deeper type of commitment than lectures. Such sharp perceptions of constraints and possibilities were rare elsewhere in the town. In spite of the Association’s preference for other modes, ‘gentlemen’ from time to time did help.
