ABSTRACT
The reasons for State intervention in education were similar to those in the field of public health. Just as the conjunction of dirt and disease called for advice, guidance and, eventually, compulsion, so the threat of large numbers of working people crowded together in an alien environment, far from the traditional benefits and obligations of a village community, suggested a need for education to inure the community to its new role and attendant obligations. The State saw education primarily as a problem of order. The first parliamentary grant for education was made in 1833 (6a). Though payable to assist the voluntary efforts of Church schools, who dominated elementary education provision, it marked the beginnings of State support; and this would lead eventually to a State system of education.
