Senior onEducation

Senior frequently turned his attention to the condition of elementary edu­cation in Britain with a special focus on poor and pauper children. In 1837, in Letters on the Factory Act, he argued that ‘the Factory Act, by driving many children into other employment, makes the expediency of adopting a general system for the education of all children even more urgent than it was before' (Senior 1837: 23).

in the matter of education the Government of this country owes a duty to its people which it has not performed... If we might hazard another suggestion, it would be, that a further step should be made towards the introduction of a general system of education, by the issuing of a Royal Commission to inquire into the state of education of the poorer classes in Great Britain, and to suggest measures for its improvement and for the establishment of a system of national education. A comparison of our methods and of our extent of instruction with those of nations on whose civilization we presume to look down, would be a useful stimulus to the exertions of some, and a useful sedative to the national vanity of others (Senior 1841c: 121-124).

The Royal Commission for which Senior had argued was eventually set up in 1858 with him as a member and in 1859 he submitted a memorandum to his colleagues entitled On the Education of Pauper Children in Unions^[36] in which he argued:

The pauper children who receive no education, or one which trains them to pauperism, vice, and crime, are precisely the children for whom the Government is responsible. Their parents are dead, or have deserted them, or are unable to feed them, much less to educate them. To them the State is loco parentis (Senior in Levy 1970: 179).

In his contribution to the Commission’s report and in testimony to a par­liamentary select committee in 1862, Senior was critical of the existing Poor Law authorities for their lack of action (see ibid.: 180-182). There was also division in the Commission concerning the role of government. The minority argued against intervention, preferring a reliance on private duty and benevo­lence. Senior agreed with the majority who were against this “laissez-faire” position (see ibid.: 182-185). In 1861, Senior published a volume entitled Suggestions on Popular Education (Senior 1861). Much of it was dedicated to the educational provision of poor and pauper children.^[37]

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