Fighting down the idea that the only place for women was home. Gender(Δ)

8/13/2019 Fighting down the idea that the only place for women was home. Gender()

1/17

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

This article was downloaded by: [HEAL-Link Consortium]

On: 12 February 2010

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 786636649]

Publisher Routledge

Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-

41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

History of EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713599897

Fighting down the idea that the only place for women was home? Genderand policy in elementary education 1870-1904Jane Martin aaNene College, Northampton NN2 7AL, UK

To cite this ArticleMartin, Jane(1995) 'Fighting down the idea that the only place for women was home? Gender andpolicy in elementary education, 1870-1904', History of Education, 24: 4, 277 292

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/0046760950240401URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0046760950240401

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713599897http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0046760950240401http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdfhttp://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdfhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0046760950240401http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713599897


2/17

HISTORY OF EDUCATION, 1 9 9 5 , VOL. 2 4 , NO.4 , 2 7 7 - 2 9 2

Fighting down the idea that the only place forwomen was home? Gender and policy inelementary education, 1870-1904JANE MARTIN

Nene College, Park Campus, Moulton Park, Northampton NN2 7AL, UK

IntroductionThis paper explores the relationship between gender and policy in English educationby looking at the work of the twenty-nine w omen mem bers of the London School B oard.In examining curriculum policies that were introduced for the schooling ofworking-class girls it considers the strategies and tactics these women proposed andused in relation to the constraints and pro blem s they faced as ad ministrators and p olicymakers in the field of elementary education.W om en en tering the public arena face both 'a historically specific pattern of pow errelations between m en and wo me n and definitions of masculinity and femininity',1 andthe ideologies which sustain it . Then, as now, some of the difficulties womenexperienced sprang from a certain incompatibility between 'feminine' conduct and the

dem ands on people in public life. Wh at gives the analysis added significance is the factthat, unlike their predom inantly m ale colleagu es, these political activists were amo ngstthe first women in England to be elected to positions of this kind of politicalresponsibility. Som e understanding of the conflicts they faced w hilst operating withina political environment can only serve to heighten an awareness of why, according tothe Conservative MP E mm a Nicholson in 1990: 'sometime s wh ether you are a man orwoman seems to matter more than anything else in this place' . 2Tho ugh a com mo n eleme nt within feminism is the belief that wo me n suffer injusticebecause of their gender, there are differing feminist agenda s for chan ge. Not all wom enSchool Board m em bers saw themselve s as working for the emanc ipation of their gender,or as advocates of women's rights. Such views reflect both tactical and politicaldiversity. Though the presence of women on the Board struck a blow at the existinggender order, critical reflection o n their work inv olves going bey ond their 'pion eerin g'status to examine the nature of their contribution to the workings of the Board. WasM illicent Fawce tt right? Do 'wo m en bring som ething to the service of the state differentfrom that which can be brought by men'? 3

The paper is divided into four parts. The first part examines the role and status ofthe London School Board and the position of women members within this single-issuelocal authority. The second gives an overview of educational provision forworking-class girls before 1870 and that given to middle-class girls on both sides of

1 R. Connell,Gender and Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), 98-9.2 Guardian,28 November 1990, 38.3 Millicent Fawcett cited in M. Pugh, Women and the W omen s Movement in B ritain 19141959(London: Macmillan, 1992), 3.0046-760X/95 $1000 1995 Taylor & Francis Ltd.


3/17

278 J. Ma rtinthe 1870 benchmark. The third and fourth sections deploy the typology of significantgroups identified by Williams4 to explore the role played by assertive and principledwomen representatives through an analysis of the issues surrounding the question ofthe curriculum for girls in state elementary schools.

The administration of the London School BoardThe 1870 Education Act reflected the balance of power between two coalitions thencam paign ing for educ ational reform the National Education Leag ue, supported by thenewly enfranchised middle classes, dissenters, the Trades Union Congress and fortyLiberal M Ps; and the National Education U nion com prising the Anglican Chu rch andthe Tory Pa rty. Disag reem ents over form and con tent were complicated by the 'religiousissue': the former pressing the case for non-sectarian state schools and the latterdefending the interests of church schools and religion. Such organized pressureprovided the backdrop to a legislative compromise which effectively fastened a dualsystem of organization on the elementary schools, whereby existing church schoolsenjoyed the support of an increased Treasury grant, whilst provision was made forlocally elected scho ol boards to levy a rate for education w here there were inad equa cies.Elected every three years, board members were responsible for ensuring localeducational needs were met, erecting buildings where these were lacking, providingteachers and, if they though t proper, enforcing the attendance of non-ex em pted childrenunder thirteen.5

Then, as now, competing sets of beliefs, perceptions, propositions, values,grievances and aspirations surrounded the term 'education'. Accentuating the generalfeatures, Donald6 has emphasized a common thread. First, a concern to moralize theworking class evident across the political spectrum. Second, a belief that suchinterventions should be subsidized o r, increasingly, condu cted by ag encies of the state.As the city was seen as the centre of poverty and vice, as well as the locus of crime,disorder and potential revolution, it may well have been more than mere coincidencethat the Lond on Scho ol Board differed from its counterparts in the rest of Eng land andWales in two important respects. First, unlike those others, it was created under theterms of the Education Act of 1870. Second, while other boards were restricted tobetwe en five and fifteen mem bers, the first Lon don Boa rd had forty-nine m em bers risingto fifty-four by the mid-1880s. Factors of size and formation placed it in a uniqueposition not only vis-a-vis the issue of cen tral-loca l control but in terms of the role itwas to play as a representative of, and in setting the educational standards for, otherboards to follow.

Recognizing its exceptional nature, contemporaries greeted the formation of theLondon School Board with a combination of awe and respect: 'No equally powerfulbody will exist in England outside Parliament, if power be measured by influence forgood or evil over masses of human bein gs. ' 7 To be elected as one of its members not

4 R, Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965).5 B. Simon, The Two Nations and the Educational Structure 17801870(London: Law rence and W ishart,1981).6 J. Donald, 'Beacons of the future: schooling, subjectivity and social relations' in V. Beechey andJ. Donald (eds), Subjectivity and Social Relations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1985).7 The Times, 29 Novem ber 1870.


4/17

Gender and policy in elementary education 279only carried w ith it an element of social responsibility but served to conv ey a sense ofstatus and prestige among one's peers. The opportunity thus presented was especiallysignificant for women as school boards were the first elected public bodies in GreatBritain to admit women on the same terms as men.

Three parties were involved in the management of London's board schools: theboard itself w orked through a school managem ent com mittee, individual mem bers andlocal school managers. This system of local administration and finance had a massiveimp act on the forms a nd content of schooling, on the resources a vailable to schools andon real educational opportunities. Often lively and sometimes hilarious8, the weeklyBoard m eetings provided a forum for debate and decision mak ing on motions of policy.Florence Fenwick Miller, mem ber of the School Board for London (henceforth M SBL )1876-85, sets the scene:... the Board-room was a spacious, lofty chamber with a gallery for the public at one end, facing along table for the Chairman and other officers on a dais at the other end with a cross table belowthe dais for the press. The brown-leather-covered seats for members between the Chairman's tableand the public gallery were arranged horse-shoe fashion around the carpeted floor... the chairmenof the several committees of the Board had a prescriptive right to the seats at the points of thehorse-shoe and therefore next up to the chairman 's dais and the press tables. In this and in all othermatters the precedent of the customs of the House of Commons was followed. 9

Th e accent on parliame ntary tradition is significant he re. W om en 's historical exclusionfrom the public realm left w om en m em bers w ith no choice but to build upon, or try toundermine, this inherited foundation. Unaccustomed to the structures and discoursesof the public political context in which they were now required to act wom en mem bersof the London School Board un doubted ly felt uncom fortable an d out of place at times.The women responded to appeals from the women's movement to stand for electionbut had mixed feelings about their novel political and administrative experience.Henrietta Mu ller 's (M SBL 1879-85) com ment on completing her service encapsulatesthis dilemma: 'At first the feeling of relief and freedom was very great but now I canonly think of the little girls and the women teachers who are without a friend at theBoard . '10

An indication of the workload can be gauged by looking at the Board's weeklytimetable. Du ring the first Board, the Statistical Com mittee m et on alternate T hursda ysat 3:30 pm , the W orks and G eneral Purpo ses on Mon day s at 3:00, and the Finan ceCommittee on alternate Tuesdays at 3:00. The School Management Committee metevery Friday at 3:00, the sub-committee of the Industrial Schools on Tuesdays at10:00 am and the Bye-Law s Com mittee on alternate Thursdays at 2:00 pm. TheCommittee responsible for teaching staff met at 4:30pm on Mondays, Books andApparatus every Thursday at 4:00, and the Charitable Endowments on alternateTuesdays at 3:0 0. Indeed Gautrey 12 reckoned that the central meetings reached asmany as 750 a year, exclusive of local meetings and visits to the schoo ls. A flavour ofthe practical imp lications is captured by the following entry in Edith S im cox 's (M SBL1879-82) diary:

8 T. Gautrey, Lux Mihi Laus : School Board Memories(London: Link House, n.d.), 39.9 'Autobiography' cited in R. Van Arsdel,FlorenceFenwick Miller:Feminismand the Woman s Signal1895-1899(University of Puget Sound, Washington, 1979), 14-15.10 Edith Simcox, 'Autobiography of a Shirtmaker', 9 February 1880, 67.11 School Board Chronicle, 8 June 1872, 71 .12 T. Gautrey, Lux Mihi Laus : School Board Memories(London: Link House, n.d.), 27.


5/17

280 J. Ma rtinReached Mortimer Street at 9, looked round, then to Hart Street to see about pupil and assistantteacher, then to Vere Street for drawing ex am inat ion ... then saw the visitor and received reports oftruant cases caught by the visitors, managers' m ee tin g. .. set off for the Rota, Works Com mittee andEducational Endowments etc.-home reading Blackwood en route ... l 3

Many found the comm ittee work too exacting and only half of the 326 mem bers servedfor more than one term of three years. 14 Though professional women like ElizabethGarrett Anderson (M SB L 1870 -3) struggled to meet the requirements of public office,socialists raised other class-based themes. Helen Taylor (MSBL 1876-85) and AnnieBesant (MSBL 1888-91) both demanded evening meetings to facilitate working-classrepresentation with the support of the only working-class member Benjamin Lucraft(MSBL 1870-90) .1 5The issue of participation highlights the dilemm a facing workingpeople. In theory, any adult was eligible to stand for election. In practice, it wastremendously difficult for those without an independent income or flexible workingconditions.

Such determinants notwithstanding, the relation between central and localgovernm ent was also crucial to the Bo ard 's w ork. This was certainly true of the schoolcurriculum since the principle of payment by results constrained both the form andcontent of the elementary curriculum. 16 The power of the purse becomes clear whenone considers Maclure 's 1 7 estimate that the Education Department's Codes initiallycovered about 40% of the cost of educating a child at a London board school, not tomention the local vestries and ratepayers' associations who also had a vested interestin the prospective cost. It was this structure of educational organization, then, thatshaped the forms of struggle over the nature of educational knowledge transmitted toworking-class girls.

The legacy of voluntary provisionThis section provides a brief overview of educational provision for girls in the periodfrom 1800 to 1870. Since class and gender relations were in a state of flux innineteenth-century England, the connections between the educational backgrounds ofwom en Bo ard mem bers and the stance they adopted on the question of the curriculumfor working-class girls may have been important. To indicate the extent of social classdifferentiation, I will look first at educa tional pro vision for w orking-c lass girls and then,second, at educational provision for middle-class girls.Research into educational provision before the 1870 Education Act shows that theschooling of working-class girls differed from that of working-class boys in severalrespe cts. First, the school attendan ce of girls was far lower than that of boy s.18Second,

13 Edith Simcox, 'Autobiography of a Shirtmaker', 9 March 1880, 69.14 T. Gautrey, Lux Mihi Laus : School Board Memories(London: Link House, n.d.).15 School Board Chronicle,19 January 188 9,55 .16 The 1862 Revised Code introduced Sir Robert Lowe 's principle of payment by results whereby grantswere pinned to the specific performance of individual children in the six standard examinationsconducted by her Majesty's Inspectors. It effectively fastened a mechanical system of rote teaching,mainly confined to the 'three R s', on the schools. Although successive codes expanded the list of optionalor class subjects on which, in addition to the three Rs and needlework, grant was payable, schools werenot allowed to present any child for examination in more than two or three class subjects.17 S. Maclure,A History ofEducationin London 1870-1990(London: Penguin, 1990), 45-6 .18 J. Martin, The Origins and Development of Gendered Schooling ', unpublished MA dissertation,University of Warwick, 1987.


6/17

Gender and policy in elementary education 281within the day schools organized by the two main religious organizations, 19 whichoffered over 90% of voluntary school places,20 fewer places were offered towo rking-c lass girls than to wo rking-c lass bo ys. Third , differential stress was placed onappearance, with neatness and cleanliness considered m ore important for girls. Fourth,both the 1851 Census and the Newcastle Report a decade later showed that girls lostout in all the acade mic su bjects save reading . Th is pattern w as reinforced in 186 2, wh enneed lewo rk becam e an obligatory subject for girls. It wo uld appea r that m any girls spentthe afternoon sewing and w ere subsequently permitted a lower standard in the annu alarithmetic examinations.21

The association between women and domesticity was used as a rationale for thekinds of educ ation offered to working -class girls and the informal schooling in dom esticwo rk linked w ith erratic school attend ance . Girls we re frequently expec ted to fulfil theroles of 'go od w ives ' and 'little moth ers' on w ashday s, or if their mo ther worked, w asill or having a baby. In the representative words of a Reverend Earnshaw, 'a mothercannot spare her daugh ters as much as her son s, boys are in the way at hom e, but girlsassist in domestic work'.2 2

M iddle-class girls were largely educated for the marriage m arket and the low -status'alternative' to a marital career was assimilation into the ranks of those 'redundant'single women featured in the writings of 'concerned' social commentators like W. E.Greg. Thoug h man y we re taught by their mo thers and governesses at hom e, or attendedsmall private schools, those with very wealthy parents attended expensive, fashionableboarding schools. By mid-century the unsystematic nature of this education wasattracting criticism from professional and wealthy businessmen aspiring to a newstandard of 'gentility' that would differentiate them from the newly rich.23 Growingpressure to improve governesses' teaching skills, linked to the greater competenceexpected of boys starting school, led to the foundation of Queen's College for theeducation of girls over twelve years. Within six month s, Bedford College open ed w iththe broader aim of educating women who desired higher education, Emily Davies(MSBL 1870-3) founding Girton College in 1869.Aside from the women's colleges, the movement to establish academicallyorientated schools for middle-class girls grew. Six of the twenty-nine women Boardmembers are known to have benefited from the campaign for equal access to highereducation for women and it would appear that the majority did not receive the trivialeducation given to others of their sex and class. Henrietta M uller (MSB L 187 9-85 ) andConstance Elder (MSB L 1897 -1900 ) were former Girtonians, while Hilda Miall-Smith(MS BL 190 0-04) was an ex-pupil at the North London C ollegiate and one of the first

19 A reference to the voluntary schools established by the two main school societies, the non-conformistRoyal 'Lancastrian Association (renamed the British and Foreign Schools Society in 1814) and theNational Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church.Formed in 18 11, the National Society took over the charity schoo ls run by the Society for the Prom otionof Christian Knowledge, with the result that by the 1850s schools associated with the Church of Englandoutnum bered British schools in the ratio of about seventeen to one . Other forms of educational provision,as opposed to such indigenous forms of schooling as the dame schools, included charity schools foundedon the basis of gentry endowments, industrial schools, factory schools and ragged or free schoolsprovided by philanthropists for children considered too dirty and poor to be accepted elsewhere.20 J. Hurt, Elementary Schooling and the Working C lasses 1860-1918 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1979), 4.21 A. Digby and P. Searby, Children, Sch ool and Society in Nineteenth Century E ngland (London andBasingstoke: Macmillan, 1981), 46.22 New castle Report, Parliamentary Papers 1861 , Part 5, 183.23 J. Burstyn, Victorian Education and the Ideal of Womanhood (London: Croom Helm, 1980).


7/17

282 J. Martinwomen graduates to receive her BA from London University in 1882. Modelled on theNorth London Collegiate, the schools established by the Girls ' Public Day SchoolCom pany (henceforth G PDS C) founded in 1872 were in the main determined to contestthe idea that girls were incapable of serious academic study. As well as the continuedemphasis on ladylike accomplishments, these schools offered 'a sound, liberaleducation' which could lead to entry into the professions. The arguments advanced byM aria Grey, founder of the G PD SC , reveal the interacting dyn amics of class and gen derin this context:

The Elementary Education Act provides for the girls of the lower classes equal advantages with theboys.But the ratepayers so heavily taxed for this provision, get no aid whatever in educating theirown daughters according to their class in life, and are obliged to send them to private schools, thegreater number of which give an education greatly inferior to thoroughness and value as mentaltraining to the elementary schools.24

This is a classically con servative framing of educational issue s. Th e stress is on socialdifferentiation and an edu cation suited to a pe rso n's station in life. Ru nning for electionto the first School Bo ard for Londo n M rs Grey w as effusive in her support for the ideathat a working-class education should include training in practical skills. Girls inparticular should learn 'as their prope r business, all the arts by which the wife and hom ecan compete with the public-house' .25 To what extent her attitude was representativeof the at t i tudes adopted by women members of the London School Board remains tobe seen.1 8 7 0 -8 5 . Girls education: an apprenticeship for domesticity?This section explores the connections between gender and policy from the perspectiveof the wom en m emb ers of the Lond on School B oard. Focusing on the debate over thenature of schooling for wo rking-class girls, i t considers the role played by assertive andprincipled women representatives struggling to attain influence in the elementaryeducation system. Using Williams's distinction between 'industrial trainers' , 'publiceducators' and 'old humanists ' to identify significant groups,26 I will argue thatconnecting the ways in which personal experience and political affiliation combinewithin the feminism of women Board members is integral to understanding their

achievements.As members of the first London School Board, two women and forty-seven menfaced the unenviab le task of shaping the embryo nic system of working-class educa tionthen in existence. Both Em ily Davies and Elizabeth Ga rrett had established rep utationswithin their own field, Emily through her work on behalf of middle-class girls 'educ ation, Elizabeth as Britain 's first hom e-trained wo ma n doctor. On ce assembled, theBoard adopted a preliminary curriculum including the necessary 'three Rs' andneed lewo rk, as well as religious instruction, m usic and drill , before appointing a specialsub-com mittee to consider the schools and the metho ds of instruction to be adopted in

24 Journal of the Wom en s Educational Union,15 May 1875, 9-10.25 Maria G. Grey, 'Meeting of Working Men and Women at the Cadogan Rooms', address delivered28 November 1870, The School Board for London: Three Addresses of Mrs William Grey in theBorough of Chelsea with a Speech by W illiam Groves, Esq;, QC, FRC (London: W. Ridgeway,1871),20.26 R. Williams,T he Long Revolution(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965).


8/17

Gender andpolicy in elementary education 283them . Chaired byThomas Huxley (MS BL 1870 -2) ,2 7sub-comm ittee mem bers includedEmily Davies and Benjamin Lucraft. Early moves to insist that older girls studyHousehold Economy show thelinks betwee nthedistributionofeducational knowledgeand expectations about men's and women's work, aswellas thepatronizing attitudeof many mentowards the women members .The atmosphere isreflected in aseriesof clashes between William Green (anothermember of thecurriculum su b-comm ittee)andElizabeth Garrett Andersonon theissue.Moving anamendment to Green's motion that Household Economy betaughtin thesenior girls' schools, Garrett Anderson com plained about thefinancial implicatio nsandpractical difficulties. Substituting 'domestic economy' for thecooking and washingproposed by Green, Elizabeth asserted that the subject should be discretionary butthat both girls and boys should be taught it. In her opinion the expense entailed inobtaining suitable premises, equipm entand staff, theunnecessary wastageoffood,theunlikelihood ofpeople sendinginclothesto bewashedin theschools,and theriskofinfection for children washing clothes, wereallreasonsfor not teaching cookingandwashing to the under-thirteens.28 Speaking a language of restraint and habit, sheappealedto the liberal tenetsof practical self-help tojustify theteachingof domesticeconomyin a larger sense (including lessonson theneedforfresh air,cleanlinessandhygiene) as one of theordinary lessonsof theschool.Thethemesofgenderandclasscombine in a convincing political rationale enabling her to minimize the impact ofgender differentiation, despitethemisgivingsofWilliam Green.To thelaughterof hiscolleagues, William adm itted tohaving been frequently convincedbyladiesbutdeniedhaving been sothatday.W hile theymayhave sharedhissenseofhumour theydid notendorsehisopinionand MrsAnderson 's am endmentwascarriedby thirty-five votesto four.29

As Elizabeth Garrett Anderson did notobjectto theprincipleofworking-class g irlsbeing taught cooking andwashingper se but the age at which such instruction shouldbegin,it is arguable thatherprime concernwas toavoid thedevaluation of domesticskills. Whilst Mrs Anderson's limited opposition to notions of subject-genderappropriateness w ithin the Board school curriculum representsareactiontoprevailingconditions of lifeand mayencapsulate a positive conceptionof her sex's traditionalactivities within thehome,it was aconception constructed withinthecontextofclassand gender power relations.Theshadowof class thinking is seenin herunequivocalsupport for Emily Davies's uncompromising belief that college girls should studythesame courses andtake the same examinations as theboys.The issue of subject-gender appropriateness was a recurring theme in thedecision-making process regarding the selection, organization and distribution ofeducational knowledge. Though John MacGregor, the Reverend Dr Miller and theReverend J. Allanson Picton successfully argued that older girls andboys be taughtbook-keeping, mensuration waslimited to senior boys. While William Green worriedthat the Board would be made a 'laughing-stock', analysis of exchanges over the27 Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), born Ealing, Middlesex. Studied medicine at Charing Cross Hospital.

Fellow of the Royal Society and foremost exponent of Darwin s theory of evolution, Huxley wasvariously employed as assistant surgeon on HMS Rattlesnake (1846-50), Professor of Natural Historyat the Royal School of Mines (1854) and principal of the South London Working Men s College (1868).The author of a number of essays on theology and philosophy written from an agnostic viewpoint,Huxley sat on several Royal Commissions and was perhaps the most influential exponent of the viewthat both scientific and literary studies were essential to an all-round education.

28 School Board Chronicle 1 July 1871, 198.29 Ibid.


9/17

284 /.Martinteaching of freehand drawing show the way in which Thomas Huxley (chair of thecurriculum sub-committee) could deploy wit and sarcasm in order to assume anauthoritative voice. As the School Board Chronicle records:

Professor Hux ley held it as an axiom that everybody might be taught to draw .. . it had not occurredto the committee that there were any particular reason for excluding female children, whilst thosewho reflected on the employment of women might see that a certain elementary knowledge of artmight be of use to them. He had just passed the office of a fashion journal, and as he looked at thedrawings in the window he could not help reflecting that if women in general had a little moreknowledge of art their attire would be more in accordance with aesthetical principles than at present;but he would defer to the judgement of the ladies who were members of the Board. (Laughter) 30

Though male members often disparaged their female colleagues who faced certaindifficulties against the 'dominant tone' of the men, the reference to attire is importantas both w om en tried to avoid arousing hostility by conformity on the question of dress.Em ily Davies in particular engaged in a considerable am ount of stage-managem ent inher work for women's education, though Elizabeth shared her views as to theimportance of public relations. Corresponding with Emily on the subject Elizabethnoted: 'I do wish, as you said, the D' s dressed better. She looks awfully strong-m indedin walk ing dress It is abo m inable , and mo st dam aging to the cause I feelconfident now that one is helped rather than hindered by being as much like a lady aslies in one's power'.3 1 Huxley's remarks presumably reflected his belief that asw om en 's anatom y confined them to an inferior position: The duty of ma n is to see thatnot a grain is piled upon that load beyo nd w hat nature im pos es; that injustice is not addedto inequality.'32 A critical William Green sought to exclude girls with the followingilluminating comment:

He could not help thinking that the Board was forgetting the class of children it had to educate andtheir necessities in after-life . . . w hat use would draw ing be to girls, whose future occupation wouldprobably be that of domestic servants or the wives of working men? He ventured to think that theonly drawing such girls would require to know would be the 'drawing' of geese and other thingsfor the table. (Lau gh ter) . . . to educate girls in this w a y .. . would be to m ake them unfit for whatsome people chose to call the ordinary drudgery of every-day li fe . . . . Th en there was the ratepayers 'side of the question.33In his speech Green combines a classic conservative statement epitomized by the beliefthat schools should contribute to the maintenance of the status quo, with concern aboutthe level of the rates. Seeking to exert a very different influence from that of Huxley,Green promoted education in terms of training and disciplining the poor as workers andcitizens. Unlike the 'industrial trainers', 'public educators' like Huxley felt that: 'menhad a natural human right to be educated and that any good society depended ongovernm ents accepting this principle as their duty '.34Including the 'old hum anists' andtheir emphasis on a 'liberal ' , 'humane' or 'cultural ' education, Williams's 3 5 typologyprovides a schema for considering the educational philosophies espoused by keyindividuals struggling to influence the process of curriculum development and change.Thus Emily Davies counters the biological determinism of the next speaker,the Reverend Prebendary Thorold, with an argument combining vision withconventionality. Giving her reasons for voting in favour of the resolution and inopposition to Mr Green she argued that:30 School Board Chronicle, 1 July 1 871, 197.31 Cited in B. Stephen, Emily D avies and Girton C ollege (London: Constable and Co., 1927), 59.32 Reader, May 1865 , 561 -2 .33 School Board Chronicle, 1 July 187 1, 197.34 R. Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), 162.35 Ibid.


10/17

Gender a nd policy in elementary education 285... drawing would n ot .. . interfere with the essential subjects, because they were protected in someway or other-n eed lew ork, for instance, being amongst the subjects in girls' schools for which theGovernment grant was giv en ... in the best girls' schools drawing was successfully taught withoutneglecting essential subjects, and she thought a practical experiment of this kind was worth a gooddeal of theorising. They would all agree w ith the last speaker that it was undesirable to make theeducation of girls such that it would discourage them from taking an interest on the daily duties oflife;but she could hardly think that the way to make them take an interest in such matters was tomake them entirely ignorant of everything el se .. . what was wanted was to m ake the girls intelligentand capable of making their homes and their husbands comfortable, and of improving the presentstate of things which so often led the husbands to the public house. She thought education for girlsshould be a little wider and a little more interesting than it was at present .. .36

Like the tactic of placing pretty and docile-looking women at the front of publicmeetings called to discuss w om en's education,37Davies uses the domestic vocation ofthe working-class g irl as a conservative rationale for improving he r schooling. Taking'practical experience' rather than 'abstract theorising' for her thesis, she ensures theargum ent is based on rational formulations and cannot be dismissed as mere 'fem inine 'emotion. Far from expressing an educational philosophy which threatens the existingclass and gender orde rs, the reasons cited in support of the resolution dem onstrate thatwhile there may be differences betwee n the education policy statemen ts of herself andWilliam Green, their social aims were actually similar.

By contrast, the working-class Benjamin Lucraft's expression of support for theresolution opposes the industrial arguments advanced by William Green or the morepragmatic response of Emily Davies. Aware of the inequalities of society, Lucraftincorporates a demand for fairness with an elementary grass-roots egalitarianism toconvey a sense that education matters. He:... hoped the Board would give the girls the same opportunity of learning drawing as the boys wouldhave.If the Board were composed only of ladies, he felt sure they would vote for teaching the girlsdrawing, but seeing the Board was composed entirely of gentlemen, they voted in favour of theirown sex He wanted to see the children of working men have an opportunity of rising , and hehoped the Board would get rid of all narrow views and strive to give the poor an education whichshould be on equality with other classes, otherwise the poor would have no opportunity of rising ,and things would remain as they are.38

In common with 'public educators' like Huxley, Lucraft wanted to prevent universaleducation being narrowed to a system of pre-industrial training, though a perceptionof the potential for social amelioration and personal fulfilment is tempered by arecognition of the dangers should mass schooling not take its form from the pursuit ofthese aims. Acknowledging the presence of gender antagonisms stemming from thecomposition of the Board, Lucraft implies that women members would uphold thesolidarity of their 'se x' over and above the barriers of class. Irrespective of whether thedifferences betw een Lucraft and Dav ies should be interpreted in terms of the eco nom icand political affiliation of social class, Lucraft maintained the stand he had adoptedagainst further attempts to stultify the curriculum for working-class girls.

Thu s when the debate w as resurrected in 1889 Lucraft allied himself w ith a wom anmember, Margaret Ashton Dilke (MSBL 1888-91), to challenge Board policy on thequestion of mechanical drawing. Though taught in all boys' departments it was onlytaken in a few of the girls' schools and not necessarily as a subject for examination.Since government grant was paid on the basis of examination results, this was asignificant distinction. By proposing that girls spend two hours a week on drawing36 School Board Chronicle,1 July 1871, 197.37 Cited in B. Stephen, Em ily Davies and Girton College(London: Constable and Co., 1927), 108-19.38 School Board Chronicle,1 July 1871, 197.


11/17

286 J. MartinLucraft wanted to ensure the subject would be taught for a sufficient time in all girls'schools, to be taken as a subject for exam ination. He achieved his goal and Mrs AshtonDilke and Emma Knox Maitland (MSBL 1888-91 , 1894-1902) took the opportunityto attack the time devoted to needlew ork, the latter declaring she w ould rather the Bo ardfight the Inspectors on this point than the girls spend less time on arithmetic and spellingas was permitted under the New Code. 39

Making the most of opportunities to challenge the needlework requirements wasa well-worn tactic among w omen Board mem bers seeking room for manoeuv re withinthe restrictions of the Education D epa rtm ent 's code s. All four wom en on the third boardsupported Alice Westlake's (MSBL 1876-88) motion that a deputation be sent toquestion the Department over the time devoted to needlework in the New Cod e of 1877,while in 1884 Florence Fenwick Miller headed a deputation from the London SchoolBoard that succeeded in getting the needlework requirements reduced. 40 Both she andHenrietta Muller used their school board position to publicize the subject'sshortcomings. While Henrietta was critical of the emphasis on needlework in schoolsin an 1879 electoral address,41 an extract from one of Fenwick Miller's books revealsthe strength of her feelings on the subject of unnecessary domestic work:

Our sex's mute, inglorious Miltons, Shakespeares, and Bacons were smothered under the load ofdomestic labour. They were spinning and weaving, and planning and cutting, and laboriously stich,stich, stiching - needle pushed in and needle pulled o u t. .. to make from the sheep 's back or the linenyarn the finished garment for wear, all the clothing of all mankind.42Essentially needlework was regarded as a subject in which women members shouldinterest themselves, though this did not mean the men deferred to the women'sjudgement even when it was based on professional expertise.Thus the opposition from the two women members to plans to introduce cookerylessons for older girls in 1874 was not heeded even though Jane Chessar (MSBL1873-6) based her opinion on twenty years' experience of teaching girls at the Homeand Colonial Training College and was ably supported by her colleague, Alice Cowell(MSBL 1870-3). Addressing a meeting of headmistresses in 1877, Jane made herfeelings on the issue clear:

... if one only had to do what was abstractly the best thing in education one would probably opposethe introduction of any industrial work into elementary schools at all, but, as teachers, they must carryout what was the desire of the Government and what appeared also to be the desire of the public.W hilst Jan e's position is clearly distinguishab le from that of the industrial trainers, herpragmatic response contains a kind of realism in the face of what she sees as publicopposition and the actual structure and organization of elementary education.Henceforth female opp onents w ere to be placed on the defensive since the Ed ucationCode of 1878 made domestic economy a compulsory subject for girls in stateelementary schools. Undeterred and with the support of the working-classrepresentatives, Benjamin Lucraft and George Potter (MSBL 1873-82), Elizabeth

SUIT (MSBL 1876-82) and Alice Westlake voiced their opposition to the use ofpurpose-bu ilt cookery centres for teaching practical cookery. Illustrating the expansionof gender differentiation in the formal curriculum, these centres would entail female

39 School Board Chronicle,1 June 1889, 562.40 School Board Chronicle,16 February 1884.41 South London Press,25 October 1879, 2.42 F. Fenwick Miller, In Ladies Com pany: Six Interesting Wom en(1892), 96 .43 School Board Chronicle,3 March 1877, 243.


12/17

Gender a nd policy in elementary education 287pup ils physically leaving the school prem ises for a set period of time to receive lessonsin washing, cookery and housework. However, class divisions were exposed whenAlice expressed the opinion that: ' the majority of the wo rking-classes did not know howto make the best of cheap articles and how to cook their food to the best advantage'. 44To this Benjam in retorted: ' there was very little wa ste of food am ong the poor. .. . MrsW estlake w as not at all acquainted with the working classes or she would no t argue inthe w ay she did ' .45

The ne xt year Alice droppe d all opposition to the schem e though her claim that ' thecookery lessons were very popular ' contradicts the findings of the special reportcompiled for the Education Department in 1896-7. Referring to the 1880s, it recordsthat mothers frequently complained their daughters 'wasted their time' in going to thecookery lessons, while the Board's superintendent of cookery recalled: 'prejudiceagainst it was almost insuperable, and parents put every possible obstacle in the wayof their children a ttending the class es'. 46Even that arch exponent of cookery teaching,Rosamond Davenport-Hil l (MSBL 1879-97), was forced to admit that parentalattitudes were mixed . Referring to the 'frivolous ex cu ses' given for non-attendan ce, shecontinu es: ' the girls, they m ay rem ark, go to school to learn reading and w riting; as forcooking they can learn i t at h o m e' . 4 7In conclusion it is worth noting that Ge orge Potterallied himself with another woman member, Florence Fenwick Miller, in a last-ditchattempt at reducing the length of these classes, the two respectively moving andseconding an unsuccessful mo tion that cookery teach ing start at 10:30 am rather than9:00 am.48Far from encou raging the teaching of dome stic subjects, most Lon don S choo l Boardwom en struggled to minimize their imp act on the education of working -class girls. Theradical Helen Taylor (MSBL 1876-85) for one deplored the fact that ' the girls werebehind the boys in ma tters of lea rn in g. .. beca use it wa s far more imp ortant for a wom anto know h ow to count than to be able to use her ne ed le'. 4 9Even after cookery ha d beenelevated to the status of a grant-paying subject, she and Frances Hastings (MSBL1882-5) tried to modify the policy recommendations of the School ManagementCom mittee dealing with cookery by propo sing a cut in the numb er of lessons involved .Although five of the seven women members of the seventh board supported theseproposals, Alice Westlake and Rosamond Davenport-Hill did not. Significantly both

women belonged to what Florence Fenwick Miller referred to as the 'official ring', a'party of members who voted for each other rather than for principles'. 50 Largelycomposed of the chairs of the standing committees and those in their confidence,Fenwick Miller and her supporters argued that these members 'exercised an arbitraryauthority, and gave no heed of suggestions or representations c om ing from outside thering.'51 These comm ents show also the way in which some women m embers of theBoard resented party discipline and a rigid allegiance to party.

44 School Board Chronicle,1 June 1878, 515.45 Ibid.46 Cited in C. Dyhouse,GirlsGrowingU p InLate Victorianand EdwardianEngland(London: Routledge& K egan Paul, 1981), 90.47 Macmillans Magazine,June 1884, 104.48 School Board Chronicle,11 January 1879, 32.49 South London Chronicle and Lam beth Ensign,20 November 1980, 3.50 School Board Chronicle,7 April 1883, 3.51 School Board Chronicle,28 October 1882, 438.


13/17

288 J. MartinOperating outside the 'official ring', between 1883 and 1885 feminists such asHenrietta Mu ller interpreted pu blic concern o ver the issue of overpressure in elem entaryschools as a condemnation of the extra demands imposed on girls. Thus in 1884Hen rietta respond ed to an external request that ' the attendan ce of girls at the co okery

classes be not enforced' with a motion of her own. Seconded by Frances Hastings,Muller moved that the board's school management committee 'consider whetherCo oke ry prope rly speak ing is an educ ational sub ject, and, further, w hethe r it is suitablefor young children of 14 and und er'.5 2This move was blocked by other memb ers andthe women's effort to limit the growth of domestic instruction failed.I would argue that in opposing the emphasis on schooling for domesticity womenBoard members who did so were enunciating a firm belief in the need to uphold thesolidarity of their gende r. But essentially this approa ch wa s futile so long as the majorityof Board members shared the attitude of the Victorian male establishment towards

school gend er training and sexual divisions in the labour force. Th e need to conve rt theiropponents to their point of view expressed itself in an element of resistance to thedominant definitions of a sex-specific education, for as Johnson points out: 'schoolboard politics seem to have com bined just the right degree of adversity and of hope toencourage socialist and feminist activists to make it a main part of their work'. 53Minority groups can always produce a 'counter-hegemony' which is t ruly'oppositionaF and cannot be incorporated into the dominant culture. It was thispossibility that made the expansion of girls-only classes in domestic subjects a site oftension between proponents of the alternative views.If defining women Board members as feminists was dependent on their stance onthe issue of subject-gender appropriateness, wom en such as Rosamo nd Davenport-Hil lwould probably not be defined as feminists at all. Although it is impossible to talk ofa single late-nineteenth century, early twentieth century feminism, London SchoolBoard women shaped their own response to concerns about the propriety of theirposition as middle-class women pursuing a public life. Against a social thoughtpreoccupied with the need to train or discipline the poor into an independent andself-maintaining existence.

The case of Rosamond Davenport-Hi l lAs the longest serving woman member, Rosamond Davenport-Hill shrewdly used herbase in domesticity to advanc e into the public realm, vigorous suppo rt for the teachingof domestic subjects culminating in her position as chair of the Cookery and laterDo me stic Subjects Com mittee. Her father and unc les were all active social reformersand by the time of her election to the Board Rosamond already had twenty years'expe rience of working along side her father and sister in the mo vem ent for ed ucationaland criminal law reform. Largely respo nsible for establishing 140 cookery centres and50 centres for teaching laundry to wo rking-class girls, Henrietta M uller considered her:'a strong partisan and supporter of the School Board policy' but 'not a friend ofwomen ' . 5 4Embracing the charitable with the policing impulse, her educational philosophyreflected a firm belief in the value of really 'useful' knowledge, combined with

52 School Board for London Minutes24 M arch 1884, 897.53 R. Johnson, Unit 1,E 353 Society, Education and the S tate(Milton Keynes: Open University Press,1981), 34-5.54 Women s Penny Paper,24 November 1888, 1.


14/17

Gender and policy in elementary education 289conventional class and gender stereotypes. Within this framework of ideas, statefunding for teaching girls domestic economy is presented as:

... a beneficent concession as regards the m iserable dwellers in the slums of ourmetropolis . .. knowledge which will enable these poor children to comm and somewhat higher wagesthan otherwise, as mere drudges, they could hope to obtain is of greater value to them than even acompetent knowledge of the 3R's.55Here we see a clear enunciation of her belief in the reformative capacity of education.Such instruction would enable the girls to command higher wages, to maintain theirindependence from the state and effectively combat the thriftless ignorance sheconsidered to be the main source of poverty and of crime. As an industrial trainer,Rosamond promoted education in terms of preparing pupils for their future vocationas workers and citizens. For working-class girls this amounted to lessons in therudime nts of housew ork to inculcate a sense of individual responsibility and service tohome and family. Fear of foreign competition-couched in the language of nationalefficien cy-u nde rpinn ed her support for the provision of a generalized technicaleduc ation throu gh the teaching of specific han dicraft skills thou gh t suitable for one sexonly.

Significantly, her w ork on the Bo ard w as apparently not hamp ered by the fact thatshe ma de so few ve rbal contributions at Boa rd meeting s that she beca me k now n as the' silent mem be r'. Re now ned for her habit of listening and kn itting, it is not inconceivab lethat the majority of her male colleagu es felt mo re comfortable dea ling with her reticencethan the outspoken challenges to the conventional stereotype of Victorian femininityvoiced by som e of her female colleague s. Not surprisingly, perhap s, both she and M rsRuth Homan (MSBL 1891-1904) were frequently depicted as ' typical ' femalerepresentatives during the lifetime of the London Schoo l Board. Co nsequ ently, the finalsection compares the exposure given to Mrs HomanRosamond's successor aschairman of the Domestic Subjects Sub-Committee-with that accorded to a secondgeneration of younger women coming on to the Board during the 1890s.

1886-1904. The wholesome art of housewiferyQuestioning the assumption that Rosamond Davenport-Hill and Ruth Homan were' typical lady m em bers ' , the exposure given to Mrs Hom an in the contemporary mediais contrasted with that accorded to more oppositional ' la dy ' m em bers. According to onesuch journa list, M rs Ho m an w ould serve as a ' typ e of her sister m em be rs'; a 'splendidhouse wife' she was considered able to speak with authority on the theme of service anddomesticity because:

... few homes are so well organised as that over which she presides at Kensington. Every morningat half-past-eight she arranges the duties for the day of her servant, breakfast having been servedhalf-an-hour earlier. At half-past-nine she is free to take her share of the work of the Board, whethershe happens to be visiting any of the fifteen schools in Tower Hamlets under her supervision,answering letters sent by teachers, attending committee meetings, or visiting some industrial orhousewifery centre.56Social class is crucial here. Ruth's status as scientific household manager is verydifferent from the ideal of practical housekeeper upheld for working-class girls in theeducational policies she wa s instrumen tal in framing. There was no expec tation on R uth

55 Macm illans Magazine,June 1884, 99.56 M. Morrison, 'Ladies on the London School Board', Newscuttings, 'School Boards' (1896-7), FawcettLibrary.


15/17

29 0 J. Martinto perform such domestic tasks as cooking and washing. She occupied the privilegedposition of being able to organize the man ual labou r of others. Indeed , it was this abilityto employ substitute female labour which left her free to earn a reputation as an 'ableand conscientious London School Board mem ber' .5 7A s an elected public servant she,unlike the domestic servants she employed, is depicted as a professional woman, thecultural capital derived from social class position underpinning this combination ofvoluntary effort and professional label.

Having herself completed a course in artisan scullery and cooking lessons at theSouth Kensington School of Cookery, Ruth consistently promoted domestic subjects,particularly encouraging the specialist teaching of practical housewifery. But despitethe energetic and enthusiastic suppo rt for the develop me nt of gendered sub jects on thepart of M rs Homan, Honn or Morten (MSB L 1897-190 2) expressed reservations. Sheargued that girls were m ade to specialize too early w ith the result that other subjectsgot neglected. She continued:There are a very large number of women on the School Boards now, and they ought to make theirmotto, 'Thorough grounding for the girls*. Unfortunately, it is the women members who so oftenpress domestic economy lessons on babies, it being the thing of which they themselves have a littleknowledge.58

As Honnor implies, support for the domestic curriculum enabled women Boardmembers to extend their sphere of influence on the basis of their alleged 'expertise' .Ho wev er, it is also important to remem ber the social and political context in which thesewom en w ere working. As earlier work on the content of working-class education hasshown,59 the numbe r of recruits declared unfit for call-up in the Boer War (18 99 -19 02)aroused fears abou t the health of the nation and the issue of 'nat iona l efficiency' tookon a new importance in public discussion. Concern about the quality of maternal carein the rearing of children enabled women members to develop a power base forthemselves within what Thomas Gautrey referred to as the 'aggressive' DomesticSubjects Sub-C om m ittee. Indeed G autrey objected to proposals for a long new syllabusof instruction in Home Economy, including home nursing, on the grounds that the'essential subjects' were being 'driven out of girls' schools' . 60

Though Honnor Morten maintained her oppositional stance, it appears that theteaching of domestic subjects for working-class girls was largely unchallenged bywom en m embers du ring the final years of the Boa rd's existence. The elementary schoolcurriculum which evolved during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries istherefore seen as one w hich soug ht both class and gender class cultural control. I suggestthe fact that it was mainly girls who were taught to cook and clean reflects an uneasycompromise between the different educational ideologies espoused by three groupsidentified by Williams and the social patterning of gender. While ' industrial trainers'stressed the need for training and discip line, within the pop ulist ideology of the 'pub lic

57 H. Morten,Questionsfor Women {and Men)(London: Charles and Black, 1899), 18.58 See, for example, A. Davin, 'Imperialism and motherhood', H istory Workshop, 5/1 (1978), 9-67 andC. Dyhouse, 'Social Darwinistic ideas and the development of women's education in England,1880-1920', History of Education,5 /1, (1976), 41-59 and by the same author 'Good wives and littlemothers: social anxieties and the schoolgirls' curriculum', Oxford Review of Education,3/1 (1977).21-35 and 'Working-class mothers and infant mortality in England, 1895-1914',Journal of SocialHistory, 12 (1979), 252-67. The subject is also examined in C. Dyhouse, Girls Growing Up InLate Victorianan dEdwardianEngland(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981).59 The Board Teacher,1 July 1899, 168.60 The Governess,17 November 1883, 138.


16/17

Gender and policy in elementary education 291edu cato rs' the way was clear for presenting the case in terms of the girls ' dual locationas working wives and mothers. Reminiscent of the 'old humanists ' ' emphasis oncharacter, others justified notions of subject-ge nder appropriateness by reference towomen's 'special ' role as 'moral 'guardians of family life.

Advocates such as Rosamond Davenport-Hill appealed to such Victorian values asthrift and the duty of work, stressing the need to develop all aspects of the child'spersonality by a combination of mental and manual training through the introductionof practical studies relevant to the child's future occupation as conceptualized withinthe existing status quo. Schooling working-class girls to be domestic servants andpractical housewives conformed to the philanthropic conception of middle-classw om en 's duties they brought to local educational politics. Th us, in 1897, Ellen M cK eemade the move from Poor Law Guardian in Holborn to representing the City asRosamond Davenport-Hill 's successor both in temperament and politics. Following inRo sam on d's footsteps, Ellen avidly supported the dom estic curriculum her predecessorhad helped to expand.Whether supporters or detractors of the domestic curriculum, however, assertiveand principled women representatives sought to minimize the element of genderdifferentiation involved, as when Em m a Maitland, acting on a suggestion mad e by RuthHoman, moved that boys be taught cookery on an experimental basis. She argued thatcookery wou ld be useful to boys likely to becom e sailors or soldiers which, despite thederision with which it was greeted by some, was defeated by only a single vote.

ConclusionIn this paper I have used Willi am s's typology to show the process by which particularforms of knowledge came to be included in the elementary school curriculum. Theexpansion of the domestic curriculum for working-class girls reflected an uneasycompromise between groups holding different economic, political and culturalresources and straggling to attain influence in the education system . As the element ofresistance both inside and outside the board makes clear, this development did not gounchallenged.Women members were keen to press a dist inct ive women's l ine in school boardpolitics. In accordance with this view, the education of girls occupied a large part ofthe women members' contributions to debate. As one might expect, the domesticcurriculum was an area where London School Board women could claim specialknowledge and interests. Though the most frequent speakers were those who hadbeco me v ery active as oppo nents, at the other extreme there were few interventions byMargaret Ann Eve (MSBL 1891-1904), Rosamond Davenport-Hil l and Ellen McKee.Not surprisingly, perha ps, loyalty to the Progressive party line was instrumental in thepromo tion of Eve , Dav enpo rt-Hill, Ho ma n, McK ee and Westlake to positions of powerin the Board's administrative machinery. Nevertheless, both they and the outspokencritics of Board policy on the issue (Chessar, Co well, Davies, Dilke, Garrett An derson,Hastings, Maitland, Fenwick Miller, Morten, Muller, Taylor and SUIT) deployedconv entional ideas about wo m en 's dom estic skills to articulate their differing dem and s.

However outnumbered, certain of the 'ladies at the Board' did produce acounter-hegem ony that manifested itself in a resistance to a narrowing of w orking-classgirls ' educational opportunities. Essentially the presence of women Board membersensured that what was deemed 'a woman's quest ion' remained on the agenda,irrespective of the ultimate fate of these strategies for educational change. As The


17/17

292 Gender and policy in elementary educationGoverness reported after the Board spent nearly two hours debating the issue ofoverpressure in relation to school needlework:

The gentlemen did it with very bad grace, showing plainly that they would never have bothered aboutNeedlework if they had not been com pelled by the ladies at the Board. The subject was brought beforethem by Mrs Fenwick Miller, who was seconded by Miss Hastings, and supported by Miss M uller.The motion was that the School Management Com mittee should be instructed to consider what stepscould be taken to diminish the over-pressure in Girls' Schools, caused by the time spent onNeedlework. Mrs Fenwick Miller said that she had a return made to her by the teachers, from whichshe found that four hours and twenty minutes weekly, on average, was spent in the girls' schoolson this subject The result of this was that the girls were practically expected to learn as muchas the boys in every four hours and forty minutes, as the boys are in every five hours and thirty m inutesspent in school.61Sensitive to the social and political context in which the debate took place, Florencequalifies h er remarks w ith the com m ent that while she 'w ould b e sorry to exclude eithercookery, needlework or drawing from the schools, some limitation was wanted'. 62W hether oppo nents or supporters of the teaching of domestic subjects to wo rking-classgirls, the issue assum ed a high profile for the majority of Londo n Sch ool Board wo m en.While the elementary curriculum they helped shape illustrated the links between thedistribution of educational knowledge and the gendered patterns of segregated labourmarkets, the fact that many felt constrained to accommodate their behaviour toexpectations about gend er may explain why they generally adop ted a mo re conciliatorytone than the middle-class Mrs Harriot Stanton Blatch, who told an audience at theall-female Pioneer club that she 'gave her life to the work of fighting down the ideathat the only place for women was home' . 6 3

61 School Board Chronicle,10 November 1883, 138.62Ibid.63 Shafts,June 1895, 35-6 .

Fighting down the idea that the only place for women was home. Gender(Δ)

Documents

Transcript of Fighting down the idea that the only place for women was home. Gender(Δ)