On The Development Of Elementary Education In Britain

“The society of Britain has developed in the contradiction and mixture of new and oldforce.” Professor Qian Chengdan’s conclusion about the character of England culture s model isembodied in the developing process of the nineteenth century England primary education. Sincemodern times, the primary education of Britain is promoted mainly by civil force after enteringmodern times, especially church force, however, government never interfered in that sphere. In thenineteen century, the drastic changing of England society required primary education to makechange, meanwhile lots of forces fro m domestic and oversees made the British governmentinterfere primary education. However, as a now entering force of primary education，the Britishgovernment did not adopt sudden and strong ways to interfere primary education, based on theoriginal, they utilized different methods at different times, and promoted the development ofprimary education with old power. This paper divide the process into three stages, discussing thereasons and approaches of government intervention and the influence on primary education.The first stage is from1800to1833, which is a stage of non-government primary education.At that time, people did not think government need intervene in education, as a result, primaryschools were mainly built by civil power, such as charity school, Sunday school and monitorialschool as wall as British and Foreign School Society and National Society for the Promotion of theEducation of the Poor. The second stage is from1833to1870, called "Civilian-Run andState-Subsidized" mode. Government started to take limited interventions on primary education,mainly including providing fund, establishing Committee of the Privy on Education, and makingrelated regulation to supervise the using of fund offered by government. Thus, school condition，education quality and teacher source of civil schools were improved, which was more conducive tothe development of primary education. The last stage is from1870to the end of the nineteenthcentury, the public school coexisted with the private school coexistence. In1870Englandgovernment enacted “Elementary Education Act”, set up public primary education system in theplace lacked of civil school, and directly formed the coexistent pattern of public school and privateschool. Moreover, England government administrated a series of issues by building public schooland legislation。Advice from others may help one overcome one’s shortcomings. Since the reform andopening-up, Chinese education has obtained obvious achievement, meanwhile inevitably exitssome problems. Actually, compulsory education in poor rural area is always a seductive issue ofChina education. Thus the thesis will summarize some experiences from the research of primaryeducation of nineteen century England, so as to benefit the education of China which is running areform.