This study, first published in 1979, analyses the attitude of various income and occupational groups to elementary schools both before and after the introduction of compulsory school attendance. It also discusses the efforts made by voluntary organisations to provide school meals, as well as examining the quality of the meals themselves, before the enactment of remedial legislation in the early twentieth century. This title will be of interest to students of history and education.

J. S. Hurt

Preface; Part One: The Working Classes and the 1870 Act; 1. Our Future Masters 2. The Parental Consumer 3. The Coercion of the Parental Non-Consumer 4. School Boards for All; Part Two: The Schools and the Social Services; 5. After Bread, Education 6. Cleansing the Augean Classrooms; Part Three: In and Out of the School; 7. Schools, Parents and Children 8. Unwillingly to School; Notes; Index