Exam number : 5397047

How did the education system seek to train a social elite in the period 1840 -1880? Discuss in relation to the novel Tom Browns Schooldays.
The mid nineteenth century was a period of change both in the public school system and in the broader outside world. Life and society was becoming increasingly ordered after the Industrial revolution; both transport and communication had become nationalised. Animal cruelty laws were being passed and there was no longer a place for provincial barbarism. However the education system was still struggling to maintain order. Whilst teachers could discipline with a rod in the classroom outside boys participated in fights, brawls and bullying.1 Popular recreation was in drastic need of codification, in order to prevent mischief. It was in this light that reformers like Dr Thomas Arnold and G.E.L Cotton began to address the fundamental problems with the British elite schools. This essay will look at how these elite schools sought to train the young people who attended in order to produce valued citizens. There are many ideals that reformers believed were crucial in a boys training. Many of the themes overlap but this essay will seek to prove that the education system wanted to train a social elite to be well-ordered, imperialistic minded, athletic Christians. This essay will look at how the education system did this by promoting a cult of masculinity through sport as well as the exclusion of a female presence at its schools and by using the playing fields and chapels to promote Christianity through the idea of muscular Christianity. The essay will further look at how textbooks were used to encourage Imperialism and tradition as well as how hierarchical systems were put in place to maintain
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Nineteenth Century Schools (Date Accessed 20/11/2012)

Exam number : 5397047

social order and control in both sporting ventures and day to day school life through a monitorial system. However before this the essay will briefly look at why Tom Browns Schooldays can be used in relation to the question: How did the education system seek to train a social elite in the period 1840-1880? As a novel written by a dedicated believer in Muscular Christianity, Thomas Hughes Tom Browns Schooldays is extremely useful. It offers a view into the fundamental principles behind Muscular Christianity which will be discussed further in the essay. The novel is also set in Rugby School and based on Hughes real life experiences as a pupil there during the crucial period of 1834 to 1842 when Dr Thomas Arnold was head teacher there.2 This means the book can be used as a primary source to offer an autobiographical insight into Hughes experiences within the elite education system. It also means that the opinions of the boys who were at school with Thomas Arnold can be analysed, were Arnolds methods considered radical at the time? Further the novel is extremely useful as Rugby was one of the first elite schools to embrace many of the devices to train its pupils that will be discussed later in the essay. The most predominant way in which the education system began to train the social elite was to encourage and emphasis masculinity. Victorian fears that boys would grow up weak and effeminate were at their height in the mid-19th century. Particularly since they had spent years preconditioned by nannies and mothers in their early childhoods, it was feared the subsequent absence of the mother would make them emotionally unbalanced during the difficult adolescence years and perhaps impede progression to manhood.3 Masculinity was also closely associated with a mans social power; those strong enough and manly enough
2 3

Hughes, Thomas, Tom Browns Schooldays p5 Roper, M. & Tosh, J. (eds) Manful Assertions. p 3 and p 168

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to control an empire must be of a higher social standing than those who did not. 4 This idea of strong masculinity implying a strong social position can also be seen in the domestic setting. Traditionally the man of the house is the dominant figure, the one who commands the home. Roper argues that therefore either at work or home, men are simply agents of oppression.5 Consequently the public school system sought two ways to emphasis masculinity; the playing field and the dismissing of women as peripheral.6 Prior to 1840, public schools had showed little concern in sport. However a series of incidents involving lack of discipline of students outside the classroom had inspired reforms. Many boys were involved in brutal sports, and in 1925 Lord Shaftsburys son had even died in a fist fight at school at just 13 years old. 7 Thus the need for a change up in the public school system had come about. The man credited with the reform of discipline is Dr Thomas Arnold. Arnold saw potential for the use of sport as a source of discipline and morality.8 It was thought by Arnold that if boys could behave in a sporting manner towards each other on the playing field then they could transfer this to everyday life, in particularly the gentlemanly like society they were likely to frequent when older. In its essence Arnold was using athleticism and games as a form of social control. 9One major reason the novel Tom Browns Schooldays is relevant to understanding how the social elite were conditioned by the public school system is because Arnold was head teacher at Rugby school when Tom Hughes was a pupil there. Arnold is represented by prefects in the novel and much of his teaching is absorbed by Hughes who uses the novel to spread Arnolds message of muscular Christianity. Sport was not only used exclusively by Arnold, but was taken up by schools across the country as a successful way to encourage discipline. Hely Hutchinson Almond,
4 5

Ibid p3 Ibid p10 6 Ibid p13 7 Holt, Richard, Sport and the British, p78 8 Ibid p80 9 Mangan, J., Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian public school P28

Exam number : 5397047

was so taken with the idea of athleticism to enforce discipline that he took the English Public school ethics to his school in Loretto, Musselburgh where he ruled for 40 years from 1862 and applied compulsory sports every day10. Indeed organised sport eventually seized to be a form of discipline that dominated the elite school system but became a national phenomenon. Whilst the cult of athleticism focused on the development of boys competiveness and sportsmanship, public schools consciously had an absence of females in order to quash all feminine qualities and emotions.11 In Tom Browns Schooldays this can be seen in the peripheral roles females take in the story. Tom himself warns the other boys of the dangers of associating themselves with thoughts of homesickness for females, for fear of being labelled a home-sick or mamas darling.12 Whilst the lack of a female presence did certainly impact upon the boys, it is undeniable that the cult of athleticism was by far the biggest and most widespread way in which the education system pushed masculinity. Athleticism went on to account for the rise of all organised sports, such as football and rugby which still hold much influence today. The main themes within the novel all overlap, just as athleticism was prized as a way to train young elite boys into gentlemen with the correct masculine qualities. Athleticism was also embraced as a way to promote Christianity. In the years prior to 1840, in the wake of the enlightenment, Christianity was witnessing a slump, the public were not as concerned with the church, particularly the Evangelicals.13 The development of Muscular Christianity was a response to combat weak pietism and prevent people identifying Christianity with escape, sickliness, or lack of courage.14 It was thought that the nature of games could reinforce the lessons learnt in chapel; the ideal of moral integrity and self-control could be practiced on
10 11

Holt, Richard, Sport and the British, p81 Roper, M. & Tosh, J. (eds) Manful Assertions. p168 12 Ibid pg168 13 Winn, M.E. Tom Browns Schooldays and the Development of Muscular Christianity p64 14 Ibid P73

Exam number : 5397047

the playing field.15 This concept can be seen in the novel Tom Browns Schooldays, in keeping with the didactic nature of the novel Hughes offers advice into fights, stating to abstain from a fight is proof of the highest courage, if done from true Christian motives.16 Lessons learnt in the Chapel at public schools were also just as important in training the social elite as those learnt on the playing fields. In Tom Browns Schooldays, the protagonist Tom frequently visits the chapel and notes that the biggest day of his and every Rugby boy's life [ was] the first sermon from the Doctor."17 This highlights just how importantly and how valued a public school boys times in chapel were. Hughes goes on to remark on how emotional he felt at the death of Thompson and the words the Doctor spoke for that particular sermon sank deeper than ever.18 Therefore the church was a way in which the social elite were trained to become more moral and compassionate individuals, without the addition of sport. Another way the British education sought to train a new class of social elite was to dedicate a heavy portion of the curriculum to the promotion of Imperialism. This was predominantly done by use of the textbook; however lessons of Imperialism were also taught, again through the medium of sport. Emphasis on the importance of strength and adventure were particularly present in the history and geography textbooks used in public schools. Geography books often used a hero like character who would explore the world encountered savages and natives. Many of the places the hero would visit were the colonies that made up the British Empire; this was to encourage those who, like their parents, were important or privileged enough to get a job in the colonies to consider a future there. The typical textbook hero would have all the characteristics that those like Thomas Arnold at Rugby school

15 16

Reed, John R. The Public School in Victorian Literature, p60 Hughes, Thomas, Tom Browns Schooldays p254 17 Ibid p74 18 Ibid p157

Exam number : 5397047

envisaged for his pupils, military prowess, piety, and Christian militarism.19 It was not just books used exclusively for schoolwork which promoted the imperialistic vision. It is important to remember that Tom Browns Schooldays was also a publication which was published in 1857. Therefore, it is not only useful for analysing how important the imperialist message was to the boys at school with Hughes at the time he is writing about, but also to analyse how Tom Browns Schooldays also spreads an imperialist message for those boys who would be reading it at the time of its publication. Louis James believes Tom Browns Schooldays is heavily influenced by an imperialist stance. James claims the school in the novel acts as a microcosm of outside society in which the lower classes/boys are there to be fought. 20 He also states that the novel led to other stories, like the Harkaway stories with similar themes, school-boys in the role of heroes, aimed at young boys of a certain social elite. If these books, like Tom Browns Schooldays, were promoting the message that a social hierarchy exists in which certain people can dominate over others to children who were simultaneously being taught in school textbooks that heroes could conquer far and distant lands and people then perhaps Tom Browns Schooldays can also be seen as a tool used to train young boys in public schools to behave like imperialistic gentlemen. One key feature of the history textbooks used in the 19th century was their tendency to omit the periods of Britains history which was not so successful instead to focus on events of imperial dominance.21 The history of England was taught progressively to make the Victorian age seem like the great moral climax of human history.22 The focus on lessons was to encourage pupils to learn patriotism, good citizenship and moral training. 23This patriotism was an important quality for a young gentleman to have in life and school walls

19 20

Mackenzie, J. M. Imperialism and the School Textbook p181 James, Louis, Tom Browns Imperialist Sons p93 21 Mackenzie, J. M. Imperialism and the School Textbook p 177 22 Ibid p181 23 Cowham, School Method, 340-8 from Mackenzie, J. M. Imperialism and the School Textbook p181

Exam number : 5397047

were often adorned with images of a patriotic nature to encourage this. Militarily scenes such as crucial battles were the most frequently used so as to instil pride in the both the army and the empires successes.24It was not just the public schools that used history books to try and create respectable English gentlemen, universities too used history to teach character and conduct.25 Softer argues that the qualities of character and the concepts of English freedoms learnt at public schools were then fortified at university.26 Tom Browns Schooldays does not place much emphasis on the lessons learnt in the classroom and from the textbook. Indeed in the book there is little detail concerning intellectual interests.27 Perhaps this indicates that although textbooks were used to train a social elite they did not have as much of an impact in a young boys life as sport and religion. Since the novel was primarily didactic it seems unlikely that Hughes would have omitted his experiences in the classroom in fear that they were not entertaining enough. This would imply that muscular Christianity was the most predominantly used method to instil certain values and qualities into the young social elite in 1840-1880. Finally another feature of the British education system which was used to train a social elite was its strong emphasis on hierarchy. The hierarchical nature of public schools was cleverly used to teach pupils the importance of social control and hegemony. It was not just teams in sports that imposed social control on the boys. Often public schools implemented a monitorial system. Ultimately described by Holt as a network of intensive supervision the system relied on sixth-form students reporting younger students for the appropriate punishment. 28 Tom Browns Schooldays offers a heightened picture of this type of system as not only did Thomas Arnolds Rugby boys have a monitorial system in place but
24 25

Mackenzie, J. M. Imperialism and the School Textbook p183 Soffer, R, Discipline and power p7 26 Ibid p 14 27 Reed, John R. The Public School in Victorian Literature p68 28 Holt, Jenny, Public School Literature, pg131

Exam number : 5397047

a more liberal system in which the boys monitored each other. The Rugby system also had many more layers than the typical one, with its own laws, taxes and debating club to discuss contemporary issues.29 However there is one major omission within this essay. Whilst this essay looks at how the male social elite were trained to become the ideal Victorian gentlemen, the education system did not cater for elite girls before 1880s. Therefore socially elite girls were taught values for later life at home and thus the education system was not responsible for their training. In conclusion the attributes most prized by radical reformers such as Thomas Arnold were masculinity, Christianity, discipline through social hierarchies and an imperialistic, patriotic view of the British Empire. These disciplines were taught and encouraged via a number of methods such as textbooks, storybooks, chapel attendance and monitorial systems in elite schools during the period 1840-1880. However it is clear that the biggest way in which the education system tried to train a social elite was through sport. All attributes desired to make a model Victorian gentlemen could be learnt through sport. Muscular Christianity ensured sport could be used to instil Christian values as well as produce masculine young men. Organised sport required boys to play and communicate in strict and universal hierarchies teaching social order. Rules and regulations within the games ensured social control and discipline. Finally the emphasis on teams and teamwork echoed the values of patriotism and provoked a greater sense of loyalty to the British Empire and imperialism. Bibliography Holt, Richard, Sport and the British, (Oxford 1989) Holt,Jenny, Public School Literature, Civic Education and the Politics of Male Adolescence (Surrey, 2008)
29

Ibid pg131

Exam number : 5397047

Hughes, Thomas, Tom Browns Schooldays (London, 1857) James, Louis, Tom Browns Imperialist Sons, Victorian Studies, 17, (1973-4), pp. 89-99 Mackenzie, J. M. Imperialism and the School Textbook, Propaganda and Empire (Manchester, 1984) pp. 173-197 Mangan, J., Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian public school : the emergence and consolidation of an educational ideology (Cambridge, 1981) Reed, John R. The Public School in Victorian Literature, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol 29, no 1, pp. 58-76 (1974) Roper, M. & Tosh, J. (eds) Manful Assertions. Masculinities in Britain Since 1800 (London, 1991) Soffer, R, Discipline and power : the university, history, and the making of an English elite, 1870-1930 (Stanford, 1994) Tosh, J. What should historians do with masculinity? Reflections on nineteenthcentury Britain, History Workshop Journal (1994) vol 38, pp. 179-202. Winn, M.E. Tom Browns Schooldays and the Development of Muscular Christianity, Church History vol 29, pp. 64-73(1960)

Nineteenth Century Schools http://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/FEAndVocational/SportsStudies/ALevel/OC RALevelPE2008/Samples/A2PEStudentBookSamplePages/OCR_A2PE_SB_CH03.pdf (Date Accessed 20/11/2012)