Education and the Dissenters. A Sidelight on Nineteenth-Century Political Thought

Abstract

It has become an intellectual habit to think of nineteenthcentury political thought in England in terms of Individualism and Collectivism, of Benthamism, or Utilitarianism, and Socialism. This is due to the influence of Dicey's lectures on Law and Opinion in England, and Leslie Stephen's volumes on the English Utilitarians. The historian of ideas is not unlike a mathemetician seeking to find a highest common factor. This method is essential if any comprehensive analysis is to be made, but there is a danger lest the guiding principles so discovered be used to explain results which may be due to other forces. The historian is generally careful to guard himself against these errors, but the general reader too readily grasps the ideas and uses them to explain all the political problems of a generation. The importance of Benthamism, Utilitarianism or Individualism cannot be denied. Its philosophy was not contained in academic works alone, but found frequent expression in the Reviews and newspapers. The practical proposals which were the result of its philosophy were constantly before the public, but it would be a mistake to assume that the adoption of such proposals was alone due to the reasoning of the political philosopher or the intellectualist politician, for the motives affecting public opinion were many-sided. The influence of political philosophy on the development of education was very slight. The origin of the ideas of the Individualists on this subject is to be found in that faith in the perfectibility of maii through education, which was characteristic of the late eighteenth century.' Education was valued as a training for citizenship, and the perfect citizen was the