Education of poor children as an answer to a social and economic crisis: Dutch local government policies in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Local administrations in the Republic of the United Netherlands determined in the seventeenth and eighteenth century the conditions of the local educational provisions. Several towns published separate regulations for educating poor children in separate schools. Others left the responsibility to local charity committees. The regulations are different in the role of the local charity committees, the arrangement of the inspectorate and the conditions for the schoolmasters. Other goals were almost the same: the importance of a certain amount of education, codes and values, and religious education. The second part of the paper shows how the governing body of Haarlem dealt with questions of educational arrangements. Through an important initiative by the inspectorate the scope changed after 1785. The results of the initiative were laid down in a new decree. Private finances became very important for the development of public educational provisions. The local elite intervened in family life but only in the case where parents were dependent on the support of a charity committee. If the support was ended, children left the school. The city government could not get them back into the school.