Abel 1978

Middle-Class Culture for the
Urban Poor: The

Educational Thought of
Samuel Barnett
Emily K. Abel
California State University,Long Beach
A number of comparisons can be drawn between the educational ideas and practices
of Samuel Barnett, the founder of the first English settlement house, and those of
the American progressives. Barnett resembled the progressives in his primary
goal?to instill acceptable habits and attitudes in the poor?and in many of his
specific remedies. He worked to expand the role of the state in education, to provide
adult education for a broad segment of the working class, and to wean the poor
away from their "low" recreations. Barnett modified many of his ideas about the
nature and origin of poverty, but he (unlike his American counterparts) remained
contemptuous toward the culture of the poor. Thus, while labor was increasing its
power and prominence, Barnett persisted in emphasizing the need to imbue the
working class with middle-class culture.
This paper is a study of the educational thought and action of Samuel

Augustus Barnett, a social reformer in Britain between 1875 and
1913. It emphasizes the shift in his views concerning the causes and
cure of poverty from those generally associated with the Charity Or-
ganisation Society to those more attuned to the developing welfare
state of the early twentieth century. It also traces the parallels between
his work and that of progressive educational reformers in the United
States1 and applies the analyses of American revisionist historians to
Barnett.2 These historians have challenged the standard interpreta-
tion of progressive educational reformers by arguing that many saw
education not only as enriching human lives but also as helping to
control the masses. Schools could further this goal of social control in
two ways: by imposing middle-class values and by sorting students
into predetermined slots in the social hierarchy.3 Some of the more
significant questions raised by these historians have not been applied
Social ServiceReview (December 1978).
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Middle-Class Culture for the Urban Poor 597
to the history of education in England.4 At the same time, American

historians have themselves failed to engage in comparison, unduly
emphasizing the uniqueness of the American educational experi-
ence.5 It will be seen that Bamett closely resembled progressive Amer-
ican reformers in certain ways.
Barnett' s fame rests particularly on his pioneering philanthropic
activity in East London and at Toynbee Hall, the first university settle-
ment, which he established there in 1884. But his impact extended
beyond his concrete achievements. He inspired an extraordinary
number of social movements and was consulted as an expert by both
Liberal and Conservative government leaders. In addition, he exerted
a strong influence over the younger generation of reformers. Major
contributions toward the understanding of the nature of poverty in
an industrial-urban society were made, in different ways, by W. H.
Beveridge, Charles Booth, and Beatrice Webb, all of whom later at-
tested to Barnett's impact on them at critical points in their careers.
Barnett's influence in the field of education was equally strong.
Robert Morant, the architect of the Education Act of 1902, and R. H.
Tawney, a major leader in adult education, worked closely with him;
Albert Mansbridge, the founder of the Workers' Education Associa-
tion, was among those who later acknowledged his indebtedness to
Barnett.6
Early Life
Born in 1844, the son of an iron manufacturer, Barnett entered

Wadham College, Oxford, in 1862. He later glorified the life of an
Oxford student and spoke reverently about the culture Oxford sym-
bolized. Ironically, however, his own university career was un-
distinguished. He made no lasting friends, took little part in any of
the societies he would eventually praise, and graduated in 1865 with a
second-class degree. When he wrote about the value of an Oxford
education, he was apparently thinking as much of what he had per-
sonally failed to take from it as of his actual gains.
Barnett taught for a year in a public school after leaving Oxford
and then spent six months traveling through the United States, an
experience he later credited with turning him into a social reformer.
In December 1867, six months after his return, he was ordained a
deacon and assumed the position of curate to the Reverend W. H.
Fremantle in Marylebone. Two years later Barnett helped Fremantle
establish the first district committee of the newly formed Charity Or-
ganisation Society. This prominent society embodied mid-Victorian

598 Social Service Review
social ideas. Viewing poverty as the direct result of individual failing,

it condemned "indiscriminate almsgiving" and sought to control both
Poor Law relief and private charity in order to prevent the "de-
moralisation" of the poor.
An important member of the Marylebone committee was Octavia
Hill, with whom Barnett worked closely for five years. Her social and
educational work contained a number of elements which can later be
seen in Barnett' s career. Influenced by F. D. Maurice and John Rus-
kin, both of whom also inspired Barnett, she was concerned with the
moral rehabilitation of the poor, beautification of the urban environ-
ment, and bridging the gap between the classes. She placed great faith
in the power of friendship to secure social harmony and to elevate the
character of the urban poor.7 By the turn of the century her individu-
alism was being challenged, and her arrogance, paternalism, and
self-righteousness were frequently ridiculed. During the 1860s and
1870s, however, she was considered a courageous and imaginative
social reformer. Barnett continued to be guided by her principles
long after leaving Marylebone. As Hill wrote in 1876, "We are one
utterly and entirely in what we aim at."8
Early in 1872 Barnett married Henrietta Octavia Rowland, one of
Octavia Hill's volunteers. For over fifty years the Barnetts formed a
strong partnership, working closely on a number of projects; Hen-
rietta Barnett's writing frequently illuminates ideas held by both (and
will be used for that purpose subsequently). Shortly after their mar-
riage the Barnetts moved to East London, where Barnett became
vicar of St. Jude' s, Whitechapel.
Early Views of the Poor
In his letter offering the living of St. Jude' s to Barnett, the bishop
described Whitechapel as "perhaps the worst district in London."
Although he dwelled on "the large population of Jews and thieves," it
was the economic condition of the district that justified the use of the
term "worst."9During the late 1860s, the chronic problems of the East
End had been exacerbated by epidemics and an economic crisis, and
thousands of residents had died of starvation or cholera. As a result of
the collapse of the traditional industries of East London and
technological changes in the shipping trade, the only work available to
the vast majority of East Enders was casual employment at the
docks.10 Although conditions had improved slightly by the time the
Barnetts settled there in 1873, they found most of their parishioners
living in abject poverty. The medical inspector for Whitechapel re-

ported that year that one-fifth of the district's children died before
they were one year old and one-third before they were five.11 In a
section of the district close to St. Jude' s, the rate of mortality of chil-
dren under five was over 60 percent.12
When set against this stark reality, Canon Barnett's remedies ap-
pear irrelevant and inappropriate. They become more comprehensi-
ble when we consider his views about the causes of poverty and his
perception of East Enders. As one of the first members of the upper
classes to venture into the slums, Bamett believed he was an expert on
the people he encountered, and he described them in great detail.
Oblivious to his implicit social assumptions, he felt that he was
uniquely equipped to report on the inhabitants of the "dark" regions
and to interpret their needs.
It has frequently been noted that many progressive reformers in
America viewed the immigrant inhabitants of the slums with hostility
and suspicion. Believing that poverty was caused primarily by moral
failure, the progressives regarded the beneficiaries of their reforms as
dissolute, slothful, and irrational.13 Although Barnett turned his at-
tention to the native-born working class rather than toward his immi-
grant neighbors, his general assessment followed similar lines.14
It is also helpful to recognize that Barnett' s description of the
working-class residents of East London closely resembled the portrait
which many dominant groups in society have drawn of their social
inferiors. Just as blacks and women in American society have fre-
quently been viewed as childlike, so Barnett described the poor of the
East End as weak, dependent, passive, irrational, and ignorant. "The
poor are like children," Barnett once complained to his brother.15
Similarly, much as blacks and women have been endowed with fright-
ening sexuality which must be carefully controlled or channeled, so
the residents of the East End were depicted as sensual and passionate.
Barnett drew a sharp contrast between working-class promiscuity and
the sexual morality of the upper classes. The frequent characteriza-
tion of minority groups as "culturally deprived" likewise found its
parallel in Barnett's insistence that the people of East London lacked
culture. With no conception of an indigenous working-class culture,
Barnett remained convinced that there was only one true culture,
which was the preserve of the well-bred and well-educated members
of the society. The poor were seen as tabulae rasae, upon whom
middle-class culture could be inscribed. Finally, many members of the
working class, like other subordinate groups in society, were regarded
as being basically unworthy or, in the words of the nineteenth-century
social reformers, "undeserving."
Perceiving the poor this way, Barnett could then assert that they
were not simply victims of social injustice but were at least partially
responsible for their plight. He found a close fit between the character

defects of the poor and their social and economic condition, and he
then confused correlations with causality. The poor were limited to
casual work, he claimed, because of their weakness for gambling and
love of uncertainty; instead of seeking more regular employment,
they hovered around the docks, enjoying the element of chance in-
herent in the hiring system. Passive, dependent, and weak, they were
especially susceptible to the "disease" of pauperism. They lived in
dark, noisy, and overcrowded tenements?partly because they lacked
an appreciation of beauty and order and had no ideal of a proper
home. Endowed with passionate natures, their daughters fell easily
into prostitution.
Nevertheless, Barnett did not apply such dehumanizing stereotypes
to all members of the working class. As an adherent of the Charity
Organisation Society, he was careful to distinguish between the "de-
serving" and "undeserving" poor. The former were better paid, more
regularly employed, and, above all, more "respectable" ; they demon-
strated a greater willingness and capacity to strive to obtain the rep-
ertoire of behaviors and attitudes deemed appropriate by the Charity
Organisation Society.
Although Barnett advocated different policies for these two
groups, his work as an educator was based on the assumption that
even the poorest, most ignorant, and most degraded members of the
working class were malleable. He saw a complex interrelationship
between the temptations society held out to the poor and their charac-
ter defects. Because they were weak and ignorant, the poor were
especially liable to succumb to immorality; at the same time, living in
the slums, they were constantly surrounded by demoralizing in-
fluences. Both Barnetts wrote continually about the "evil environ-
ment" of East London and the "contaminating" impact of its streets.16
Such characterizations can help to explain the absence in Barnett' s
writing of any awareness of human vitality or drama in working-class
areas; he could describe East London as being uniformly dull and
mean because he associated all signs of life with immorality. "Excit-
ing" was a word with strong pejorative connotations. The street scenes
of the East End lost much of their romance when viewed through
Barnett's lens of moral disapprobation.17
The social practices of the wealthy also undermined the character
of the poor. Barnett focused much of his anger on "indiscriminate
almsgiving," which he denounced in the strongest terms. Doles which
were carelessly distributed were "curses" and "monsters," sapping the
energy and discipline of the poor. As Barnett wrote in one of his early
sermons, out-relief served only to "tempt the poor on to their ruin
and starvation."18
The final way in which Barnett believed the inhabitants of the East

End were demoralized was by contact with the large number of un-
employed and idle poor who lived among them. Criminals were
thought to exert the most baneful influence. Their quarter con-
stituted a "plague spot" which "infects the neighborhood and tends to
spread."19 But those "borderline" East Enders who were on the verge
of respectability could also be corrupted by their more degraded
neighbors.20 Homeless and "shiftless" men and women were "the
means by which contagion?moral and physical?most rapidly
spreads."21
Remedies for Poverty
Barnett not only diagnosed the causes of social ills but demanded
their immediate correction. Despite his ponderous and unemotional
style of writing, a note of urgency crept in. The word "danger" gener-
ally accompanied his descriptions of life in the East End. A number of
historians have demonstrated that the threat posed by unassimilated
immigrants appeared as a constant theme in the writings of many
progressive reformers.22 Barnett similarly argued that the roots of
social revolution could be found in the antagonistic and ignorant poor
he encountered in East London.
Barnett further resembled the American progressives in that he
contrasted the urban slum with an idealized version of the preindus-
trial rural community where all residents shared a common allegiance
to traditional moral values. The solution to social distress and unrest
lay in re-creating this lost paradise?a stable, intimate, and cohesive
society.23 Naturally, the rural idyll of Barnett was far more hierarchi-
cal than that of his American counterparts. While the latter yearned
for a homogeneous rural village, Barnett used as a model the well-
ordered, deferential, eighteenth-century community firmly con-
trolled by squire and parson. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to dwell
on the difference in ideal; many of the specific remedies endorsed by
these various reformers were the same. Both Barnett and the pro-
gressives sought to heal society by "restoring" the better elements to
their proper position as natural leaders. They would wield influence
by regaining control of local government and reestablishing personal
relationships with the poor.
Barnett believed that the flight of the wealthy from working-class
areas had created a gap in local political leadership. As a result,
people who were thought to be totally unsuited, such as small busi-
nessmen, dominated local government boards. If the better elements

of society were restored to leadership, they would contribute the

"wider views" which came from superior education and upbringing
and would remove local government from the realm of politics and
personal prejudice. Failing to perceive the class-based attitudes of his
friends, Barnett insisted that the "best men" were fit to exercise power
because they were "disinterested" and "impartial."
As a disciple of Octavia Hill, Barnett placed even more faith in
friendship and "face-to-face" contact between members of different
social classes than he did in government. He drew a sharp contrast
between the coldness of officials and the warmth of volunteers. Even
as Barnett gradually came to advocate increasing the scope of gov-
ernmental action, he continued to emphasize the need for "humane"
work and the "personal touch" provided by individual volunteers.
When Barnett spoke of the possibilities inherent in friendship, he
was referring to a close, but definitely unequal, relationship. As he
wrote, "through friendship" exemplary members of the upper classes
could "raise the standard of living and of life."24 This view, however,
contained some inconsistencies. I have argued that Barnett attributed
to his East End neighbors a cluster of traits that would justify his own
dominant place in the class structure. Some of these traits did indeed
exist, functioning as what we might call social adaptive mechanisms.
For example, the freer sexual morality of the poor could be partially
explained by their overcrowded living conditions and by the sexual
exploitation of working-class women by their social superiors.25 The
subservience of the poor could be attributed to economic necessity;
lacking political and economic power, they were forced to rely on the
upper classes. However, Barnett believed that the poor could rid
themselves of the characteristics he found undesirable simply by
emulating the "better elements." The poor were to acquire middle-
class patterns of behavior while continuing to be denied membership
in the middle class.
Furthermore, Barnett expected this character transformation to
occur without engendering any conflict. Social scientists now view the
expression of resentment as an inevitable concomitant of the process
whereby subordinate groups gain strength and autonomy. But Bar-
nett believed that close personal relationships would dilute feelings of
hostility. As Henrietta Barnett confidently explained, by "crushing
envy," fellowship "takes the sting out of poverty."26
It was clearly important for Barnett to define with care and preci-
sion those superior individuals in whose image the working class
should be remade. During his early years in Whitechapel, he directed
his appeals for assistance to all members of the upper classes.
Nevertheless, he developed close contact with Oxford and Cam-
bridge, and he gradually began to limit the category of "best ele-

ments" to university-educated men, who, having acquired the requi-

site culture and knowledge, furnished the ideal models for the sensual
and irrational masses.
Barnett articulated explicit goals to guide this new gentry once they
assumed their proper position as friends and officials in a working-
class community. They should strive to regulate the behavior of the
poor in three ways: by punishing incorrect behavior, by eradicating
those social practices and conditions that undermined character and,
above all, by inculcating the moral codes of the middle classes. Barnett
practiced what he preached, and from the time he arrived in
Whitechapel he was able to point to his own activities as a model.
As a member of the Charity Organisation Society for many years,
Barnett helped to enforce its punitive policies. The "undeserving"
were denied essential relief and sent to a workhouse where the treat-
ment was so harsh and demeaning that it deterred all but the most
desperate from seeking assistance. The "deserving" were rewarded
with the approbation of their betters.
The second of Barnett's exhortations reflected his concern with the
impact of environment on character. It has been seen that Barnett
believed that the vulnerable poor easily succumbed to immorality and
indolence when they were exposed to corrupt individuals, lured by
the excitement of the city, and tempted by doles. Those East Enders
who themselves constituted a demoralizing influence therefore had to
be removed; one function of the workhouse was to stigmatize and
isolate such people. Barnett also sought to eradicate other pernicious
environmental influences. He issued a blanket condemnation of all
popular recreations and demanded that fairs and pubs be rigidly
controlled. Finally, Barnett worked to end the practice of in-
discriminate almsgiving. As a leading member of the Whitechapel
Board of Guardians from 1874 to 1903, he was instrumental in virtu-
ally eliminating relief to able-bodied men outside the workhouse, and
he used his influence to stem the donations of groups outside the
community.
Belief in the Power of Education
But it was the third method of regulating behavior in which Barnett

placed primary faith. Like many progressive reformers in America,
he hoped to instill acceptable habits and attitudes through education,
rendering external sanctions unnecessary. Once members of the
working class had learned to internalize middle-class norms, they

would exercise self-discipline and self-restraint. These traits were par-

ticularly significant because they would help to curb those aspects of
the working class that Bamett found most alarming: sexuality and
class antagonism. As the working class became more restrained, they
would learn to repress their sexual feelings.27 Shared interests and
similar personalities would bind the different classes in friendship
and solidarity.
Henrietta Barnett's work with adolescent girls demonstrated what
was possible. Shortly after arriving in Whitechapel, Henrietta Barnett
founded a local branch of the Metropolitan Association for Befriend-
ing Young Servants. Samuel Barnett wrote, "With much experience
of many societies, I am disposed to say that there is none whose work
is so admirable."28 As the title demonstrated, the first priority was to
gain the friendship of Whitechapel girls. Next, upper-class ladies
sought to remove them from their "evil environment," to instill
middle-class principles, and to find them positions as servants in "de-
cent" homes. In this way the girls joined the "respectable" segment of
the working class; rescuing was never thought to imply any change in
basic class structure. Because "want of self-control, their chief failing,
sometimes took dangerous expression," strict surveillance was neces-
sary even after the girls were placed in good homes: "Girl after girl
[was] lifted, hopeful, progressing, only to be dragged back by worth-
less relations." Extreme measures were employed to separate the girl
from her corrupting home life: "Sometimes it was necessary to kidnap
a girl."29Emigration was also an option when the claims of a morally
deficient family proved too strong. But the primary way in which
Henrietta Barnett was able "to counteract the mother's influence" was
by "offering the girl higher interests to gradually wean her from her
home."30 Thus, upper-class women sought to give direction to the
girls during their days off, organizing morally sound and uplifting
recreational activities to replace the cheap and exciting amusements
found in the streets of Whitechapel. By 1889, 2,350 girls had been
aided in this manner.31 Because they were "in service" they were
bound to the upper classes by economic dependence. Henrietta Bar-
nett reported that some also demonstrated continuing ties of personal
gratitude even after they were safely married, naming their girls
Henrietta and their sons Augustus (after her husband's middle
name).32
Samuel Barnett's efforts for educational reform followed similar
patterns and fulfilled similar goals. Schooling was the primary means
by which children could be rescued from their morally corrupt
homes, imbued with order and discipline, and taught to view the
wealthy with gratitude rather than suspicion. Thus, like the progres-
sives, Barnett was confident that schools could help the problems of

an urban-industrial society, and he sought both to humanize educa-

tion and to broaden its influence over the lives of the poor.
Michael Katz has pointed out that the achievements of the progres-
sives must be viewed against the backdrop of the class-based, bureau-
cratic structures which they accepted.33 It is even more important to
remember that Barnett offered no criticism of the segregated system
of English education which reflected and perpetuated class divisions
in society. The board schools established by the Education Act of
1870, like the voluntary schools already in existence, were designed
for the working class alone. Unlike American public elementary
schools, the English schools neither combined children from various
backgrounds nor prepared students for higher education.34 As R. H.
Tawney wrote, "The elementary schools of 1870 were intended in the
main to produce an orderly, civil, obedient population with sufficient
education to understand a command."35 Although Barnett hoped
that education would enable the poor to achieve respectability, he did
liot see schooling as a mechanism by which working-class youth might
leave their class entirely.
Despite the differences in the structure and purpose of elementary
education in England and America, Barnett's criticisms of board-
school education resembled the complaints the progressives directed
at their own educational system.36 Barnett denounced the narrow and
limited curriculum, the harsh discipline, the mechanical teaching
methods, and the large, impersonal classes. Although he advocated
changes in the Education Code, he also sought to improve the schools
of the poor through personal service. Thus, both Bametts were
managers of local board schools, supplying "a sort of human touch to
the necessary machinery."37 Believing that church schools must "by
example point to the blot on national education," Barnett launched
a school associated with St. Jude's soon after he arrived in White-
chapel and sought to turn it into a model of humane education.38 In
accordance with the thinking of the "new educators" in both England
and America, he decorated its walls with art work, broadened the
curriculum by adding such subjects as handicrafts, and replaced rote
learning with methods which could "interest the students' minds."39
Although Barnett's methods diverged sharply from those of the of-
ficials he denounced, he shared their goals in considerable measure.
He intended to instill a sense of order and discipline while avoiding
the rigidity, uniformity, and severity of the typical board schools. In
his parish reports, Barnett wrote that he expected his students "to
recognize beauty and to love order" and "to find interest elsewhere
than in the exciting scenes and vulgar talk." He also hoped that class
antagonism would fade as students were "imbued with the spirit of
generosity and self-sacrifice."40

Although severely critical of the education provided in the board

schools, Bamett sought to extend their influence over the lives of
working-class children. Once again his similarity to the progressives is
striking. Many of these reformers called for the expanded use of
school facilities as a means of providing the full-time guidance which
the children of the poor were thought to need.41 Barnett likewise
believed that the formidable task of weaning working-class children
away from corruption and remaking them in accordance with
middle-class precepts could not be accomplished during normal
school hours. He thus urged that schools remain in session during the
summer and late afternoon.42 He also established a "night school" at
St. Jude's for "boys and girls whose license is their shame."43 Like
many progressives, Bamett conceived organized play as a means of
instilling restraint rather than as an avenue for releasing emotions.44
He therefore incorporated a "play class" into the school: "Parties of
ladies and gentlemen come regularly to act as playmates, to suggest
games, and to inspire, if not to dictate, order. Their job is by no means
easy."45
Barnett also wanted to keep children in school for more years of
their lives. He not only realized that working-class youth who left
school in early adolescence could acquire no more than low-paid,
dead-end jobs, but he also wanted young people to remain under
proper supervision while they were still of an impressionable age. As
the school-leaving age was gradually raised, Barnett continued to de-
mand that it be made still higher, and he called upon the state to
establish compulsory continuation schools.46 At St. Jude's he set up a
continuation school which enabled neighborhood youth "to preserve
. . . the habits of regularity which they have acquired in school."47
The Uses of Adult Education
Barnett also viewed adult education as a means of extending the

influence of educational institutions over a broader sector of the
working class. From the early 1870s on, he was a leader of the Univer-
sity Extension Society which offered courses for students from the
working as well as the middle class. Seeking to bridge the gap between
the classes through personal contact and the transmission of culture,
this society was a logical focus for Barnett' s energies. Like many of its
other members, he believed that higher education should enrich the
personal lives of students rather than help them improve their social
and economic positions. Extension lectures were restricted to those

subjects that were part of a liberal education.48 Using a phrase of F. D.

Maurice, Barnett spoke of education providing the "means of life, not
of livelihood."
In his work with the university extension movement, Barnett di-
rectly challenged the nineteenth-century assumption that higher edu-
cation was unalterably the monopoly of the well bom. Anxiety about
the "overeducation" of the working class and disbelief in their in-
tellectual capacities were still strong in the 1870s.49 Barnett's faith in
the ability of higher education to influence the lowliest appears to
have remained a source of wonder even to his wife, who later wrote,
"When I recall the degradation of the majority of the population of
our parish in 1873, I marvel at my husband's faith which compelled
him to provide opportunities for higher education in our schools."50
Nevertheless, the conservative implications of this work must also be
recognized. Barnett regarded university lectures as a means of pro-
moting conformity to his way of life and acceptance of his value sys-
tem among the working class.
The intentions of the university extension movement may be seen
indirectly in the experience of Frederick Rogers.51 Born the son of a
docker in Whitechapel in 1846, Rogers attended the first meeting of
the Whitechapel Center, which Barnett helped to establish, in 1877:
"To me the speeches and the ideas they embodied came like a revela-
tion."52 In 1878 Rogers became one of the secretaries of the center,
and the following year he began to lecture throughout London at
workingmen' s clubs, carrying "many inspirations from [Barnett's]
sermons at St. Jude' s."53Following Barnett's injunction, Rogers often
"left off talking politics and discussed education, history, and litera-
ture." During this period "a desire, which afterwards became a pas-
sion, shaped itself in my mind of connecting . . . the various Labour
movements which I instinctively saw were presently to mould the life
of the nation with the finer elements in our national life?with reli-
gion, education, art and literature?and to that end I gradually
worked."54 Thus, although Rogers was attracted to socialism during
the 1880s, it "never gripped my imagination as it did that of my
shopmates." Rogers attributes his social outlook to the fact that he had
begun to examine "social problems from the human side, rather than
from that of machinery."55
Although Frederick Rogers exemplified Barnett's aspiration, the
Whitechapel Center was not generally successful in attracting the
working class. Extension lectures in East London, like those elsewhere
in the country, appealed primarily to middle-class groups. According
to Rogers, of the 100 students who enrolled in the first courses in
Whitechapel in 1877, only twelve could be characterized as work-
ingmen;56 the proportion of working-class students was even smaller

during subsequent years.57 Like other groups which have sought to

reform society by altering values, the University Extension Society
had little impact on the people who were its principal objects.
The Benefits of Wholesome Recreation, the Peace-

ful Countryside, and Cultural Enrichment
Bamett was aware that even the best schools were unequal to the tasks
he asked of them. In this also he resembled the progressives.
Although American educators during the first half of the nineteenth
century had viewed public schools as a panacea, progressive reform-
ers were somewhat more cautious about the extent to which schools
could counteract harmful social influences. These reformers there-
fore sought to supplement the schools with a variety of recreational
activities designed to regenerate the poor.58 Barnett, too, was con-
cerned with a wide range of informal educational endeavors intended
to elevate and refine members of the working class.
A central concern of social reformers in England since the 1830s
and 1840s had been to produce alternatives to the "sensual" and "low"
activities of the working class.59 This concern was heightened as the
working class obtained more leisure during the second half of the
century. Like many of his contemporaries, Barnett viewed the use of
leisure as a test of character. Because the poor were considered dull,
empty people surrounded by gross, sordid amusements, it was not
surprising that they fared so poorly when measured in this way.
Nevertheless, Barnett continued to be disheartened by the boister-
ousness and noise that accompanied most working-class recreations,
by the large crowds at fairs, and by the central place of the pub in
community life.60 He thus sought to furnish "rational pleasures"
which would compete with the cheap amusements of the poor and, by
instilling self-restraint and a desire for moderation, immunize them
against the lure of unworthy activities. Entertainments, cultural
events, country excursions, and organized playgrounds were all
viewed as appropriate antidotes to the base attractions of Whitechapel
streets.61
Entertaining the poor was an important part of the Barnetts' early
work in Whitechapel. Coming to the community as "friends," they felt
a strong obligation to extend hospitality to their neighbors. But while
they spoke in terms of mutuality and sharing lives, they primarily
sought to use afternoon teas and parish parties to educate the poor.
As Bamett wrote in one of his early reports, thoughtful entertain-

ment could teach "manners" and "self-respect."62 Henrietta Barnett

wrote of the potential good which would come from introducing the
poor to a "proper" home: "Very pregnant of influence are those
introductions into a house scrupulously clean and tastily furnished?a
house kept as the dwelling of every human being should be kept. Do
we not know ourselves, if we go to visit a friend with a higher standard
of art, morals, or culture, how subtle is the influence; how from such
visits is dated the turning towards the new light, the intention to be
more perfect?"63 A few courteous words spoken by an upper-class
host could effect a sudden transformation: "I have seen men, among
whom we were told when we first went to Whitechapel it was not
'safe' to go alone, entirely changed by the bearing of their hosts to
them."64
Despite such inordinate claims held out for afternoon parties,
Henrietta Barnett also revealed her own ambivalence about these
events. She spoke not only of the "pleasure of welcoming the parish
people in our home" but also of what she termed the "disagreeable"
aspects of such events.65 The Bametts were constantly pained to dis-
cover that many of their guests came primarily for food. People
"pushed and scrambled, pocketed the viands, picked the flowers, stole
the fruit, made unseemly noises and rudely frolicked."66 Henrietta
Barnett also recalled "the small annoyances, of greasy heads leaning
against Morris paper and dirty damp garments ruining furniture
covers."67 Given the divergent expectations of host and guest, social
interchange on these occasions must have been exceedingly stiff and
uncomfortable.
Like the progressives, Barnett believed that it was especially impor-
tant to furnish uplifting activities for children, whose habits and at-
titudes were not firmly formed.68 During the 1870s he arranged to
send a few children from his parish to spend a fortnight's vacation in
carefully selected homes in the country. He was also closely associated
with the Children's Country Holidays Fund. As chairman from its
founding in 1884 until shortly before his death in 1913, he helped the
organization fulfill two functions which were also important to the
progressives.69 Slum children whose homes were thought to be in-
adequate were placed "in family circles where they might have new
experiences of the meaning of family life."70 The second aim of the
fund was "to arrest the deteriorating influences of city squalor by the
deportation of the children into country air and country life."71 Bar-
nett firmly shared the Victorian faith in the regenerative powers of
nature. As he wrote to his brother, "Vain is it to try to teach men new
life when we keep them in the city."72
Only a small number of children could be taken on trips to the
country, but if a little greenery could be brought into the slums, all
would benefit. "Octavia Hill having shown the way," Barnett agitated

for the establishment of parks and playgrounds in East London.73

One year after arriving in Whitechapel, he was able to report that an
empty lot had been turned into a garden and that he looked "hope-
fully forward to the effect of one bright spot on this very dark
neighbourhood."74 But it was not enough merely to provide accessible
parks; children must be instructed in the way to use them properly.
Barnett issued frequent calls for upper-class volunteers "to teach chil-
dren that there is more fun to be found in an open space than in the
sights and sounds of the crowded streets." Young people who were
"able to play" should come to Whitechapel's playgrounds "to teach
our children how to do so."75 Like continuation classes, organized
playgrounds thus helped to extend the guidance of upper-class mem-
bers that working-class children desperately needed.
Cultural events were also viewed as excellent instruments for instill-
ing approved attitudes and values. Unlike many of his con-
temporaries, Barnett believed that high culture could be spread to the
working class without being diluted or, as he put it, that the "best"
could be appreciated by the "lowest." The Barnetts organized con-
certs for their parishioners. But they were even more concerned to
bring art to the poor. In 1881 they initiated art exhibitions, lasting two
weeks and displaying about 250 paintings. This event was in-
stitutionalized in the Whitechapel Art Gallery which Barnett founded
in 1901. His personal letters between 1897 and 1901, filled with de-
tails of the business arrangements, attest to his overriding interest in
the undertaking and his faith in its didactic potentialities. Henrietta
Barnett was even more emphatic about the power of art exhibitions to
implant high ideals. Like a colonial official convinced that the people
he administers will never be able to read his report, she freely mocked
the comical reactions of her ignorant neighbors to the pictures she
provided for their enlightenment. Nevertheless, she believed that,
while the poor misinterpreted many minor details in the pictures,
"their plain, direct method of looking at things" enabled them "to go
straight to the point."76 Once they understood the painting's central
meaning, they were permanently altered. One evening she overheard
a conversation that strengthened her confidence in the value of art as
moral instruction. A picture, which had attracted a great deal of atten-
tion, represented a dying girl whose lover pledged eternal love. Hen-
rietta Barnett was standing outside the exhibition when two girls
emerged. Even if these girls were not themselves "living the worst
life," they were "low down enough" to be "familiar with it and to see in
that the only relation between man and woman." They had no con-
ception of love as "a spiritual
" 'Real
bond between man and woman" until
they saw this picture. beautiful, ain't it all?' said one. 'Ay, fine,
but that "Forever," I did take on with that,' was the answer." Henrietta
Barnett asked rhetorically, "What work is there nobler than that of

the artist who, by his art, shows the degraded the lesson that Christ
himself lived to teach?"77
The exaggerated expectations of the Barnetts could not fail to
bring disappointment. One incident in particular demonstrated both
the extent to which they were determined to displace working-class
amusements and the depth of hostility their actions engendered.
Shortly after establishing a park in Whitechapel, Bamett made ar-
rangements for a band to play one night a week during the summer.
"I had hoped the people might have sat and listened," but the neigh-
borhood youths had other intentions and they "insisted on dancing."
For a number of weeks the Barnetts "watched the experiment with
some anxiety," knowing that "the noisy horse-play which passes for
dancing does not create a desire for another class of pleasures, the
enjoyment of which might add so much to the lives of the poor." One
evening "the rough element became too strong" and the Barnetts
were forced to stop the band and lock the gate to the park.78 Accord-
ing to Henrietta Barnett, although she and her husband tried to rea-
son with the youths, "excited evil was in the ascendancy." When the
Barnetts tried to walk home, they found the street "full of angry
people" who "howled and hooted and threw stones."79
Henrietta Barnett summed up her husband' s response: "So another
hope was dashed, as my husband saw that our neighbours were not yet
fit for freedom."80 Paul Violas has shown that Jane Addams shared a
similar philosophy: "Like many other twentieth-century liberals [she]
defined freedom as control. Freedom depended on 'self-control.' "81
Barnett, too, regarded freedom as a privilege to be earned only by
following the approved path for growth. Until they had internalized
middle-class norms, members of the working class needed continual
guidance from the "better elements" of society. As Barnett wrote to
his nephew in 1913: "The one thing which Liberals can compel is
education because till people are educated they cannot be free."82
Toynbee Hall
In Toynbee Hall, the pioneer settlement house, Barnett in-

stitutionalized the varied philanthropic and educational work which
he and his wife had undertaken in East London during the 1870s and
early 1880s. It opened in December 1884, a few blocks from St.
Jude' s. While remaining vicar of the church, Barnett served as war-
den of the settlement; he devoted much of his time to administering
its varied activities for over twenty years. Almost all of the residents
were recent graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, and thus consid-

ered by Bamett to be equipped to bring the poor "into casual inter-

course with the higher manners of life" and to make "common the
property of knowledge."83 Over a third of the early residents were
also clergymen who shared Barnett's preoccupation with the moral
and spiritual improvement of the community.
As was to be expected, a settlement established and directed by
Barnett emphasized education. In an attempt to lay the foundation
for a workingmen's university in East London, the residents trans-
ferred the university extension lectures from St. Jude' s to the settle-
ment and organized their own classes and reading parties. Smaller
and less formal than the lectures, these classes were expected to pro-
mote close relationships between the settlement residents and their
working-class neighbors: "The method of friendship has been as
much kept in sight as the positive communication of knowledge.
Whilst instruction is given and received, the main object in view is the
establishment of friendship and sympathy between the teachers and
the taught."84 In addition, the residents organized social and educa-
tional clubs, established a library, and founded hostels, modeled on
Oxbridge colleges, for the settlement students. Popular lectures and
concerts provided cultural enrichment for a broader segment of the
community.85
These educational activities of Toynbee Hall particularly inspired
Jane Addams. Although only one of many American reformers to be
influenced by Barnett's settlement, she was the most famous; she can
be considered the most direct link between Bamett and the progres-
sives. Addams first visited Toynbee Hall in 1888, at a time when she
was looking for a way to use the culture and knowledge she had
recently acquired at college. She found Toynbee Hall "so free from
'professional doing good,' so unaffectedly sincere and so productive
of good results in its classes and libraries" that it "seems perfectly
ideal."86 Although she adapted Barnett's ideas to the different cir-
cumstances of the first generation of American college-educated
women functioning in an immigrant neighborhood in Chicago, she
continually looked to Toynbee Hall for guidance; Hull House was
frequently called a "Chicago Toynbee Hall." The first activity of Hull
House was, appropriately enough, a reading party, and for the next
few years the residents sought to spread art and culture to their
neighbors. When Barnett visited Hull House in 1891 and opened its
first "picture show a la St. Jude's," he placed his stamp of approval on
the new institution.87 He noted in his journal that Hull House is
"modelled on Toynbee" and that "the spirit in which all is done is
most beautiful. Miss Addams represents the simple, puritan and lov-
ing character of the old Americans."88
Nevertheless, in both countries the solutions of the 1880s seemed
irrelevant by the turn of the century. Almost all of the American
settlement leaders who were originally inspired by Toynbee Hall
found it necessary to modify the function of their institutions after

1900. As they gained firsthand experience of the social and economic
problems they were attempting to solve, they gradually ceased to em-
phasize cultural and educational activities and turned their set-
tlements into centers for social reform and social investigation.89
Toynbee Hall also changed. A majority of the residents who arrived at
the settlement after the turn of the century were less interested in
practical philanthropy than in conducting social and economic in-
vestigations and in applying to East London the new social legislation
being enacted. In contrast to the first generation of settlement resi-
dents, these men were largely civil servants, journalists, and
academics, concerned with formulating social policy.90
Changing Views
Bamett endorsed the new goals of Toynbee Hall because his own
social outlook had changed by the turn of the century. Like many of
his contemporaries, he gradually revised his analysis of the nature
and extent of poverty in an industrial society and reassessed the role
of private philanthropy in its treatment. Rejecting the notion that
poverty was primarily the result of individual failure, he began to
realize that "friendship" and "personal service" were inadequate solu-
tions to social problems and to endorse measures which involved the
intervention of the state. In fact, his influence lay partly in his open-
ness to new ideas. He was able to provide continual leadership in the
field of social reform for fifty years because he reformulated his be-
liefs in the light of his experience in East London and of the insights
of a younger generation.
Barnett gave some evidence that he tolerated other views even be-
fore founding Toynbee Hall. In 1883 he published an article entitled
"Practicable Socialism." While reiterating his standard demands for
more parks, libraries, museums, and schools, he also urged that the
state provide old-age pensions and free medical aid. He argued ex-
plicitly that this proposal, like his idea for a university settlement, was
a means of staving off the threat posed by "impractical" or revolu-
tionary socialism.91 Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that Bar-
nett was motivated by humanitarian concern as well as by fear. After
living in a working-class community for ten years he realized that even
the thriftiest and most diligent worker earned too little to provide for
the two greatest hazards of life?sickness and old age.
Barnett's changing social thought was also manifested in his increas-
ing estrangement from the Charity Organisation Society. In 1884
Henrietta Barnett read a paper at a meeting of the society in which
she criticized the members' indifference to broad social issues and

urged the society to consider positive ways of aiding the poor even as
it rightly restricted monetary assistance.92 The same week Samuel
Bamett wrote to his brother: "She read her earnest soul into chaff of
the clumsy methods of the COS. It is useless to go on today with the
methods of 15 years ago."93 During the late 1880s, Barnett's own
articles began to receive hostile reviews in the society's journal. The
final break occurred in 1895 when Barnett read a paper entitled "A
Friendly Criticism of the Charity Organisation Society." In fact, it was
a scathing attack. He accused the society of narrowness and in-
flexibility, of turning its eyes "back to the past," and of being out of
sympathy with "the forces that are shaping the time."94
Barnett's speeches and articles only partially reflect his changing
outlook. Perhaps because he generally wrote for an audience more
conservative than himself, he was more open about his support of the
Labour party in letters to his brother. By the turn of the century he
had begun to express serious reservations about the leaders and
policies of the Liberals. Writing to his brother in 1903 he remarked
that the thought of even the most progressive Liberal leader was
"just a bit old fashioned."95 Two years later he wrote that the Liberal
party lacked "vision" and that the country "needs a much larger
labour representation."96 He rejoiced when the Labour party
achieved its first success in the 1906 parliamentary election: "What a
week! Has not the rising sun of Labour dispelled all wintry thoughts 8c
made you feel young?"97 The following week he continued exultant:
"The joy 8c hope of victory still fill our minds," and he was amused by
the "state of panic in the West End mind."98
More sympathetic to working-class demands, Barnett was also less
alarmed by strikes and demonstrations than he had been during the
1880s. It is true that his first reaction to the prolonged strikes during
1912 reflected considerable fear: "How anxious is the world. As the
preacher said this morning, some who are not young may live to see
tyranny?civil war 8c anarchy."99Yet in May 1912 he wrote, "There is
so much moving 8c so little sign of guidance. But we must be thankful
that there is movement, the guidance will come even if it leads thro.
suffering."100 In one of his last letters, Barnett wrote that social
growth "keeps us alive. It is always hard to be patient but unrest?
strikes etc. are a sign of life."101
Continuity of Social Thought
Nevertheless, it is important to recognize the limits to the change of

Barnett's social thought. Although he came to acknowledge that per-

sonal failure was not the primary cause of social distress, he continued
to make moral judgments about the poor and to place substantial faith
in schemes to inculcate middle-class values. He spoke about
"pauperism" as well as "poverty," about actions that "demoralised" the
poor and about the crucial need to "raise character."
Like many other social reformers in England during the late 1880s
and 1890s, Barnett was convinced of the need to find more effective
ways of separating the "deserving" from the "undeserving" poor.102
He favored the detention of able-bodied unemployed men in farm
colonies as a means of rehabilitating the "undeserving" and removing
them from the urban environment. As Stedman-Jones has pointed
out, this scheme complemented Barnett's proposal for old-age pen-
sions and free medical care; both were mechanisms for driving a wedge
between the two segments of the working class. While a labor colony
stigmatized and isolated the unworthy, Barnett's proposal for limited
socialism was conceived as a means of gaining the trust and support of
the worthy.103 Toynbee Hall served a similar function. It resembled
many progressive enterprises by appealing primarily to the more "re-
spectable" members of the working class; the aim was to co-opt them
by instilling middle-class values.
Barnett's attitude toward working-class life also persisted. Although
he modified his opinion about the causes of poverty, he remained
convinced that the East End was a cultural void. It has been seen that
the educational programs of many American settlement houses origi-
nally reflected Barnett' s goal of spreading high culture to the masses.
However, most American settlement residents gradually came to
value the cultural heritage the immigrants brought with them, and
they sought ways to preserve this culture even as they stressed the
necessity for assimilation.104 By contrast, Barnett found no culture
worth salvaging among his working-class neighbors.
Barnett' s condescension is not surprising when we note his
estrangement from the community. Despite his rhetoric of friend-
ship, he purposely remained an outsider, and he never mentioned a
single one of his working-class neighbors by name in any of his weekly
letters to his brother. A letter he wrote in 1896 was typical: "On Wed.
. . . Alice and Hart, Gorst, Lady Battersea, Mrs. Bryce and two work-
men came to dinner."105When he finally moved from Whitechapel in
1906, he expressed sadness only about leaving the residents of Toyn-
bee Hall;106 no working-class inhabitant of the East End had es-
tablished a comparable hold over his affections.
Barnett's disdain for working-class values and standards shaped his
attitude toward the Labour party. He ultimately endorsed the efforts
of the working class to increase its power through legitimate political
channels, but he continued to fear that working-class leaders were ill

equipped to rule the nation. They had to be taught to look beyond the
narrow and "selfish" interests of their class to the good of the whole
society, seeking beauty and vision instead of material advantages.
Although he welcomed the victory of the Labour party in the 1906
election, he had one serious reservation: "Workmen are scant of life,
that is, of the thoughts?the hopes?the visions and the wide human
interests which come of knowledge. . . . Workmen are scant also, I
think it may be said, of the wisdom which comes of knowledge."107
The solution was for Oxford and Cambridge, the "national re-
positories of knowledge," to be "compelled to put a share of their
resources at the service of workmen."108 Until his death in 1913,
Barnett worked to achieve compliance with this demand. He cam-
paigned for the appointment of a royal commission on Oxford and
Cambridge and encouraged a group of men, including the former
Toynbee Hall residents W. H. Beveridge and R. H. Tawney, to seek to
reform the universities, making them more accessible to members of
the working class.109As Barnett wrote, "The Oxford which in the past
inspired the governing classes of the nation must be so changed and
adapted that it may inspire the minds of those who are now called to
take up the government."110 The growing power of a working-class
party had given a new urgency to Barnett's goal of disseminating the
values he believed were embodied in the ancient universities.
Thus, in the end, many of Barnett's basic ideas remained un-
changed. Michael Katz has argued that educational reform in the
United States has served as a "smokescreen, obscuring the nature of
social problems."111 A similar criticism could be applied to Barnett's
exaggerated emphasis on education. In 1913 he wrote, "Freedom
must come before social reform, and education of heart and mind
before freedom."112 Such a statement implied that members of the
working class needed the continuing guidance of the better elements
of society. Barnett's goal of spreading a university culture throughout
society was unattainable, but by insisting on such a goal he was able to
reject many of the demands of labor and to argue that the working
class could not recognize its own needs. During the 1870s and early
1880s, Barnett ignored the extent of poverty while looking to educa-
tion to elevate the character of the poor. From the mid-1880s on,
Barnett gradually recognized the social and economic causes of pov-
erty and became more sympathetic to working-class demands.
Nevertheless, he was able to explain away those elements in the labor
platform he found unacceptable, attributing the working-class in-
sistence on material advantages to their "selfishness" and to their lack
of wisdom and culture. Like many of the progressives he closely re-
sembled, he continued to place his primary faith in the imposition of
approved values and attitudes.

Middle-Class Culturefor the Urban Poor 617
Notes
1. "Progressivisim," of course, is a vague term, encompassing a number of theories
and reformers extant from the mid-1880s until the outbreak of the First World War.
There were many differences even among those who viewed education as the key to
solving social problems. Nevertheless, the term is useful as a general characterization.
2. The following are representative works of revisionist educational historians: Colin
Greer, The Great American School Legend: A Revisionist Interpretationof American Public
Education (New York: Basic Books, 1972); Clarence J. Karier, Paul Violas, and Joel
Spring, Roots of Crisis:AmericanEducation in the TwentiethCentury (Chicago: Rand Mc-
Nally Publishing Co., 1973); Michael B. Katz, Class, Bureaucracyand Schools:The Illusion
of EducationalChange in America (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), and The Irony of
Early School Reform:Educational Innovation in Mid-nineteenthCenturyMassachusetts(Bos-
ton: Beacon Press, 1970); Marvin Lazerson, Origins of the Urban School:Public Education
in Mid-nineteenth Century Massachusetts(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1970); Diane Ravitch, The GreatSchool Wars:A Historyof thePublic Schoolsas Battlefieldof
Social Change (New York: Basic Books, 1974); Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the
CorporateState (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972); David Tyack, The One Best System:A History
of American Urban Education (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).
3. See Lazerson, pp. x-xv; Joel Spring, "Education as a Form of Social Control," in
Karier et al., pp. 30-36. One of the most important discussions of the use of education
as a means of social control in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century is
Richard Johnson, "Educational Policy and Social Control in Early Victorian England,"
Past and Present 49 (1970): 96-109.
4. See Harold Silver, "Aspects of Neglect: The Strange Case of Victorian Popular
Education," OxfordReivew of Education 3 (1977): 57-69.
5. See Freman Butts, "Public Education and Political Community," History of Educa-
tion Quarterly 14 (1974): 165-83. In particular, Butts urged that comparisons be drawn
between the educational reform movements of England and the United States.
6. W. H-Beveridge, Power and Influence (London: Hodder 8c Stoughton, 1953), pp.
21-38; Albeit Mansbridge,F^Zou;Men: A Galleryof England, 1876-1946 (London: J. M.
Dent 8c Sons, 1946), pp. 60-63, and The TroddenRoad: Experience,Inspiration and Belief
(London: J. M. Dent 8c Sons, 1940), p. 60; Beatrice Webb, My Apprenticeship(Har-
mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1938), pp. 236-37, 242; see also Bernard M.
Allen, Sir RobertMorant, a GreatPublic Servant (London: Macmillan 8c Co., 1934), pp. 95,
106-7, 135; Bentley Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain: The
Origins of the Welfare State (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd., 1966), pp. 42-45; T. S. and
M. B. Simey, CharlesBooth: Social Scientist (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p.
64; Ross Terrill, R. H. Tawney and His Times:Socialismas Fellowship (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 28-36.
7. See David Owen, English Philanthropy, 1660-1960 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1965), pp. 387-91; A. S. Wohl, "Octavia Hill and the Homes of the
London Poor,"Journal of British Studies 10, no. 2 (1971): 105-31.
8. Octavia Hill wrote this in a letter dated July 10, 1876, to Henrietta Barnett, whom
Samuel Barnett had married four years earlier (collection of letters from O. Hill to H.
O. and S. A. Barnett, British Library of Political Science, London).
9. J.Jackson to S. A. Barnett, November 27, 1872, Barnett Papers, Greater London
County Record Office.
10. See Gareth Stedman-Jones, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between
Classes in VictorianSociety(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976), pp. 19-
155.
11. Henry Jephson, The Sanitary Evolution of London (London: T. F. Unwin, 1907),
pp. 278-79.
12. Ibid., p. 279.
13. See Clarence J. Karier, "Liberalism and the Quest for Orderly Change," in
Education in American History: Readings on the Social Issues, ed. M. Katz (New York:
Praeger Publishers, 1973), p. 306; Lazerson, p. 33; Roy Lubove, The Progressivesand the

Slums: TenementHouse Reform in New York City, 1890-1917 (Pittsburgh: University of

Pittsburgh Press, 1962), p. 247; Ravitch, p. 145; Spring, Education, pp. 63-64; Tyack,
pp. 73-75; Paul C. Violas, "Jane Addams and the New Liberalism," in Karier et al., p. 67.
14. Perhaps most striking is Bamett' s virtual indifference to the Jewish immigrants
among whom he lived for over thirty years. Whitechapel already contained a sizable
Jewish community by the time the Bametts arrived there in 1873. During the 1880s,
Jews fleeing the pogroms of eastern Europe began to pour into East London.
Whitechapel remained the center of the Jewish community. The number of Jewish
immigrants in Whitechapel grew from 9,660 in 1881 to 29,188 in 1901, when they
constituted over 37 percent of the total population of the district (Great Britain, Par-
liamentaryPapers, "Report of the Royal Commission on the Aliens Question," 1903,
9:22-23. See William J. Yishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 [London: Gerald
Duckworth 8c Co., 1975]; Lloyd P. Gartner, TheJewish Immigrantin England, 1870-1914
[London: Simon Publications, I960]; John A. Garrard, The English and Immigration,
1880-1910 [London: Oxford University Press, 1971]; V. D. Lipman, Social Historyof the
Jews in England, 1850-1900 [London: Watts 8c Co., 1954]). Although settlement work-
ers in the United States geared their programs to the needs of the immigrant groups in
the cities in which they lived, Barnett did not seek to establish contact with Jewish
immigrants, and he did not encourage them to attend the activities he organized either
at his church or at Toynbee Hall. He appears to have considered the charitable network
within the Jewish community sufficient to meet the needs of these immigrants. He
occasionally criticized the antialien propaganda which began during the late 1880s, but
otherwise he rarely mentioned the Jewish community of Whitechapel in any of his
writings.
15. S. A. Barnett to Francis Gilmore Barnett, July 3, 1886, Barnett Papers.
16. See also Lubove, pp. 66-71.
17. See also P.J. Keating, "Fact and Fiction in the East End," in The VictorianCity:
Images and Realities, ed. H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff (London: Routledge Be Kegan
Paul, 1973), 2:585-602.
18. Notes for sermon delivered at Balliol College, Oxford, November 1877, Barnett
Papers.
19. S. A. and H. O. Barnett, eds., PracticableSocialism, 2d ed. (London: Longmans,
Green 8c Co., 1894), p. 298.
20. The expression "borderline" is Henrietta Barnett's (see her margin notes in S. A.
Barnett, "Diary of Trip around the World," April 14, 1891, Barnett Papers.)
21. S. A. and H. O. Barnett, eds., TowardsSocial Reform (London: T. Fisher Unwin,
1909), p. 65.
22. See Karier, "Liberalism," pp. 305-8; Lazerson (n. 2 above), pp. 30-35; Tyack,
pp. 73-74.
23. See Karier, "Liberalism," pp. 305-6; Lazerson, pp. ix-x, 24-30, 97-131, 242-45;
Lubove, p. 56; Ravitch, p. 233; Violas, pp. 66, 70.
24. H. O. Barnett, Canon Barnett, His Life, Work and Friends, 2 vols. (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1919), 2:93.
25. But see Standish Meacham, A Life Apart: The English WorkingClass, 1890-1914
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 66-70.
26. Barnett, PracticableSocialism, p. 164.
27. For a similar analysis of the thought of educators in Massachusetts during the
mid-nineteenth century see Katz, Irony of Early School Reform, pp. 120-23.
28. Barnett, Canon Barnett, 1:121.
29. Ibid., pp. 116-18.
30. Barnett, TowardsSocial Reform, p. 49.
32. Ibid., p. 128. In fact, prostitution was widespread in Victorian London and
adolescent working-class girls did face real dangers both in their own neighborhoods
and at their places of work. Ironically, however, domestic servants were believed to be
in an especially vulnerable position (see E. M. Sigsworth and T.J. Wyke, "A Study of
Victorian Prostitution and Venereal Disease," in Suffer and Be Still: Womenin the Victo-
rian Age, ed. Martha Vicinus [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972], pp. 80-
81).
33. Katz, Class, Bureaucracyand Schools, pp. 105-25.

34. See Brian Simon, Education and the Labour Movement (London: Lawrence 8c
Wishart, 1965), pp. 10-11, 97-162. When Barnett traveled through the United States in
1891 he criticized "the American system of education which enlarges on 'rights,' 'equal-
"
ity' and 'the chance of every man becoming President,' and he attributed the lack of
deference shown by servants to this aspect of the educational system ("Diary of Trip
around the World," June 7, 1891).
35. Simon, n. 2 above, p. 119.
36. See Ravitch, pp. 112, 114; Spring, Education, pp. 44-61.
37. S. A. Barnett, "Twenty-five Years of East London," ContemporaryReview 74 (Au-
gust 1898):282.
39. Ibid., p. 286; see Richard J. W. Selleck, The New Education, 1870-1914 (London:
Pitman 8c Sons, 1968).
40. Barnett, Canon Barnett, 1:285; also see Katz, Class, Bureaucracyand Schools, pp.
116-19.
41. See Lazerson (n. 2 above), pp. 224-30; Lubove (n. 13 above), p. 74.
43. Ibid., p. 288.
44. See Dom Cavallo, "Social Reform and the Movement to Organize Children's Play
during the Progressive Era," History of ChildhoodQuarterly 3 (1976): 509-22; Marvin
Lazerson, "Urban Reform and the Schools: Kindergartens in Massachusetts, 1870-
1915," in Education in AmericanHistory (n. 13 above), p. 221; Violas (n. 13 above), p. 79;
also see Peter C. Bailey, " 'Rational Recreation' : The Social Control of Leisure and
Popular Culture in Victorian England, 1830-1885" (Ph.D. diss., University of British
Columbia, 1974, p. 177).
46. Ibid., p. 295.
47. Ibid., p. 289.
48. See J. F. C. Harrison, Learning and Living, 1790-1960: A Study in the Historyof the
English Adult Education Movement (London: Routledge 8c Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 235.
49. See Selleck, p. 68.
51. Subsequently Rogers was a leader in the movement for old-age pensions and
chairman of the Labour Representation Committee.
52. Frederick Rogers, Labour, Life and Literature:Some Memoriesof Sixty Years (Lon-
don: Simon, Alder 8c Co., 1931), pp. 79-80.
53. Ibid., p. 81.
54. Ibid., p. 88.
55. Ibid., p. 140.
56. Ibid., p. 82; see Harrison, pp. 227-45.
57. Toynbee Hall, Fifth Annual Report (1889), p. 21, SeventhAnnual Report (1891), p.
23, Eleventh Annual Report (1895), p. 33, ToynbeeHall Record (January 1889), p. 46.
58. Spring, Education, pp. 62-90; see Lubove, pp. 74-80; Ravitch, p. 112.
59. See Bailey; Harrison, pp. 77-88; Richard N. Price, "The Working Men's Club
Movement and Victorian Social Reform Ideology," VictorianStudies 15 (1971): 117-47.
60. See Gareth Stedman-Jones, "Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics
in London, 1870-1900," Journal of Social History 7 (1974): 476-79.
61. See also Spring, Education, p. 65.
64. Ibid., 155.
65. Barnett, Canon Barnett, 1:153, 156.
66. Ibid., p. 157.
67. Ibid., p. 153.
68. See Lubove, p. 71.
69. Children's Country Holidays Fund, Reports (London, 1885-1913); see also
Spring, Education, pp. 63-70.
70. Barnett, Canon Barnett, 1:186; see also Tyack (n. 3 above), pp. 72-75.
71. Toynbee Hall, Second Annual Report (1886), p. 13.
72. S. A. Barnett to F. G. Barnett, May 22, 1886, Barnett Papers.

73. Bamett, Canon Bamett, 1:141. For a discussion of the playground movement in
the United States, see Joel Spring, "Mass Culture and School Sports," History of Educa-
tion Quarterly 14 (1974): 484-91.
74. Bamett, Canon Bamett, 1:141.
75. Ibid.
76. Bamett, PracticableSocialism, p. 178.
77. Ibid., p. 183.
78. Barnett, Canon Bamett, 1:142.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., p. 143.
81. Violas, p. 75.
82. S. A. Barnett to Stephen Barnett, April 15, 1913, Barnett Papers.
83. S. A. Barnett, "University Settlements," reprinted in PracticableSocialism, p. 173.
84. Toynbee Hall, Third Annual Report (1887), p. 15.
85. See Emily K. Abel, "Canon Barnett and the First Thirty Years of Toynbee Hall"
(Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1969).
86. Quoted in Allen F. Davis, AmericanHeroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams
(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 49.
87. S. A. Bamett, "Diary of Trip around the World," June 15, 1891.
88. Ibid., June 22, 1891; see also Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (New
York: New American Library, 1960 [originally published 1910]), p. 257.
89. See Davis, pp. 76-102, and Spearheadsfor Reform: The Social Settlementsand the
ProgressiveMovement,1890-1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 170-
217.
90. Abel, pp. 138-46, 181-99.
92. Barnett, "What Has the Charity Organisation Society to Do with Social Reform?"
reprinted in PracticableSocialism, pp. 207-18.
93. S. A. Barnett to F. G. Barnett, March 1, 1884, Barnett Papers.
94. S. A. Barnett, "A Friendly Criticism of the Charity Organisation Society," re-
printed in CharityOrganisationReview 11 (August 1895): 338-44, quote on 342.
95. S. A. Barnett to F. G. Barnett, March 15, 1902, Barnett Papers.
96. Ibid., March 13, 1904.
97. Ibid., January 20, 1906.
98. Ibid., January 27, 1906.
99. S. A. Barnett to Mrs. F. G. Barnett, January 14, 1912, Barnett Papers.
100. Ibid., May 30, 1912.
101. S. A. Barnett to Stephen Barnett, June 17, 1912, Barnett Papers.
102. See John Brown, "Charles Booth and Labour Colonies, 1889-1905," Economic
History Review 21 (1968): 349-60; E. P. Hennock, "Poverty and Social Theory in En-
gland: The Experience of the Eighteen-Eighties," Social History 1, no. 1 (1976): 67-91;
Stedman-Jones, OutcastLondon, p. 285.
103. Stedman-Jones, OutcastLondon, pp. 301-14.
104. See Davis, American Heroine, pp. 72, 128, and Spearheads, pp. 40-50; Helen
Horowitz, "Varieties of Cultural Experiences in Jane Addams' Chicago," History of
Education Quarterly 14 (1974): 69-83.
106. Ibid., p. 345.
107. S. A. Barnett, "Labour and Culture" (1906), reprinted in TowardsSocial Reform,
p. 216.
108. Ibid., p. 218.
109. See Jose Harris, William Beveridge, a Biography (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1977), pp. 76-81.
111. Katz, Class, Bureaucracyand Schools, p. 109.
112. S. A. Barnett, Perils of Wealth and Poverty (London: George Allen 8c Unwin,
1920), p. 79.


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Middle-Class Culture for the

Urban Poor: The

This paper is a study of the educational thought and action of Samuel

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to the history of education in England.4 At the same time, American

Born in 1844, the son of an iron manufacturer, Barnett entered

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social ideas. Viewing poverty as the direct result of individual failing,

Early Views of the Poor

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Remedies for Poverty

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of society were restored to leadership, they would contribute the

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ments" to university-educated men, who, having acquired the requi-

Belief in the Power of Education

But it was the third method of regulating behavior in which Barnett

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would exercise self-discipline and self-restraint. These traits were par-

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an urban-industrial society, and he sought both to humanize educa-

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Although severely critical of the education provided in the board

The Uses of Adult Education

Barnett also viewed adult education as a means of extending the

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subjects that were part of a liberal education.48 Using a phrase of F. D.

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during subsequent years.57 Like other groups which have sought to

The Benefits of Wholesome Recreation, the Peace-

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ment could teach "manners" and "self-respect."62 Henrietta Barnett

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for the establishment of parks and playgrounds in East London.73

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In Toynbee Hall, the pioneer settlement house, Barnett in-

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ered by Bamett to be equipped to bring the poor "into casual inter-

found it necessary to modify the function of their institutions after

she criticized the members' indifference to broad social issues and

Continuity of Social Thought

Nevertheless, it is important to recognize the limits to the change of

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Barnett's social thought. Although he came to acknowledge that per-

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Slums: TenementHouse Reform in New York City, 1890-1917 (Pittsburgh: University of

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