Religion and Elementary Education

This chapter responds to two questions that authors and journalists asked about the place of religion in education. Firstly, it is necessary to ask, what was the significance of the relationship between religion, specifically Anglicanism, Methodism and Roman Catholicism, and the extension of elementary education? Secondly, how did religion further, inhibit or redefine ideas about ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ early education from the mid-to-late nineteenth century? Our understanding of the complex and nuanced issues associated with these questions can be extended by comparing and contrasting opinions that were publicly expressed in religious periodicals. The nineteenth century witnessed the formation of a denominational periodical culture with reading audiences for specific publications which reflected a spectrum of religious opinions on elementary education. Ideas, ideals and beliefs in religious periodicals were very much part of the ‘fuel’ that powered debates about elementary education in nineteenth-century England. Periodicals and fictional works communicated diverse, sectarian opinions on the relationship between society, religion, science and the future of elementary education. Denominational periodicals provide compelling evidence of the struggle between different religions for control of the direction and purpose of elementary education.